Julie Elmore's List: RESA

Using assessment results for 5th and 8th grade English language learner students in three Northeast and Island Region states, the report finds that the English language domains of reading and writing (as measured by a proficiency assessment) are significant predictors of performance on reading, writing, and mathematics assessments and that the domains of reading and writing (literacy skills) are more closely associated with performance than are the English language domains of speaking and listening (oral skills).

This issue takes as its theme the topic of English language learners with disabilities. We are pleased to bring you a number of articles highlighting promising practices from around the nation for this group of students. Although the authors of these articles are able to shine a light on successful strategies for ELLs with disabilities, as always, we caution our readers to remember that strategies which work with one group of students may not work with all groups. English language learners are a diverse group of students, and all educators should attend to the complexities of difference in the cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds of their students.\n\n \n\nIn this Issue: Spring 2009 - Volume 1: Issue 3\n\nMargo Gottlieb, Ph.D. & Cristina Sanchez-Lopez, M.S. on Promising Assessment Practices for English Language Learners with Suspected Disabilities \nConnie Heath Thibeault on The Dual Language Assessment: First Language Insights into Second Language Acquisition \nJana Echevarria, Ph.D. on The Role of Professional Development in Helping English Learners with Disabilities Achieve High Standards \nKristin Liu, Manuel Barrera, Ph.D., & Martha Thurlow, Ph.D. on Mathematics Think Aloud: Research Findings on a Field-Identified Teaching Strategy for ELLs with Disabilities \nBobbi Ciriza Houtchens on Research Review: New Study Addresses Impact of the English Only Movement in Boston Public Schools \nElizabeth Watkins on Bridging Systems to Address Under-Representation of English Language Learners (ELLs) in Special Ed\n

The U. S. Department of Education has supported work on six technical assistance projects to help States improve assessments for limited English proficient (LEP) students. These projects were recommended by States at the LEP Partnership meeting in Washington D.C. in October 2006:\n\n * A Handbook of Best Practices in Test Accommodations and State Assessment Policies for English Language Learners (ELLs)\n\nPractical Guidelines for the Education of English Language Learners\n\n *\n\n Research-Based Recommendations for the Use of Accommodations in Large-Scale Assessments (2006) PDF\n *\n\n Research-Based Recommendations for Instruction and Academic Interventions (2006) PDF\n *\n\n Research-Based Recommendations for Newcomer Adolescents (2006) PDF\n *\n\n Effective Literacy and English Language Instruction for English Learners in the Elementary Grades\n

bilingual tip sheets for parents; 11 languageas available including Hmong

"This article presents a round-up of intervention initiatives aimed at struggling adolescent readers. It provides a snapshot of program characteristics and research findings for Reciprocal Teaching, Apprenticeship in Reading, Read 180, Language!, SRA Corrective Reading, and Strategic Instruction Model (SIM)."

Picturing Plot \nHelp your ESL students improve their mathematics problem solving by visualizing math concepts. In this free ReadWriteThink lesson, students draw a series of pictures that depict adding or taking away objects. Then they write a story to go with the pictures they've drawn. And finally they write equations that symbolize the adding and subtracting written into the stories.

Illuminating Terminology \nDevelop your English learners' understanding of math concepts with the Mathematics Glossary on this site. Grade-appropriate information illustrates each glossary term. Most of the terms in the early grades have real-world examples, and many of the terms at all grades have applets and/or animations to support student learning.

All about math instruction for ELLs. Great video clips, articles, presentations. Lesson resources.

This month our favorite site is the "Migration Information Source", and we're focusing on just one quite useful page entitled: "Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States". \n\nChock full of information, here are just two lists of questions the page asks and answers, directed specifically to those of us whose careers involve knowing our communities, how they are changing, and how to prepare for those changes. \n\nDemographic, Educational, and Linguistic Characteristics \n\nWhat share of all immigrants residing in the United States are women? \nHow many immigrants have come to the United States since 2000? \nHow many immigrants are naturalized US citizens? \nWhat is the racial composition of immigrants? \nHow many immigrants are of Hispanic origin? \nHow many Hispanics are immigrants? \nWhat percentage of the foreign born are limited English proficient (LEP)? \nWhich languages does the US population speak? \nWhat percentage of the adult foreign-born population is college educated? \n\nChildren with Immigrant Parents \n\nHow many children in the United States have immigrant parents? \nHow has the number of children with immigrant parents changed? \nWhat are the top five states in terms of the number of children with immigrant parents? \nWhat are the top five states when looking at the share of children with immigrant parents in the state's total child population? \nWhat are the top five states in terms of the absolute growth of the number of children with immigrant parents? \nWhat are the top five states in terms of the percent growth of the number of children with immigrant parents between 1990 and 2000 and between 2000 and 2008? \n"MigrationInformation.org" is one of those sites you want to go back to again and again. With current stats and interesting immigration, language and cultural articles, often written from the ethnic community's point of view, we at "In Other Words" think this will become one of your favorites as well. \n

Newcomer Programs in Secondary Schools in the U.S. (2008-09)\n\nThe Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) has published online a searchable database of newcomer programs in secondary schools in the U.S. The database includes profiles for more than 60 programs that participated in the research study, "Exemplary Programs for Newcomer English Language Learners at the Secondary Level" for the 2008-09 school year. The database includes middle and high school programs that serve students in 23 states. This study was part of a program of research conducted by CAL for the Carnegie Corporation of New York.\n\nYou can access the database from the following url: http://www.cal.org/CALWebDB/Newcomer.\n\nSearch categories include state, school level, program type, program length, and more. The profiles of the newcomer programs provide information on student demographics, program design, instruction and assessment, student transitions, staffing, family connections, and social networks.

In BaFa' BaFa' participants come to understand the powerful effects that culture plays in every person's life. It may be used to help participants prepare for living and working in another culture or to learn how to work with people from other departments, disciplines, genders, races, and ages.

The following conclusions rest on the current research and practice.\n\n1. All young children are capable of learning two languages. Becoming bilingual has long-term cognitive, academic, social, cultural, and economic benefits. Bilingualism is an asset.\n\n2. Young ELL students require systematic support for the continued development of their home language.\n\n3. Loss of the home language has potential negative long-term consequences for the ELL child's academic, social, and emotional development, as well as for the family dynamics.\n\n4. Teachers and programs can adopt effective strategies to support home language development even when the teachers are monolingual English speakers.\n\n5. Dual language programs are an effective approach to improving academic achievement for ELL children while also providing benefits to native English speakers.\n\n6. Hispanic Spanish-speaking children enter Kindergarten with many social strengths that are the result of positive parenting practices that need to be acknowledged and enhanced.\n\n7. Hispanic parents value high-quality early education and will enroll their young children if programs are affordable and accessible.\n\nFinally, recognizing the period from ages three to eight as critical for language development is necessary for providing the continuity and extended time for children to fully benefit from these programs. The PK-3 years are critical years for developing mastery of the sounds, structure, and functions of language, and thus are an ideal time to expose children to the benefits of two languages .7, 22, 25 With regular and continued application of these findings, we can improve the educational outcomes for ELL children as well as the social and economic strength of our diverse communities. However, doing so will require that we all abandon outdated misconceptions and diligently inform our practices with current scientific findings.

"The Center for Applied Linguistics Collection contains 118 hours of recordings documenting North American English dialects. The recordings include speech samples, linguistic interviews, oral histories, conversations, and excerpts from public speeches. They were drawn from various archives, and from the private collections of fifty collectors, including linguists, dialectologists, and folklorists. They were submitted to the Center for Applied Linguistics as part of a project entitled "A Survey and Collection of American English Dialect Recordings," which was funded by the Center for Applied Linguistics and the National Endowment for the Humanities.\n\nThe survey's documentation covers social aspects of English language usage in different regions of the United States. It reveals distinctions in speech related to gender, race, social class, education, age, literacy, ethnic background, and occupational group (including the specialized jargon or vocabulary of various occupations). The oral history interviews are a rich resource on many topics, such as storytelling and family histories; descriptions of holiday celebrations, traditional farming, schools, education, health care, and the uses of traditional medicines; and discussions of race relations, politics, and natural disasters such as floods.\n\nThe collection includes recordings from forty-three states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and parts of Canada. They were made from 1941 to 1984, with the bulk being recorded between 1968 and 1982. In some cases, transcriptions made by the collectors are available as part of this web presentation. "