An English Language Learner Glossary

As my Sheltered English Instruction course carries on through the semester, I'm learning all kinds of good things about teaching students whose primary languages are ones other than English. For better or for worse, one of the more significant things I am learning is how vast the vocabulary used to describe different English language learner (ELL) situations is. As initially daunting as the list may be, I'm actually very grateful to be working within a system that pays respect to the extreme variety existing within the ELL community. Instead of taking the easy route and homogenizing all students who struggle to complete academic tasks in a new language, the discourse surrounding ELL students provides a huge array of terms to help teachers respectfully and accurately characterize students of all linguistic and educational backgrounds. We as teachers only need to be willing to take the time to familiarize ourselves with the terminology. To that end, I thought it might be useful to compile a small glossary of terms used when discussing students from different kinds of language backgrounds. The following list draws from the National Council of Teachers of English's English Language Leaners, Colorin Colorado's ELL Glossary and information on SIFEs, the U.S. Department of Education's Developing Programs for English Language Learners: Glossary, and notes from my class.

To clarify, this is a list of terms that can be used to help classify different ELL students and their backgrounds. To compile a list of all vocabulary relevant to the teaching of ELL students would be a slightly larger task that I will not be undertaking in this blog post. Also, many of these terms are not mutually exclusive and overlap with one another in different contexts.

• ECELL (Early Childhood English Language Learner) - a child between the ages of zero and five (early stages of development) who is in the process of learning English as a second language.
• EFL (English as a Foreign Language) - non-native-English-speaking students who are learning English in a country where English is not the primary language
• ELL (English Language Learner) - an active learner of the English language who may benefit from various types of language support programs.
• ESL (English as a Second Language) - formerly used to designate ELL students; this term increasingly refers to a program of instruction designed to support the ELL.
• FEP (Fluent or Fully English Proficient) - a student who speaks English fluently
• FLEP (Formerly Limited English Proficient) - a student who was at one point, but is no longer classified as LEP
• LEP (Limited English Proficiency) - employed by the U.S. Department of Education to refer to ELLs who lack sufficient mastery of English to meet state standards and excel in an English-language classroom. This is am umbrella term under which almost all ELLs fall.
• Long-term ELL (Long-term English language learner) - a student who has been enrolled in the U.S. schools for more than six years, but continues to struggle academically due to limited English proficiency.
• LM (Language Minority) - an individual from a home where a language other than the dominant or societal language is spoken. Accordingly, that person may be fully bilingual, speak only the home language, speak only English, or some unbalanced combination of two or more languages. It is interesting to note that certain dialects of English can differ so much from standard or academic English that a student who speaks one of those dialects could still be designated an LM student.
• NEP (Non-English Proficient) - a student who continues to struggle with the English language to the point at which they cannot be considered proficient in the language
• SIFE (Students with Interrupted Formal Education) - a student who has newly arrived to the U.S. school system who has little or no formal education or whose education began, but was interrupted (by war, migration, lack of educational facilities, cultural and economic circumstances etc.). An alternative term sometimes used is SLIFE (Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education).
• SEL (Standard English Learner) - students whose ancestral or home languages reflect unique cultural and linguistic histories other than English, and differ in structure and form from the language of school

I am entirely sure that I have not included every single term out there in this list. I am even more sure that more terms will emerge as the educational and linguistic scenarios in our schools evolve. My plan will be to add to this list progressively whenever I find a new term, so check back in for the most up-to-date version!

Using Cognates to Expand English Language Learners' Vocabulary

As part of my RETELL training (see more about this here), we have been discussing different ideas and techniques for making academic content more accessible for English language learners (ELLs). Recently, in response to an assignment, my friend and colleague, Megan from Breaking Grad(School), called attention to the idea of using cognates to help students connect new vocabulary words in English to familiar words in their native languages, which I think is a beautifully simple and genius idea. Whenever a pedagogical strategy honors and relies on students' prior knowledge, I'm always predispositioned to like it. So I decided to do some resource hunting on the topic and, as always, I learned a few things!

Just so we're all on the same page, I'll define cognates as words from two different languages that are derived from a common linguistic root or ancestor, causing them to share similar meanings, spellings, and/or pronunciations. Cognates almost always have the same meanings as one another, although not every time; however, they appear to be extremely similar on paper. The idea here is that, if we can teach ELLs to identify cognates or if we can give them lists of cognates in their primary language, they will more quickly and easily be able to acquire the corresponding cognates in English. For example, when teaching a Spanish-speaking ELL the word "abbreviation," a quick and easy shortcut is to point them to the Spanish cognate of that word, "abreviación," which has the same meaning.

Obviously this strategy is more helpful in some languages than in others. English shares very few cognates with languages like Chinese or Arabic. However, according to research by Colorin Colorado, 30-40% of all words in English have a Spanish cognate. That works out to around 10,000-15,000 English words that a Spanish-speaking ELL most likely has easy access to. This handy Massachusetts Association of Teachers of Speakers of Other Languages (MATSOL) factsheet tells us that over 50% of ELLs in Massachusetts speak Spanish. So, when working with Spanish-speaking ELL students, which, statistically speaking, will be more often than not, the use of cognates to build vocabulary is a useful tool.

Like I mentioned earlier, I love this strategy because it takes advantage of knowledge that students already have in a language that is comfortable for them. It can also be a tool to boost ELL student confidence in an environment where they feel disadvantaged when compared to their English-speaking peers. In a webcast interview, researcher Diane August points out that the many Spanish-English cognate pairs are actually made up of what is a very commonly-known, basic word in Spanish and a fairly high-level, Tier 2 or 3 word in English. This means that a simple, commonly-used word in Spanish might actually have an SAT-level cognate in English, giving Spanish-speaking ELLs an advantage in vocabulary acquisition.

A small catch to this idea is the existence of false cognates, which are words that are spelled and pronounced very similarly to one another, but do not actually share a common meaning. An example of this would be the words "actually" and "actualmente." Relying on the cognate trick, an ELL student might assume these two words share a meaning; however, in Spanish, "actualmente" means "currently" and "actually" best translates into "en realidad." When using cognates to teach ELLs new vocabulary, it's a good idea to make sure they are aware of the possibility of false cognates so they aren't caught off-guard when they meet one. Fortunately, statistics from cognates.org show that only around 5% of cognates in the English language are false; so ELLs will benefit more often than not from assuming a familiar word is a cognate.

Another slightly larger catch to this idea is that the teacher of the class has to actually know which cognate to point to to help build vocabulary. Since my foreign language knowledge is definitely insufficient to meet the diverse needs of Massachusetts ELL students, I found a few great websites that identify some common and helpful cognates in a variety of languages.

• For Spanish
• For Spanish, Portugese, Italian, or French
• For Spanish, Portugese, Italian, French, or Romanian
• Common false cognates in Spanish

Ultimately, as with most things, the usefulness of this strategy can only be determined on a case-by-case basis; however, it's definitely an idea I'll keep in my toolbox just in case.

Helping Archive Humanity's Wisdom

Have you heard of StoryCorps?  Because, if not, get excited for a pretty unique classroom idea. StoryCorps is a US non-profit organization with a self-proclaimed mission to...

"provide people of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives. We do this to remind one another of our shared humanity, to strengthen and build the connections between people, to teach the value of listening, and to weave into the fabric of our culture the understanding that everyone’s story matters. At the same time, we are creating an invaluable archive for future generations." 

or, more simply stated, to

"help create an archive of the wisdom of humanity."

StoryCorps goes about this archiving humanity's wisdom business using interviews and oral histories.  In the last 12 years, StoryCorps has collected and archived more than 50,000 interviews with around 90,000 participants in all 50 states, Washington D.C., and several American territories. Each interview is recorded on a free CD to share and is preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. The interviews are also often broadcasted on NPR's Morning Edition and can be browsed or searched on the StoryCorps site.

The founder of StoryCorps is David Isay, who just recently won the TED prize, believes firmly in the importance of interviews as a means of preserving and archiving records of our humanity. He also very strongly holds that the act of listening to another human being is an act of great kindness and humanity in the service of authentic communication in an age in which real human interaction is eroding.

In an effort to revive this pure and authentic interaction and to encourage the preservation of our oral histories, Isay and StoryCorps have created a free interview app that facilitates and records a meaningful interview between you and an individual of your choosing.

The app not only provides you with engaging and thought-provoking questions, but it also automatically records, stores, and uploads your interview to the StoryCorps database.  Isay calls his interviews the anti-reality television, connecting people from all walks of life through shared experiences, common emotions, and real conversation.  The app interviews tend to last around 40-45 minutes, encouraging engaged listening, deep thought, and authentic human connection.  Isay views his app as the antidote to the 140-character limits placed on modern communication, saying that longer conversations encourage people to go deeper and connect more profoundly with one another.

The idea of using interviews to explore and access common threads and struggles in the human experience is also explored by Humans of New York, whose interviews and photographs have been inspirational to a huge variety of followers.  I think that part of why StoryCorps interviews along with Humans of New York publications have such a devoted following has to do with the craving we all have for real human connection and the ability to share our experiences with one another.  I agree with Isay that, in today's age of emojis, tweets, and minimalist texts, extended, vulnerable conversation is a rarity.  The average high school student may very well feel extremely unfamiliar or uncomfortable with extended personal conversation, which is what makes this an awesome classroom activity.

StoryCorps interviews strike me as interesting resources to bring into the classroom in order to expand students' horizons and encourage them to consider people in situations, places, and lives different from their own.  I think that assigning students to interview either an individual with whom they are extremely close or perhaps even someone they don't know very well at all has the potential to push them to explore meaningful conversation, deep thought, and the purpose of interaction with those around us.  Exploring sites like Humans of New York or StoryCorps' interview archives can help students investigate and think critically about the importance of pursuing human connection, finding lives and identities that challenge or differ from their own, and learning to listen to someone else's story.

Students in our classrooms are increasingly diverse, coming from all different socioeconomic, cultural, ethnic, political, and religious backgrounds.  Learning to listen to and understand those who are different from ourselves is an increasingly critical skill for modern high schoolers.  Asking students to engage in an in-depth conversation with someone to uncover unexpected or unique information is a way of asking them to analyze their surroundings and pay attention to the world in which they live.  This task prompts them to look outside themselves and their own lives to learn something new and different.  I also believe that the process of asking meaningful questions, listening carefully, and recording an individual's thoughtful response to those questions is a very literary undertaking.  Communication, analysis, and synthesis of differing perspectives are all critical components of advanced reading and writing skills.  In these regards, I see the StoryCorps app as a great resource for teaching students to ask good questions, think critically, and search for answers outside of themselves.

How to Suffocate American Diversity: A Case Study

A particularly inspirational fellow teacher and blogger, Rusul Alrubail, posted recently in response to this article.  I found her post and this article to be so relevant and so heartbreaking that I wanted to dedicate my ever-so-tiny and modest far corner of the internet to this issue for a moment. The spark notes version of this article features a school in New York's foreign language department that arranged for the US Pledge of Allegiance to be recited over the announcements in a different language each day for one week.  After the day in which a school student recited the pledge in Arabic, the school received a barrage of complaints from students and parents.  Complaints ranged from individuals saying that they had lost family in the war in Afghanistan to the sentiment that it was disrespectful to the Jewish members of the school body.  The school issued an apology and declared that the pledge would only ever be read in English in the future.

Because that's America now.  You're welcome to be here, so long as you promise not to contribute any notable ethnic diversity or nonwhite culture to our system.

I have a few, fairly separate, but mercifully brief points that I would like to make in response to this.

1)  The people of Afghanistan do not speak Arabic.  Dari and Pashto are the primary languages.  But kudos on engaging in such a thorough and consistent level of ignorance.

2)  When we start designating languages as representative of racial conflicts that are distinct to both a specific time and location, we are going to have to make some serious system changes.  The day Arabic is offensive to the Jewish population is also the day that we will unfortunately have to start eyeing German suspiciously.

3)  If anyone thinks that the brave men and women who give and have given their lives in the service of this country do so in order for us to have the freedom to limit the cultural heritage and expression of school children attempting to participate and engage in American ideals, I take extreme offense to that.

I hope students everywhere feel that they can explore their identities as Americans in light of their cultural heritage.  This is one of the factors that has made and does make America a great nation.  My heart breaks for the students who see their identities as Americans forcibly divorced from and opposed to their cultural, racial identities.

"What makes you American is not the language you speak, but the ideas you believe in" - Andrew Zink