The English Language Learner Dilemma Part Three: How Can We Help?

We've done all of the research, read all of the articles, and talked to all of the experts. Now the real question is - how can a teacher truly help an English Language Learner who so desperately needs help in the classroom?

As discussed in Public Schools Stifling Spanish: The English Language Learner Dilemma, n part 1 there are many issues that are present in the education of English Language learners in the Elementary classroom. Teachers are not equipped with the knowledge to teach these diverse learners, and students are not prepared to enter the rigorous and rigid English classroom based on the prior knowledge they may have received at home. The English Language Learner Dilemma Part Two: From the Perspective of A Parent  expands upon the idea that ELL students need extra support in the classroom and at home, but that some of the most important research is just out of reach of these students' parents and guardians. In this post, I will expand further upon the strategies that help ELL reading and comprehension strategies as well as speaking in the English education system. But, where does one go to find these strategies, perfectly fit for elementary Spanish speaking students?

Lucky for us, we have the most effective branch of language on our side to fall back on: linguistics. Linguistics does not simply speak one language - it is present in all of the languages around the world. Therefore, by breaking down English words into their smallest parts and comparing their parts to other languages, ELL students' reading and speaking comprehension will surely improve. 

As pointed out by Dr. Louisa Moats, morphological and semantic awareness is key to a higher degree of learning in both native and not native English speakers. Having the knowledge of what the individual parts of a word mean and how they fit into sentence structures is imperative to know if one's goal is to speak and write effectively in general. However, several researchers have done studies based on the specific area of native Spanish speaking students in elementary classrooms, and the results were astounding. Valarie Malabonga and her contributing authors stress the importance of elementary ELL students mastering the area of cognates. Her research focused in part on the Cognate Awareness Test that was used to gauge ELL students’ understanding of cognates as well as how proficiently they could identify English words by connecting cognates of the native and new language together.

The emphasis on cognates also brought about the point in this study that ELL students are able to recognize English words by creating links to their Spanish heritage, giving teachers a base to work off of when they began to teach these students more content knowledge. Morphology was also another important facet of language when it came to ELL students becoming more proficient in in order to improve their linguistic skills. By mastering derivational morphology, ELLs were more likely to be able to identify and understand more English words and their meanings. They were able to see the transformation of root words into other forms, which helped them to have a greater English vocabulary.

Cognate association improves comprehension and language acquisition.

The study of morphemes also bridged the gap between the language spoken at home for Spanish students and the language used in school. They were able to connect both of their languages together to form a broad knowledge base without losing their heritage or sacrificing their success in the American classroom. A final area of specific linguistic study that was focused on in this research was carried out by Lee Swanson, Milagros Kudo, and Danielle Guzman-Orth. They tied all of the previous researchers’ points together by discussing the importance of cognition assessment in evaluating elementary ELL students for their abilities as well as the possibility of a learning disability. They assert that it is equally as important to test students’ cognition (and their understanding of phonetics, morphemes, cognates, etc.), but not to make the screening process subjective due to their cultural background and language barriers. 

Students who may have deficits in the English language still have the same ability to think critically in the classroom, and should not be slighted due to the inability to express these thoughts coherently in English. It is extremely important for teachers to realize the responsibility that we owe to these children to make them feel a sense of belonging and confidence in building a language that they can call their own.