Who are the English learners in California?

California has the highest proportion of English learners in the nation. One out of four students is an English learner, defined by the state as "a child who does not speak English . . . and who is not currently able to perform ordinary classroom work in English." The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second largest district in the nation, serves over 700,000 students, a third of whom are English learners. The TLC project, located in Los Angeles, worked with a primarily Spanish-speaking student population.

Instruction of English learners in California

In the landmark federal case (1974, Lau v. Nichols) the courts ordered schools to educate non-English speaking students. At that time, California stood at the forefront of bilingual education.

California's instructional approach for English learners has since changed dramatically. In 1994, voters passed Proposition 187, which sought to deny illegal immigrants public education. In 1998, voters passed Proposition 227, which required all public schools to instruct children in English only. Although 187 was ultimately overturned, a climate of fear remained among non-English speaking families, whether here legally or not. Proposition 227 remains largely in effect today, however, and nearly all California classrooms are now "English only."

This English-only approach appears to be failing. The required English-only, scripted language arts instruction creates school days for English learners filled with incomprehensible experiences, generally without the individualized, participatory instruction they need to succeed academically. Academic performance of English learners remains about two years below grade level by fifth grade, even for students who entered English only classrooms in kindergarten or first grade. Many students are alienated and disaffected, and the state's own legislative analyst reports that the model of instruction touted by proposition 227 is not as important as previously thought in helping children to learn English.²

English-only instruction's relationship to teacher preparation

Many California school districts, including the LAUSD, mandate that teachers must provide English language development through specific curricular programs. Nonetheless, university-sponsored teacher education programs are not required to provide instruction to their candidates related to the specific English language development programs required by the district. Moreover, many university instructors--whose former classroom teaching experience did not include English learners--are not particularly familiar with limited-English students.

In many schools, instructional programs are available for teachers to use to develop their students' English skills. However, teachers often have not been trained to use the programs or they don't have time to use them during their highly-structured days. We observed that many teachers weren't aware that such programs existed; others knew about them, but chose not to use them. One thing is sure--it's an uneven landscape when it comes to English learner instruction.

Fortunately, many professionals in education are striving to find, create, and replicate instruction that succeeds. Many teachers, teacher educators, policy analysts, and others have developed excellent programs. In the TLC project, we connected teachers and teacher educators with some of these resources, such as the standards for teaching from the Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence (CREDE) and the book, Making content comprehensible for English Learners: the SIOP model, by Jana Echevarria, MaryEllen Vogt, and Deborah J. Short. A few of these resource are listed below and a complete list can be found in the Resources section of this website.

Learn more about English learners

The Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence's (CREDE) five standards for effective pedagogy are also an excellent guide to effective instruction of English learners. Learn more: http://crede.berkeley.edu/

Samway, K. D. & McKeon, D. (2007). Myths and realities, second edition: Best practices for English language learners. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. This accessible book challenges many common assumptions about instructional methods for English learners. We used an earlier edition in both the TLC for K-5 classroom teachers, and TLC for teacher educators.

Echevarria, Jana; Vogt, MaryEllen; Short, Deborah. (2004). Making content comprehensible for English learners: The SIOP model. Boston: Pearson Allyn and Bacon.

UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education and Access offers several great programs, including Teaching to Change LA and Just Schools California. Access to these programs is through UCLA/IDEA at http://www.idea.gseis.ucla.edu/.

Rethinking Schools has a good and succinct article on the History of Bilingual Education: http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/12_03/langhst.shtml

The National Association for Bilingual Education (www.nabe.org) and the California Association for Bilingual Education (www.bilingualeducation.org) are both excellent organizations that advocate for English learners.

The National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition and at the Federal Department of Education has online access to many important reports and papers published on English learners and English language development, as well as links to other sources: http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/

The Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning has a number of good publications on its website at http://www.cftl.org/. See their legislation page for a rundown of all recent teacher workforce legislation.

California Tomorrow, at http://www.californiatomorrow.org/ has reports and publications available for purchase, as well as good links to follow for in-depth information about English learners in California and other school reform issues.

The Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) http://www.cal.org/ is a private, nonprofit organization with a national and international reputation for its contributions to the fields of bilingual, English as a second language, literacy, and foreign language education; dialect studies; language policy; refugee orientation; and the education of linguistically and culturally diverse adults and children.

1. California Department of Education, Educational Demographics Unit, Retrieved: 2/7/2008

2. State of California, Legislative Analyst’s Office, Analysis of the 2007-08 Budget Bill: Education, Retrieved 2/7/2008 from http://www.lao.ca.gov/analysis_2007/education/ed_11_anl07.aspx