Newcomer Students: New Culture, New Language, New Life.
By Meg Owens
Imagine – you are four years old and have spent your life thus far growing up in Eldoret, Kenya hopping between orphanages and foster parents. You may be young but you have grown accustomed to the culture – eating plenty of chapatti and rice, speaking Swahili, moving from place to place, people to people.
And then one day your life is picked up and moved to America.
Everything is different – the surroundings, the food, the people, the language. You simply have to learn, adjust, and assimilate. And on top of all of this change, you are also thrown into the school system less than a year after your arrival.
Most people can’t even imagine the feelings that this situation would bring about, but you are probably at least thinking whoa.
This situation was the reality for my younger brother Bruce, whom my family adopted about eight years ago. His entire life was uprooted and rerouted when he immigrated to America, and there are thousands of children that go through similar processes each year for a variety of different reasons.
All newcomers face different problems as they adjust to their new lives, but there is one difficulty that almost all of them have in common – school.
Most elementary schools in our country simply are not equipped for the needs of newcomer students, particularly ESL (English Language Learners), who require a lot of special attention and extra help from teachers, counselors, and tutors. No matter what grade the child is entering when they arrive here, they are bound to be behind and struggle in the classroom. My brother for example started kindergarten about a year after his arrival, which is actually quite lucky that he had at least that time to adjust because most newcomers that have already begun school in their previous country are thrown back into school almost immediately. And although Bruce had this time, the adjustment was still incredibly hard for him.
There are endless reasons why young people relocate from their home country to the United States – war, poverty, opportunity, and education are just a few. Over 180 different languages are spoken in classrooms across America. One of the biggest hurdles for immigrant children is learning English, which may be a second, third, or even fourth language for them. There are more than 3 million students in US schools that are in ESL, English as a second language, programs. And the amount of these students is growing more than double the rate of native English-speaking students (Shore 2014). While ethnic diversity among the student population in the United States continues to increase each year, diversity among teachers has been steadily decreasing. Yet the teacher’s role in helping these children become literate and succeed in school is absolutely crucial. Therefore, teachers should be more dedicated than ever when it comes to understanding the unique educational characteristics of English-language learners and how they can be best suited in the classroom (Franquiz 1998).
So calling all teachers in America – this article is directed towards you! And if you are not a teacher but have made it this far and the topic interests you, I encourage you to please read on. The more people aware of this topic the better, so sit back and soak it all in, then please spread the word.
There are many different routes that schools, or individual teachers, can take when it comes to handling English-language learners in the classroom. Transitional bilingual education, dual-language immersion, English as a second language, and English-only instruction are the main methods used. After witnessing my brother’s transition when he was thrown into an English-only program, I can tell you now that I deeply wish that he had the opportunity to go through a bilingual program instead because the statistics do not lie: it is more beneficial for the student’s learning.
“The child who spends school days in a fog of semi-comprehension has no way to know her problem is not that she is slow-witted.” – Sonia Sotomayor, My Beloved World
For immigrant children, bilingual education helps them to adapt better and quicker to not only the curriculum but also the culture. It has been proven to help children’s cognitive ability, social and emotional development, educational advancement, and overall health (The Editors 2014). Immigrant students that are thrown into an English-only classroom are often so unprepared that it can often stunt their cognitive growth and ability. Bilingual education involves certain brain activity and flexibility that helps with mathematics, problem solving, memory, and logic. Bilingual education also helps students develop better literacy skills, a more creative mindset, and allows them to gain increased cultural awareness (Garcia 2014).
It generally takes English language learners three to five years to be able to communicate in proficient English in social and formal situations, and five to seven years for their academic language to be fully developed. Researchers have found that the reason it may take much longer for students to develop academic language proficiency is because it takes them much longer to understand the curriculum when the instruction is only in English, especially compared to their native English-speaking peers. This is also a problem when it comes to Common Core standards, where all students are judged uniformly. As for social and emotional development, studies show that students have a much more positive self-image when they live in communities where there heritage and language are valued. When children are pressured to become fluent in English they often wish to drop their native language, which can lead to a loss of cultural identity (Garcia 2014).
“Many teachers fail to recognize the fundamental role of language and culture in the development of literacy.”
The above quote is from Maria Franquiz & Maria De La Luz Reyes’ Creating Inclusive Learning Communities Through English Language Arts: From Chanclas to Canicas. In this journal they discuss the burning question of how teachers can effectively provide literacy instruction for students whose first language is one that they themselves do not speak. Many teachers resort to strict English-only instruction simply because they are not bilingual. However, a student’s success in the classroom does not depend on the teacher’s ability to speak the student’s language. In fact, the teacher may only know a few words, but they can still recognize the value it has to the student, allow them to use it in the classroom, and respect and support the role it has in not only the child’s learning but also their self-esteem.
There are many ways that a teacher can incorporate immigrant students’ language and cultural knowledge in the classroom. By incorporating cultural activities and other acts of inclusion, promoting a community in which all languages and cultures are valued, and incorporating flexible language boundaries, the teacher is already creating a rich environment for literacy learning (Franquiz 1998).
Literacy is one’s ability to read, write, listen, speak, and think. For immigrant children, it is best to learn English alongside learning academic content. Their academic and literacy development should be integrated in the classroom, as well as their different languages. Many people believe that it is easier for children to learn English if they stop using their native language all together. But how does that make any sense? Everything that they have learned thus far has been in their first language, so why would they be encouraged to drop all of the skills and strategies that they have already acquired? The majority of a child’s knowledge regarding speaking, listening, reading, and writing that they learned in their first language can be transferred to English. These strategies and skills include developing reading skills, comprehension of text structure, self-confidence as a reader, prediction skills, knowledge of the different purposes for literacy, and comprehension strategies. Teachers must learn to give these children more credit for what they already know, and figure out ways that they can apply their previous knowledge and experiences in the classroom (Watts-Taffe 2000).
Children are able to learn a language much easier when they are encouraged to use it in meaningful ways, experiment, take risks, and also make mistakes.
There are many ways in which teachers can encourage their newcomer students to do all of these things, but here are a few suggestions to consider incorporating:
· Writing activities – for ESL learners whose speaking skills may still be limited, writing is often a safe haven and excellent way for them to express their feelings as they transition. Writing in their first language as well as English helps students not only develop academic strategies but also a sense of identity (Shagoury-Hubbard 2003).
· Peer discussion groups – any opportunity for ESL learners to view other children as the models of an activity as well as participate along with them is very helpful. Literature circles and book clubs are some examples of how to incorporate peer discussion.
· Background knowledge – consider activities that allow immigrant students to share knowledge from their previous experiences in order to help them construct meaning in English.
· Vocabulary development – consistently learning new words to add to their English vocabulary is crucial for ESL learners to not only interact with text, but also express their thoughts and strengthen their memory.
· Communication – immigrant students should never feel isolated from the rest of the class; it is important for teachers to incorporate activities that involve everyone cooperating together, learning from each other, and forming a community. Group discussions are an excellent way to form this sort of atmosphere; having the students sit in a circle and call each other by their names as they participate make them even more effective (Watts-Taffe 2000).
All of these strategies are extremely beneficial for ESL leaners when incorporated into the curriculum, and they can be done whether the teacher is bilingual or not. Multilingual classrooms allow immigrant students to have the same opportunities as their native English-speaking peers for cognitive and linguistic growth. Teachers should focus not only on ESL learners’ unique educational characteristics, but also the characteristics that all of the students in the class share. This helps to build a classroom community, and supports immigrant students not only academically but also socially (Watts-Taffe 2000).
Although Bruce’s school has done so much to help him over the years, the English-only instruction made the support somewhat limited. To this day he is still not on the same academic level as others in his class; he still struggles quite a bit with vocabulary, grammar, reading, and writing, and he has been in the United States for almost eight years. I strongly believe that if he had gone through a bilingual education program, his academic achievement as well as English language ability would both be much higher.
I believe that each individual student should be supplied with the education that best suits their needs and abilities, and that should always and forever be the most important thing about schooling, something that I think many people often forget.
References
Shore, Kenneth. “Success for ESL Students.” Scholastic Teachers. Scholastics Inc., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2014. http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/success-esl-students
The Editors. “The Best Ways to Teach Young Newcomers.” The New York Times. N.p., 11 Mar. 2009. Web. 24 Feb. 2014.
Franquiz, M., & De La Luz Reyes, M. (1998). Creating Inclusive Learning Communities Through English Language Arts: From Chanclas to Canicas. Language Arts, 75(3), 211–220.
Watts-Taffe, S., & Truscott, D. (2000). Using What We Know About Language and Literacy Development for ESL Students in the Mainstream Classrooms. Language Arts, 77(3), 258–265.
Shagoury-Hubbard, R., & Shorey, V. (2003). Worlds Beneath the Words: Writing Workshop With Second Language Learners. Language Arts, 81(1), 52–61.
Garcia, Ofelia, and Lesley Bartlett. A Speech Community Model of Bilingual Education: Educating Latino Newcomers in the USA 10.1 (2007): 1–25. ERIC. Web. 24 Feb. 2014.
