The Common Core State Standards and the English Language Learners

Wen Ma, Ph.D.Le Moyne College

Objectives of This Presentation:

• Provide an Overview of the New Language Arts Progressions for English Language Learners

• Examine the NLAP Modules Based on the Common Core State Standards

• Discuss Additional Challenges and Strategies for Teaching ELLs

Common Core State Standards for ELA and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science , and Technical Subjects • Reading Standards

for Literature for Informational Text for Foundational Skills

• Standards for Writing• Standards for Speaking and Listening• Language Standards

• 11 Reading Standards for literature and 10 for informational text, on key ideas and details, craft and structure, integration of knowledge and ideas, range of reading and text complexity, responding to literature

• 4 Foundational Skills: print concepts, phonological awareness, phonics and word recognition, and fluency

• 11 Standards for Writing, on text types and purposes, production and distribution of writing, research to build and present knowledge, range of writing, and responding to literature

• 6 Standards for Speaking and Listening, on comprehension and collaboration, presentation of knowledge and ideas

• 6 Language Standards, on conventions of standard English, knowledge of language, vocabulary acquisition and use

These broad College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards are further defined with more grade and content-area specificity by the Common Core Curriculum, or modules EngageNY: https://www.engageny.org/common-core-curriculum

Consequently, there are 6 Instructional shifts:file:///C:/Users/maw/Downloads/common-core-shifts%20(8).pdf

How do these changes impact the expectations for students who are English Language Learners, with disabilities or special needs, socioeconomically disadvantaged, or those performing below or above grade levels?

The simple answer is that they, too, will be held to the same standards, with modified pathways towards these goals.

Requirements for English Language Learners:“The National Governors Association for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers strongly believe that all students should be held to the same high expectations outlined in the Common Core State Standards. This includes students who are English Language Learners (ELLs). However, these students may require additional time, appropriate instructional support, and aligned assessments as they acquire both English language proficiency and content area knowledge” (NYSED, http://www.corestandards.org/assets/application-for-english-learners.pdf).

Since 2012, NYSED launched the Bilingual Common Core Initiative to develop English as a Second Language and Native Language Arts aligned with the CCSS. Consequently, NYSED has developed New Language Arts Progressions (NLAP) and Home Language Arts Progressions (HLAP) for each standard in each grade level (BCCI, https://www.engageny.org/resource/new-york-state-bilingual-common-core-initiative)

New York State Bilingual Common Core Initiative (NYSBCCI)

• Learning academic English is not only mastering a series of grammatical structures, but also developing the competency to participate in discipline-specific social practices (i.e., acquiring both language structures and disciplinary practices associated with the content areas).

• Broader goal of bilingualism is that English as a Second Language and native/home language help the development of each other dynamically.

• NYS aims to promote real bilingual development.

New Language Arts Progressions• Its goal is provide tools for teachers to plan CCSS

lessons for the ELLs.• Focus on the needs of ELLs, although maybe applied to

students learning a foreign language.• Integrate language and content, i.e., helping ELLs

acquire academic English and communicative skills to learn across the curriculum.

• Categorize 4 modalities into 2 skill strands: receptive (listening and reading) and productive (speaking and writing), as well as oral and written domains.

• Identify 5 levels of progressions: entering, emerging, transitioning, expanding, and commanding (cf. prior beginning, intermediate, advanced, proficient).

Instructional Scaffolding for Each Level:

• Entering: e.g., use of pre-taught words, graphic organizers, home language

• Emerging: use of pre-identified words, graphic organizers, sentence starters, cloze paragraph

• Transitioning: use of controlled word glossary to complete a graphic organizer about the content

• Expanding: use of glossaries with multiple words, phrases, definitions and examples for speaking and writing activities, after teacher modeling

• Commanding: independent work, with content and language come together without scaffolds

New Language Arts Progressions Modules: https://www.engageny.org/resource/new-york-state-bilingual-common-core-initiative

• Let’s look at the Grade 3 NLAP module.• Examine Standard 2 for Reading and

Writing respectively, cf. receptive (listening and reading) and productive (speaking and writing) specifics for each of the 5 levels.

• Look at the example to address the linguistic demands.

• Discuss the instructional scaffolding for the same Common Core standard for differing levels.

Additional Resources and Strategies

Pedagogical Framework for Academic LanguageAcademic language refers to the genre or style of language (both in oral and written forms) used for academic purposes across the curriculum. It is characteristic of the kind of language in subject area books. There are discipline-specific words, grammatical structures, and textual features for academic English, which are different from every language [cf. Cummings’ distinction between basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP)]. Language function denotes one of the communicative purposes through language, such as analyze, argue, categorize, compare/contrast, describe, explain, interpret, predict, question, retell, and summarize.A learning task is a specific activity that the students need to complete in connection with the language function. E.g., analyze the plot of Three Little Pigs in one paragraph; argue for a particular position (e.g., no homework should be allowed below third grade) in a 3-paragraph essay; describe a field trip to the Museum of Fine Arts); explain a table on the dairy production in Upstate NY.Language demand is the necessary language needed for the students to complete the learning task, especially in terms of how the teacher may support them with the related vocabulary, syntax, discourse. Vocabulary refers to the body of words that stand for ideas and concepts. They are the building blocks for larger linguistic structures that stand for bigger ideas. Syntax refers to a set of rules and conventions for organizing ideas conveyed by words, symbols, and phrases together into meaningful structures (e.g., sentences, graphs, or tables).Discourse includes the structures of written and oral language, as well as how members from different fields/professions talk, write, and participate in knowledge construction. Discipline-specific discourse has distinctive features or ways of structuring oral or written language (text structures) that provide useful ways for the content to be communicated by members of that discipline.

The English Language Puzzle(L1 & L2 processes, English sound system, English writing system, English lexicon & morphology, English sentence/discourse/text & syntax, listening/speaking/reading/writing academic English for learning across the curriculum)

L1 Acquisition

L2 Acquisition/Learning

Reading/Writing/Listening/Speaking Academic English

Spoken Language/Phonology

Written Language/Orthography

Morphology

Syntax

Essential Phonological and Morphological Concepts for Teachers

Alphabetic Principle: A principle that suggests letters in the alphabet map to phonemes, the minimum sound units represented in written languageLinguistic Awareness: An understanding of the technical features of language, including the sound system, the writing system, the rules of spelling, the conventions of written text, as well as technical terms and labels used to talk and think about reading.Phonemic Awareness: An understanding that speech is composed of a series of individual sounds (with the smallest one being phoneme), not unlike text is composed of individual words (with the smallest writing symbol being individual letters). It is a powerful predictor of children’s later reading achievement.Phonological Awareness: The ability to hear, recognize, and comprehend the sounds in our language. It involves hearing the sounds of language apart from meaning [sentences can be segmented into words; words can be segmented into syllables/individual sounds; words can begin or end with the same sounds; individual sounds of words can be blended together; individual sounds of words can be manipulated (added, deleted, or substituted)].Concepts about Print: Knowledge that words are represented by print, that letters of the alphabet are represented in different ways, and that letters can represent multiple sounds or the same sound represented by different letters.Consonants: Speech sound in which the breath is at least partly obstructed (cf. IPA chart)Vowels: Speech sound made with vibration of the vocal cords but without audible friction (cf. IPA chart)Onsets: The initial part of a word (a consonant, consonant blend, or diagraph) that precedes the vowel, e.g. take, great, thinkRimes: The part of a word that includes the vowel and any consonants that follow, e.g., my, his, theirs, literacy Syllables: A syllable is vowel or a cluster of sounds containing a vowel and pronounced as a unit, e.g., I, be, car, make, beau~ty, beau~ti~ful, beau~ti~ful~ly Phonics: Method of teaching reading based on soundsOrthography refers to all aspects of writing, including spelling, using punctuation marks, and understanding other language conventions (e.g., using upper case for the first letter in the first word of a sentence, indenting the first sentence of a paragraph, or keeping a letter space between words, etc.).

Graphic Organizers

Moving from Input, Comprehensible Input to Intake

Input refers to what is linguistically available to the learner (in speech and writing).Comprehensible input refers to the language items that are heard or read by the learner and that are slightly ahead of the learner’s current state of grammatical knowledge. Intake (cf. Corder, 1967) refers to what is actually internalized or taken in by the learner.

References and Resources78 scaffolding strategies from CAL, http://www.cal.org/what-we-do/projects/project-excell/the-go-to-strategies109 Common Core Resources for Teachers by Content Area: http://www.teachthought.com/learning/curriculum/109-common-core-resources-for-teachers-by-content-area/ 105,000 of the best questions from NY Regents, State Assessments, Academic Competitions, and more: http://www.problem-attic.com/ACCESS for ELLs (Assessing Comprehension and Communication in English State-to-State for English Language Learners) is a secure large-scale English language proficiency assessment given to Kindergarten through 12th graders who have been identified as English language learners (ELLs), ACCESS for ELLs : https://www.wida.us/assessment/ACCESS/Bilingual Common Core Initiative: https://www.engageny.org/resource/new-york-state-bilingual-common-core-initiativeDifference between Scaffolding and differentiation: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/scaffolding-lessons-six-strategies-rebecca-alber Expeditionary Learning: http://commoncoresuccess.elschools.org/ Five parts of language: http://www.ehow.com/info_8371475_five-parts-language-development.html Learning Inventories: https://wvde.state.wv.us/strategybank/LearningInventories.html National Board English as a New Language Certification Standards: http://boardcertifiedteachers.org/certificate-areasNew York State P-12 Common Core Learning Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy http://www.p12.nysed.gov/ciai/common_core_standards/pdfdocs/nysp12cclsela.pdf Project Based Learning (PBL): https://www.engageny.org/resource/march-2015-nti-participant-led-professional-development-sessionsRubric Basics: https://www.engageny.org/sites/default/files/resource/attachments/appendix_protocols_and_resources.pdfScaffolding Instruction for English Language Learners: A Resource Guide for English Language Arts: https://www.engageny.org/resource/scaffolding-instruction-english-language-learners-resource-guides-english-language-arts-and SCSD: Portfolio Alternative Assessment (PAAL) for Level I and Level II Students Resources and Supports for English Language Learners, http://www.syracusecityschools.com/districtpage.cfm?pageid=840]SDAIE Strategies (Specially Designed Academic Instruction for English) http://www.supportrealteachers.org/strategies-for-english-language-learners.htmlSmarter Balanced Assessment Consortium Smarter Balanced is a state-led consortium working collaboratively to develop next-generation assessments aligned to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) that accurately measure student progress toward college and career readiness, www.smarterbalanced.org/blog/ TESOL/NCATE English Proficiency Standards: http://www.tesol.org/advance-the-field/standardsThe Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is a group of states working together to develop a set of assessments that measure whether students are on track to be successful in college and their careers. These computer-based K–12 assessments in Mathematics and English Language Arts/Literacy give teachers, schools, students, and parents better information whether students are on track in their learning and for success after high school, and tools to help teachers customize learning to meet student needs, http://parcconline.org/about-parcc The Understanding Language Initiative (in collaboration) with the Council of Chief State Schools Officers is developing the: English Language Proficiency Development Framework

The webinar and PowerPoint slides can be accessed at

www.isnetworked.org

Wen Ma can be reached for questions or comments at

maw@lemoyne.edu