Class placement of elementary school emerging bilingual students

Bilingual Research Journal, Spring 1998 by Tellez, Kip

Notes

The author wishes to thank Larry Toenjes, Gary Dworkin, and Ayman Sheikh-Hussien for help in preparing the data for this study.

1. Many second language-learning educators are concerned with the connotations of the term LEP. As a mass term referring to all children for whom English is not the native language, it places a compensatory focus on their education and loses sight of the fact that all children (excepting those with deep organic learning disabilities) learn

a first lan,gua,ge in its oral form, Consequently, ]prefer the term Emerging Bilingual (EB), a term which better describes the educational goals for such children.

2. The school districts included in this study are given wide latitude in choosing tests to determine those students who are considered "LER" However, most of the schools included in this study used a combination of the Language Assessment Scale as a measure of oral proficiency and the Aprenda as a measure of Spanish literacy. The final decision to remove a student from a bilingual or ESL class is determined by a committee of language teachers and administrators at each school.

3. The elimination of such students from the data is not meant to imply that such students should not be included in studies of effective language-learning programs. On the contrary, mobile students must be included in future studies. However, this study sought to see how well schools were doing with those students who remain on their campus. In addition, obtaining data for those students who move often would require a database consisting of all students in the state of Texas, the nation and likely other countries (EB students' U.S. schooling may be interrupted by trips to Mexico). Needless to say, such data are unavailable.

4. Parents of Spanish-speaking children who "denied" their children a placement in bilingual education but who agreed to placement in ESL were included in the parent denial category.

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