Where to place English learners during the school day—whether grouped together or with non-English-learner peers—and how to deliver English-language development services are some of the top questions schools need to consider when working with this growing population of students.
Researchers note there is no single best approach that works for all schools because so much depends on which English learners schools are serving, their distinct needs, and what staffing capacity looks like at a given school.
For instance, newcomer immigrant students with limited or interrupted formal education and limited English proficiency require more extensive support than an English learner born in the United States who has a strong baseline of language skills and may reclassify by middle school.
Even so, researchers point to some overall approaches that can help.
Training more general education teachers to teach language through academic content helps build on English learners’ language development while exposing them to more rigorous, grade-level content. Additionally, bilingual education, in which academic content is taught in English and another world language, benefits almost all English learners.
Yet, such strategies are often out of reach for schools, according to a March survey conducted by the EdWeek Research Center of 1,122 educators who work with English learners.
Key findings of the survey include: Mainstream classrooms are the norm for where English learners spend most of the school day; pullout instruction for language development decreases at higher grade levels; and instruction in students’ home languages remains relatively uncommon, despite research proving its benefits.
English learners spend the most time in mainstream classrooms
Roughly 80% of teachers and administrators surveyed said English learners spend the majority of their time at school in mainstream classrooms.
Depending on grade level, an additional 11% to14% reported that English learners are in classrooms specifically for students receiving language support. The remainder (9% at elementary, 3% in secondary) said most English learners are enrolled in dual-language programs where all students develop literacy in both their home language and English.
The EdWeek Research Center survey also asked how extensively general education teachers integrate English-language development into academic instruction in mainstream classrooms.
Fifty-nine percent of respondents said not at all or to a minor extent, even though the same survey found English learners across grade levels tend to spend the most time in such mainstream settings.
“Sometimes, we conceptualize content and language as if they are sort of separable, as if you can sort of go over here and learn some language and then you’ll go over to your science class, and you’ll just use that language. And really, they’re intertwined with one another,” said Michael Kieffer, a professor of literacy education at New York University.
While the survey did not dive into how students are grouped within mainstream classrooms, Kieffer’s past research sheds some light on how these decisions affect student outcomes.
In a review of national elementary English-learner data, Kieffer found that even as elementary schools tended to group these students in elementary homerooms, such grouping had no impact, positive or negative, on reading development for elementary students, calling into question the claims of such groupings’ benefit to students.
In a more recent experimental study, Kieffer looked at small-group instruction at the elementary level and whether students should be grouped within mainstream classrooms.
He found that English learners with higher levels of English proficiency fared better alongside non-English-learner peers than when grouped with only fellow English learners. In those settings, teachers asked more open-ended questions and held higher expectations of them. Those English learners with more beginner levels of English proficiency were the ones to most benefit from peer grouping, as teachers provided more scaffolding and grammar modeling.
Language-development services vary by grade level
The EdWeek Research Center survey also asked whether English learners were pulled out of class for language-support services.
Eighty percent reported pullout instruction for elementary students and 61% for middle school students, compared with just 46% for high schoolers.
English learners at the middle and high school level tend to be placed in stand-alone English-language development courses, and the survey did not ask directly how these students are grouped outside of those courses, Kieffer noted.
Still, the decline in pullout instruction among older English learners may be a positive sign.
“Adolescents are much more aware of social comparisons, and so if they’re being pulled out or being segregated for some period of time in the English-as-a-second-language room, they’re going to be more sensitive to that, and it may have implications for their identity, implications for the way they’re engaging with school,” Kieffer said.
Another recent NYU study led by researcher Kristin Black found negative impacts on graduation rates when high school English learners were segregated together, especially those identified as long-term English learners who have been receiving language services since elementary or early middle school.
English remains the main language of instruction
While bilingual education, including dual-language immersion, is regarded as one of the most beneficial programs for English learners, the survey found it to be one of the least common. New research from the Migration Policy Institute confirms that bilingual education, already rare nationally, is even harder to find at the secondary level.
Educators can still incorporate English learners’ home languages into classroom settings.
The March survey asked what approaches schools or districts use for English learners’ home language, not counting world language classes.
Close to half of educators (42%) said that, outside of foreign language courses, English is the only language spoken or taught in their schools.
At the same time, 66% said teachers and other staff members may sometimes use a student’s home language to communicate, even though all instruction is in English.
Additionally, instruction in students’ home languages was far less common. Sixteen percent said some instruction occurs in students’ home languages without literacy instruction, while just 1% reported that all instruction occurs in students’ home languages without literacy instruction.
Fourteen percent reported dual-language literacy instruction in both English and their home language, while 10% said students initially learn to read and write in their home language before transitioning to English-only instruction.
Though Kieffer hasn’t studied bilingual education as extensively as English-learner grouping, he said the research evidence is clear that teaching in the home language can be helpful, albeit challenging at times.
“Language is really important, and if teachers aren’t able to make some connections with their kids in the home language, and not to mention connections to families, having a kind of strict English-only setting is going to be really harmful,” he said.
