"Stuck"

Seems that word struck a cord in me.

It is the reality that many, many, MANY of our English Learners get stuck upon reaching the intermediate proficiency level- the Level 3 "ceiling."

Why do they "get stuck?"
Most teachers greet ELLs in the Beginning stage with a mixed sense of fear, excitement and dread. And yet, students at this stage, despite exhibiting an equal mix of these, also manage to follow the steps uncovered by research in second language acquisition. (I promise I'll address this more in future entries.) For now, ELLs go through a predicted "silent period," followed by a greater sense of comfort and initial absorption of simple English constructions. So students learn "playground English" and are chattering away with friends and seem to be progressing just fine...all the way to level 3.
But, the ELL is still on the second language learning journey. And it turns out- it's a long one. A 5-7 year one to be a little more exact.

So what happens?
Well, reality hits- for the student. Playground English takes the student only so far. Reality hits- for the teacher as well. The "good" teacher recognizes that Academic English needs to be taught. Unfortunately, in most places, until relatively recently, there has been little attention paid to curriculum that addresses the needs of these students so that they can access Academic English. The less aware teacher may think the student is actually progressing, and either: increase the load/complexity of English, losing the student or simply meet the student at the level he/she seems to be operating...and not exposing the student to a good model of Academic English at all.

The result?
The vast majority of our ELLs are stuck in an intermediate stage. They move up the grades without explicit instruction in the nuances, forms and functions of the language. And they stay stuck all the way through high school.

And then society attributes this "lack of wanting to learn" or "cultural disinclination for schooling" or what-have-you to these students, and not to what we've done to fail them. Or to put it a different way, what we have NOT done to pry them out of the Level 3 quicksand trap.

But before we go there, I think we need to understand a little about second language acquisition, English Language Development, and other fun things!
Stay tuned...