English Language Learners: An Analytical Analysis
English Language Learners: An Analytical Analysis
Carmen L Duato
Pacific University
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English Language Learners: An Analytical Analysis
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As a future educator, I think about how the classroom environment has changed and
wonder how I can successfully engage students. I will not be teaching in a homogenous
classroom, but rather, I will be teaching students of different races, socioeconomic backgrounds,
cultures, and learning styles. Most importantly I will be teaching to a growing population of
English Language Learners (ELL). While ELL’s first language can vary, the predominant group
of ELL students in the United States are Latino. As a white women who only speaks English, it’s
important for me as a teacher to think about how I can be a culturally responsive teacher in a
multicultural classroom. By analyzing recent literature, I can look within myself to determine my
personal culture, my ideas about people in terms of class, race, gender, ethnicity, and ability and
learn how ELLs are perceived within our society. I believe through introspective analysis, I will
learn how to become a culturally responsive teacher within a multicultural classroom.
To start my analysis, I began with the book Is everyone really equal? Chapter 2, titled
“Socialization,” showed me how being born in a particular time, place, and social context defines
who I am and how I respond to others (Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2012, p.15). I learned personal
culture is not just defined by surface culture but also by deep culture: an illustration of an
iceberg, which represents the differences between surface and deep culture, helped me
understand how my surface culture is defined by the food I eat, the clothes I wear, the music I
listen to, the language I speak, and what I like to do for fun (Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2012).
Whereas, my deep culture is defined by my notions of leadership, my body language, my nature
of friendships, nonverbal communication, and ideals of childrearing (Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2012).
Therefore, my culture is unique to me and is defined by my own experiences. My future students
will be just as unique, and it’s important to not inappropriately generalize them into a particular
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social group. I feel this understanding is critical for teachers when searching for effective ways to
teach ELL students.
Through the exploration of my personal culture, I have also learned how the interplay of
my positionality—the relationship between me as an individual and the social groups I belong
to—plays an important role in the privileges I am afforded (Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2012). As
white and middle-class, I am seen as being part of the dominate group; the dominate group sets
the norms by which the minoritized group is judged (Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2012). By being a part
of a dominant group, I have greater access to resources, and I inherently benefit from the
existence of inequality (Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2012). I feel my new awareness allows me to
understand not everyone is equal and that I should not minimize or deny how minoritized groups
feel.
Through further analysis of various articles surrounding multi-cultural awareness in
education, I have found the overall common theme to be the lack of cultural awareness within
our education system. Many statistics pertaining to minority groups are generalized when, in
fact, each group is often represented by many different cultures. For example, most data
pertaining to Latinos portrays them as a monolithic group when in fact they are quite
heterogeneous. Latinos are multiracial, multinational, and diverse in their educational and
socioeconomic backgrounds (Teachers, A. F. T. 2004). Current data is too broad and doesn’t
present a very detailed picture of the Latino population (Teachers, A. F. T. 2004). How are we to
close the achievement gap with ELLs when we don’t even understand who we are teaching?
This leads me to wonder, since data is generalized, how do we really know if our current
practices are best? The most widely used practice for educating ELLs has been sheltered
instruction. Many schools have created schools within for the ELLs. For example, at Cecil D.
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Hylton high school in the suburbs of Woodbridge, Virginia, ELLs attend classes almost
exclusively with one another; they even take separate field trips and organize separate clubs
(Thompson, 2009). Some teachers argue creating separation within the schools is helpful—
allowing them to teach the same material but at a much slower pace and with more visual aids—
while others feel the separation isolates the ELL students and doesn’t allow students access to
peers and networks that might help them to better navigate in a new school, culture, and country
(Thompson, 2009). From an educational perspective, I don’t believe isolation is effective.
Isolation only feeds into our current social structure and widens the gap between the dominant
and minority groups. Neither does isolation build culturally responsive classrooms and
communities.
Lack of cultural awareness in education has led to an overrepresentation of English
Language Learners in Special Education (Rueda &Windmueller, 2006). For years, schools, and
school districts, have used ineffective means of diagnosing ELLs for special education. The
single most common framework used in identifying students for special education is the
student’s individual deficits based on component cognitive processes that result in unsuccessful
reading (Rueda & Windmueller, 2006). ELLs naturally will have deficits in learning to read
English, but those deficits may not be due to their cognitive processes. Instead, reading deficits
could be related to individual, interpersonal, institutional, or community factors (Rueda &
Windmueller, 2006). As a future educator, I can see why it’s important to take a more
comprehensive approach in identifying students for special education. If I don’t get to know my
ELLs as an individuals, I may not notice how their interpersonal skills could affect their
engagement and participation in the classroom. If I don’t take the time to learn about my
student’s community, I may not learn about a family’s conflict over bilingual education. By
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taking the time to get to know my ELLs as individuals, I would be able to devise strategies to
combat their reading deficits, and avoid inappropriately placing them in special education where
they would be isolated even further from peers.
Inappropriate placement would most likely have adverse effects on the students’
motivation to learn and their sense of self-worth. Therefore, I can see how through a lack of
cultural awareness, how one could adversely affect students’ success, particularly in regards to
motivation. According to “A framework for Culturally Responsive Teaching,” it is stated that,
“Engagement is the visible outcome of motivation, the natural capacity to direct energy in the
pursuit of a goal (Wlodkowski & Ginsberg, 1995). Our emotions influence our motivation. In
turn, our emotions are socialized through culture—the deeply learned confluence of language,
beliefs, values, and behaviors that pervades every aspect of our lives” (Wlodkowski & Ginsberg,
1995). When ELLs can see that what they are learning makes sense and is important, their
motivation will increase. Thus, by being a culturally responsive teacher, I can relate the content
to their cultural backgrounds, and their motivation will emerge.
Teachers’ lack of cultural awareness could also affect the political and economic success
of the United States. By not teaching students’ how to be inclusive, by showing them being
bilingual is a negative not a positive, or by not understanding our own positionality, we hurt our
country’s ability to function within the world. A large sector of our economy would not be able
to produce international products like software, telecommunications, or financial services
(Lessow-Hurley, 2012). Our national security would suffer if we didn’t have people who could
speak languages other than English. We also wouldn’t be able to negotiate with foreign powers
effectively if we didn’t know about significant cultural and social nuances (Lessow-Hurley,
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2012). With all of this in mind, it’s imperative that as a future educator, in a position of power, I
become culturally aware of my students, model and teach inclusivity, and value our differences.
If I am not cultural aware of my students or my own positionality, I might not understand
why my students could be acting out in the classroom. In the article, “Linguistic Diversity and
Classroom Management,” Mary Curran gives a great example on understanding the perspective
of ELLs and their natural responses to being immersed in a second language. Her experiment
began when she started her lecture entirely in Spanish to in-service teachers about working with
ELLs (Curran, 2003). After the exercise, she had the teachers reflect on their thoughts and
feelings as a group. Naturally, the audience had many different reactions, such as laughter,
silence, fatigue, and first language use (Curran, 2003). In the classroom, teachers may see these
behaviors and responses as negative and then reprimand students. The teacher may then be seen
as insensitive or uncompromising, and the students may respond in anger (Curran, 2003). Thus,
as a future educator, it’s important to understand how these reactions to being immersed in a
classroom, where ELLs are not completely proficient in the language being spoken, are not
negative behaviors but instead natural responses.
In summary, my introspective analysis has taught me how important it is to be a
culturally responsive teacher within a multicultural classroom. By being aware of my own
personal culture and my positionality, I will see my students as unique individuals—individuals
who should be celebrated and not isolated, individuals who should not be generalized into a
larger group but recognized as unique individuals who deserve to be understood. Most
importantly, by being a culturally aware teacher, my students will have the opportunity to be
successful. They will be motivated to learn, and hopefully, they will feel respected by their
teacher and their peers.
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References
Curran, M. E. (2003). Linguistic diversity and classroom management. Theory Into Practice,
42(4), 334-340.
Lessow-Hurley, J. (2012). National Unity and Diversity and the Language(s) We Speak. The
foundations of dual language instruction (6th ed., pp. 1-17). Pearson Higher Ed.
Rueda, R., & Windmueller, M. P. (2006). English language learners, LD, and overrepresentation
a multiple-level analysis. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 39(2), 99-107.
Sensoy, Ö., & DiAngelo, R. (2012). Is everyone really equal?: An introduction to key concepts
in social justice education. Teachers College Press.
Teachers, A. F. T. (2004). Closing the achievement gap: Focus on Latino students. AFT Teachers
Policy Brief, 17.
Thompson, G. (2009). Where education and assimilation collide. New York Times, 15.
Wlodkowski, R. J., & Ginsberg, M. B. (1995). A Framework for Culturally Responsive
Teaching. Educational Leadership, 53(1), 17-21.