Do you have any students who are Long-Term English Learners? They are students who have been in school in the U.S. for at least 6 years but are still designated as English Language Learners (or whatever term your district or state uses now for students who receive ESL services) because they have not yet met the criteria to be classified as proficient in English.
Often, these students were placed in an ESL program in elementary school but they did not make a lot of progress after a few years to exit the program so they continue to get support in middle school. Of, if they’re in high school, they may have emigrated to the U.S. when they were in upper elementary or middle school but are still receiving ESL support because they haven’t been able to exit their ESL program in the typical timeframe.
Long-Term English Learners (also called LTELs, which is the term I’ll use from now on) present their own challenges to teachers. I once had a student, a boy whose parents were Cambodian, who started in my ESL program and stayed in it through 6th grade. I wish I’d had the information back then that I’m going to share with you here so I could’ve addressed his needs more effectively.
Why It Takes Some Students Longer to Become Proficient in English
1) Lack of academic language – LTELs, because they’ve been in the U.S. for several years, can present as fluent because they sound like native English speakers when talking and they understand everyday conversations. But their ability to do academic schoolwork, especially reading and writing assignments, is still basic. They do less well on tests and their vocabulary knowledge is more limited than their peers.
2) Although they have been in U.S. schools for several years and have been using English to communicate during that time, and generally don’t have difficulty making themselves understood by other people, any grammar errors they may make at this point have probably become fossilized. In other words, if LTELs use a grammatical structure incorrectly, it’s more likely not to be because they don’t know what to do but, rather, because they’ve internalized the way they’re using it. For example, if an LTEL keeps saying “She like math” instead of “She likes math,” it’s probably because the student didn’t learn the 3rd-person subject-verb agreement structure well when it was taught to them.
3) LTELs may not have received the right kind(s) of support that would have benefitted them. This is especially true if they have moved around a lot and have been in several different schools. What’s taught in one school or district for a particular grade could be very different somewhere else for that same grade. So the LTEL may have gaps in their English Language Development instruction through no fault of their own.
4) If a Multilingual Learner of English does not have a strong foundation in their first language, learning an additional language will be more difficult. In particular, if an LTEL didn’t learn to read in their native language, or doesn’t read it well, learning to read in English is much harder. Literacy skills will transfer from their native language to English but if they don’t have that native language knowledge to start with, they are developing their English literacy without those skills to fall back on as support.
5) When students have been in an ESL program or have been getting ESL support in some way for many years, and they see other students exit the program while they remain, that can impact their motivation. It’s true that some students want to stay in their ESL program – it’s a safe space and they’re comfortable there – but other students can get discouraged and lose their enthusiasm for school if they feel they’re not making any progress. That can turn into a negative cycle and impact their ability to make progress in becoming proficient in English.
Supporting Long-Term English Learners
Now that I’ve presented some of the issues, you’re probably asking: So what can I do to help my LTELs? Below are some strategies you can use with your LTELs.
1) Explicitly teach academic language – Teach these (and other) students the vocabulary and grammar needed to comprehend math, science, social studies, and other subjects. Using word walls and vocabulary journals are 2 ways to do this. LTELs may need more practice or time with this so they can catch up to their classmates.
2) Include English Language Development when teaching content subjects. Teach students the kinds of reading, writing, and speaking forms that are commonly found in the subjects you teach. Using sentence starters and sentence frames, graphic organizers, scaffolding texts, and writing in small groups are ways you can do this. In other words, provide frameworks that clearly show your LTELs the structures of English these subjects use so your students can use them as guides when doing their work.
3) Make lessons more meaningful by including references to the cultures and backgrounds of your students. You can do this very simply by using culturally appropriate names for people if you’re creating your own materials; for example, in math word problems. You can get more detailed if, for example, you want to teach inferring or determining the main idea in a text by writing a passage that describes about how a family celebrates a particular holiday that’s observed in a country that an LTEL comes from. Acknowledging LTELs’ cultures and backgrounds make lessons more meaningful and that can help keep students motivated and interested in learning.
4) Educate other teachers of your LTELs – make them aware of the issues involved in teaching these students. Help them understand that LTELs are not less smart than other Multilingual Learners or that they must have a learning disability and that’s why they are still getting ESL support. Maybe they do have a learning disability and maybe they don’t have the highest IQ around but there are other reasons for their lack of progress that should be explored first. Also, help other teachers to realize that LTELs are not still in an ESL program because they are lazy or just haven’t done their work; that might be the effect but it’s not necessarily the cause for why they’re still getting ESL support.
Helpful Resources for Teaching Long-Term English Learners
Here are 2 resources that can help if you teach students who are LTELs:
1) Academic Vocabulary Words – This resource includes 97 vocab words for Math, Science, Social Studies, and ELA that teachers of those subjects whom I consulted thought were crucial for middle school ESL students to know. You can use them on a word wall and/or print them out for students to use as flashcards. They come in different sizes and are organized by both subject and by grade level so you can choose which format works best for your teaching situation.
2) Meeting the Unique Needs of Long Term English Language Learners – This 42-page document from the NEA (National Education Association) has more detailed info about working with LTELs. It includes these sections: who LTELs are, why some students become LTELs, what happens when LTELs start secondary school, what works when teaching LTELs (this is the longest section), and advocating for LTELs. The document is from 2014 but the info in it is still relevant and useful today.
For more information about teaching Multilingual Learners of English, check out this blog post about teaching culturally diverse students.
