English Learners

By eliminating the separation, you eliminate the limiting language of “going to special ed.” If an inclusive classroom model is not implemented, leaders can still help change the perception of and language about special education by including special education teachers in professional learning activities like peer walkthroughs, collaborative teams, and teacher-led professional development sessions. These steps may seem simplistic, but general education teachers are often so busy with the students assigned to them, their instruction, and their grade-level or department team that they do not have a deep knowledge of what is happening outside of their classroom or team. As a principal, I included special education teachers in annual peer observations and every year at least one general education teacher commented that he or she had no idea the level of support and quality of instruction that our students with disabilities were receiving.

There are over seven thousand languages and dialects spoken in the world (Eberhard, Simons, & Fennig, 2022). If a student arrives at school primarily speaking a language that does not match the predominant language of the school, he or she will have the challenging task of learning the dominant language simultaneously with the academic curriculum. In North America, this is not a small group of students. In the United States alone there are five million students who do not speak English as a first language (NCES, 2021). In Canada, where English and French are both official languages, over 2.2 million students are first-generation immigrants, and most do not speak either of the majority languages (Volante, Lara, Klinger, & Siegel, 2020). In the United States and Canada, there continues to be a significant gap in achievement between those acquiring English and those who are native speakers (Abedi, n.d.; Volante et al., 2020). It is in response to this gap that educators tend to use language that limits these students.

Limiting Language

“We need to make assignments easier for the ELs.”

Diane Kerr (2021), nationally recognized principal, author, and consultant, notes that educators use many terms to refer to nonnative-English-speaking students and those names are not necessarily positive:

English as a second language (ESL) students, English language learners (ELLs), limited English proficient (LEP) students, students with interrupted formal education (SIFE), and language minority students (LMS) are all terms educators use to describe subcategories of students. . . . I recommend that educators refrain from labeling students with these acronyms as they often carry with them a negative connotation. (p. 82)

While these terms merely intend to describe students who do not speak English as a native language, as Kerr points out, they have become limiting language. They have gone from descriptions that give teachers more information about a student to limiting language that defines the student.

In a study of attitudes toward English learners, researcher Kerry Carly Rizzuto (2017) finds that even though educators “were eager to draw on their students’ cultural backgrounds and languages, most were ill-equipped or unwilling to differentiate their instruction for ELL students” (Rizzuto, 2017). Even when teachers try in good faith to differentiate for English learners, in many cases, “the word differentiation has unfortunately become synonymous with watered down curriculum—or so much sheltering that teachers do all the work” (Calderón et al., 2016, p. 4). Students who are learning English have been limited by ineffective program structures and ineffective practices (Calderón et al., 2016). For example, formative assessment expert Dylan Wiliam (2007) writes:

It is well known that teachers do not allow students much time to answer questions and, if they don’t receive a response quickly, they will “help” the student by providing another clue or weakening the question in some way, or even moving on to another student.

Students who are learning English may need a moment to process or translate the question and answer; that pause may prompt the teacher to assume the student needs help or doesn’t know. The teacher just wants the student to feel comfortable, but the result is lower expectations and the student feeling singled out. These lowered expectations communicate to students that they are unable to do the work.

I once consulted in a high-performing school with a very low number of students who did not speak English at home. During one of my classroom observations, a particular teacher was leading class discussion, asking complex, prepared questions of students. She would then ask other students to restate or respond to the original answer. However, when it came to the one student who was a nonnative English speaker, the teacher would ask simple recall questions. Across the forty-five minutes I observed this teacher, she did this several times. Following the class, the principal and I debriefed with the teacher. I complimented her on most of the discourse happening in her class but asked why she only asked simplistic questions of the nonnative speaker. Her response was that she did not want him to feel bad if he took a long time to answer the questions that require higher levels of thinking. The teacher went on to say that, in the past, the student had displayed good thinking, but it just took him longer than his peers. This is a good example of a teacher whose heart is in the right place, but who focuses on

the student’s deficits, not his strengths. Her well-intentioned efforts to help him are actually hurting him because he does not receive the same opportunities or expectations as his native-speaking peers.

Researchers Jenna Min Shim and Anna Mikhaylovna Shur (2017) compare teachers’ perspectives on ELs with the perspectives of ELs themselves. Both the students and their teachers feel ELs are not successful in school, but the causes each group identifies conflict. The students blame their lack of academic success on an easy and unengaging curriculum. For example, one student was assigned to write down a list of words ten times every day. Another student commented that his class was covering material he had learned “a long time ago in Mexico” (Shim & Shur, 2017, p. 26). Teachers, on the other hand, attribute the students’ low achievement to their use of a language other than English at home and a perception that ELs’ parents do not value education (Shim & Shur, 2017).

How can the identification as an English learner be anything more than limiting when teachers, although theoretically willing to support these students, are often undertrained, unintentionally lower their academic expectations, and look outside the schoolhouse for reasons why students are not successful? Similar to qualification for an IEP, it is not the identification itself that limits the expectations for academic success. The label attached to the student then becomes the student’s identity. Educators’ brains group the student with other students who have been similarly labeled and produce generalized predictions. Just like that, academic expectations for the student have been completely redefined.

Language of Possibility

“Our ELs are halfway to being bilingual.”

Author and consultant Luis Cruz (2018) coined the positive phrase “halfway to bilingual” to battle the limiting nature of labels for students who are learning English while they attend school. Students are not less intelligent because English is not their native language, and in fact bilingualism is a benefit. Being bilingual is a tremendous asset for employment; jobs requiring bilingual employees more than doubled from 2010 to 2015 and the demand for workers who can speak more than one language has only gone up from there. Among remote employment opportunities, bilingual postings increased 30 percent from February 2020 to March 2021 (Reese, 2021). Bilingual employees often earn more than those who can only read and write one language (Colón, 2019).

Teachers need to adjust their mindsets about halfway-to-bilingual students, and one way to help with this is intentional training in techniques that support these students, such as Total Physical Response (TPR), a system of teaching