What Does Research Say about Effective Practices for ENGLISH LEARNERS?

Kappa Delta Pi Record, Fall 2009 by Coleman, Rhoda, Goldenberg, Claude

Introduction and Part I: Oral Language Proficiency

Establishing oral communication and developing levels of oral language proficiency are critical to ELL students' learning and achievement.

English Language Learners (ELLs) - students whose second language is English and who are not fully proficient in English - constitute the fastest growing portion of the K-1 2 student population (Goldenberg 2008). By 2025, according to U.S. government estimates, as many as one in four students in the United States will come from a home where a language other than English is spoken (Spellings 2005). Because many of these students tend to do poorly in school, teachers are encouraged to regularly use research-based practices to improve these students' academic achievement. Yet knowing which practices actually are research-based - that is, they are supported by research demonstrating impact on student outcomes - is not clear to many educators.

In this series of four articles, the authors will demystify what is and is not "research-based" as determined by two recent reports - Developing Literacy in SecondLanguage Learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth (August and Shanahan 2006); and Educating English Language Learners (Genesee et al. 2006) - and select publications that have appeared since.

Uncertainty about Best Practices

To gain a sense of how school districts make instructional decisions for English Language Learners in an era of highstakes testing and district-wide reform, the first author collected observational and interview data (Coleman 2006). Three large urban districts - each of which had selected very different English Language Development (ELD) programs and approaches - participated in her study.

When interviewed about how they decided which approach or materials to use when teaching ELL�, teachers and administrators in the three districts expressed consistent frustrations. Although many were told they should use research-based practices, they often were not given adequate guidance for how to do so. One administrator shared (Coleman 2006, ? 9):

There are only theories about what works. Until the research gives us some definitive answers, we're just guessing. I went to the accountability institute from the Department of Education and they don't have the plan. There's no plan, no prototype, a lot of problems discussed and a lot of expectations, and it's been that way for 20 years. We need a plan! They tell us to do it, but they don't tell us how. They don't know how, and they have nothing to give us. We need to find out what works and have some consistency - a well-trained teacher, a good program, and consistency.

Some educators are not well-informed about the state of current knowledge about educating ELL�. They may assume that determining effective practices is a matter of picking a philosophy, choosing among competing theories, or perhaps simply guessing. Consider one teacher's comments (Coleman 2006, 1 24):

We believed in the philosophy of teaching English through content. Our school's program had a good reputation. I had heard a lot of schools were using it. You hear about the program all the time - not about data or research, but about using it. I'm sure the research was included. But its reputation, not outcome data, influenced us. We agreed with the philosophy because it fits in with the SDAIE strategies and BlCS and CALP. In my master's class, we thoroughly reviewed ELD programs, and it came out on top. Everyone agreed.

Overwhelmed with mandates, others interviewed are doing the best they can with the information and time they have. One ELD teacher shared (Coleman 2006, 127):

There's so much to teach, so many student needs. My colleague is here practically every day until it's dark, and I applaud her. She puts in long, long hours. I have a family I have to go home and cook for. So I have to choose what's the best, what's the quickest, what's going to make the best impact, and I have tons of things to choose from. I've got GLAD and SDAIE. I've been through all the ELD workshops; and so I take what I learned and I apply it. My plate's pretty full right now.

Undoubtedly this is a confusing, difficult, and ideologically charged area. But current and ongoing research is suggesting some answers that go beyond philosophy, theory, and guessing. Educators must know about this research and its implications for what they should do in their classrooms. At the same time, they also must know about areas where research does not yet provide clear answers and where educators must make informed "best guesses" until a firmer basis exists to guide practice and policy.

About the ELL Series

This four-part series of articles written exclusively for the Kappa Delta Pi Record summarizes what research says about effective practices for ELLs - and what it does not say. The authors focus on several recent reviews of the research (August and Shanahan 2006; Genesee et al. 2006; Goldenberg 2008; Saunders and Goldenberg, in press), providing the key findings and explaining how those conclusions might inform classroom practice. Readers are encouraged to seek out these references to deepen and broaden their understanding of this challenging, but increasingly important area of research.