Effective Instructional Practices for Language Minority Students

Critical Issues:

The linguistic and cultural diversity among students in American schools is great. Today, one out of three children is from an ethnic or racial minority group, one out of seven speaks a language other than English at home, and one out of fifteen was born outside the United States.

Educating children of racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse backgrounds is a major challenge for school systems across the country. For too many of these students, American education has not been a successful experience. The reasons for their poor performance is complex, but they stem in part from a misalignment between educational practices and the students' needs. An important goal in educational reform is to determine what sorts of practices are most promising and successful in improving the education and performance of these students.

Promising Practices:

Some common attributes of effective school and classroom practices were identified in the National Research Council report titled Educating Language Minority Children, edited by Kenji Hakuta and Diane August. Below is a summary.

• supportive school-wide climate: Schools that were considered exemplary in several studies, emphasized three aspects:
  1. they valued the contributions of the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of English-language learners;
  2. they had high expectations for their academic achievement; and
  3. students were integrated in the overall school operation.

• school leadership: At least half of the studies reviewed, name leadership, often the principal as a leading factor to enabling the development of policies and practices that foster the success of English-language learners.

• customized learning environment: Many researchers have noted that there is no one right way to educate English-language learners; different approaches are necessary because of the great diversity of conditions faced by school and students. For example, Lucas et al (1990) found that language minority students are more likely to achieve when a school curriculum responds to their individual and differing needs by offering a variety in three areas:
  1. skills and knowledge to be develop,
  2. degrees of difficulty among available classes and
  3. approaches to teaching content.

• articulation and coordination within and between schools: Effective schools are characterized by a smooth transition between levels of language development classes (e.g., between content-based ESL and sheltered instruction) and coordination and articulation between special second-language programs and other school programs, as well as between levels of schooling.

• use of native language and culture in the instruction of language minority students: The advantages of native-language use are a prominent theme in exemplary schools. Several studies indicate that the more comprehensive the use of primary language, the greater the potential for linguistically diverse students to be academically successful.

• a balanced curriculum that incorporates both basic and higher order skills: Effective schools combine both basic and higher order skills to meet the individual needs of their students.

• explicit skills instruction: Studies reviewed indicate that effective teachers for English-language learners use explicit skill instruction in which the teacher for example sets and articulates learning goals, actively assess student progress, and frequently makes class presentations illustrating how to do assigned work.

• opportunities for student-directed activities: Effective teachers use student-directed activities in many different ways. The main purpose however is to help students use, try out, and create contexts that create meaning and engage students in collaboration.

• use of instructional strategies that enhance understanding: Special tailored strategies such as: teaching students metacognitive skills; helping students build on previous knowledge and understanding; use of manipulatives and visual tools for constructing knowledge are some of the most cited techniques to enhance understanding.

• opportunities for practice: This attribute basically entails providing English-language learners opportunities to apply their knowledge and skills in a variety of formats and situations, and environments.

• systematic student assessment: Monitoring and reporting students' learning on a systematic fashion in order to determine students' progress and making the appropriate refinements on educational offerings is one of the characteristic of many of the studies included in the report. Systematic assessment allow programs to continuously improve their impact on student achievement.

• staff development: Staff development for all teachers in the school, not just language specialists was an important component of effective programs. Although the programs provided ongoing staff development directly related to resolving new instructional issues for ESL and bilingual teachers, they also recruited excellent content area teachers and trained them in effective techniques to teach language minority students.

• home and parental involvement: It was found that in effective schools staff have a strong commitment to school-home communication and involving parents in many different aspects.

Additional information about these attributes can be found in the report Educating Language Minority Children published by the National Research Council on 1997 and/or on the Mid-Atlantic Equity Center publication Excellence and Equity for Language Minority Students: Critical Issues and Promising Practices (Forthcoming).

Additional Mid-Atlantic Center Materials on Effective Practices for Language Minority Students

• Effective Schools for Language Minority Students
• Educate America

Selected Bibliography

Educating Everybody's Children: Diverse Teaching Strategies for Diverse Learners. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1995.

Restructuring Schools for Linguistic Diversity. Miramontes Ofelia, Nadeau Adel & Commins Nancy, Teachers College Press, 1997.

School Reform and Student Diversity: Case Studies of Exemplary Practices for LEP Students. The Institute of Policy Analysis and Research in collaboration with the National Center for Research on Cultural Diversity and Second Language Learning, 1995.

The Good Common School: Making the Vision Work for All Children. National Coalition of Advocates for Students, 1991.

Additional Organizations and Resources

National Center for Research on Education, Diversity and Excellence (CREDE)
141 Kerr Hall
University of California
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
(408) 459-3500
email: center@cats.ucc.edu
http://www.crede.ucsc.edu

National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition
1118 22nd Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20037
http://www.ncela.gwu.edu

National Coalition of Advocates for Students
100 Boylston St. # 737
Boston, MA 02116
Telephone: (617) 357-8507

National Council of la Raza (NCLR)
1111 19th St., N.W.
Suite 1000
Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 785-1670
email: publicinfo@nclr.org