A New Protocol For Teaching English Language Learners In Middle And Secondary Schools

Abstract

The gap in academic achievement between Caucasian students and those from culturally and linguistically diverse groups has widened primarily because many middle and secondary classroom teachers are under prepared to make content comprehensible for ELs or to teach content-area literacy to a forgotten population of middle and secondary ELs (Echevarria and Short, 2010). The result is that ELs enrolled in middle and high schools have become long term ELs, who's specific learning needs for success in school are largely, ignored thus creating a large EL underachieving group (Olsen, 2010). Many middle and secondary schools engage in the common practice of segregating students in what some educators have called the "EL ghetto." The ELs middle and secondary school curriculum typically consists of a sequence of courses that keep them together over multiple years in classes that do not enable them to complete prerequisites for higher tracks of college (Darling-Hammond, 2010). The overarching question addressed in this presentation is; what do teachers need to know and be able to do to provide ELs with systematic language development, academic literacy skills, successful experiences in mainstream classes, meet content standards, and pass standardized assessments in their second language?