Assessment to support contingent pedagogy also enables student involvement in the assessment process, through peer and self-assessment. Providing opportunities for student involvement in assessment encourages student agency in learning, helping them develop desirable college and career ready skills such as responsibility, self-direction, self-monitoring, collaboration, and cooperation.
This book is about how all teachers can assist ELL students to successfully meet the rigorous demands of college and career ready standards by engaging them in the simultaneous learning of content, analytical practices, and language learning, supported by ongoing assessment and contingent pedagogy.
So far, we have referred to the population of students in U.S. schools who are learning English as an additional language with the single term ELL. In fact, ELL students are a very diverse group.17 In the section below, we consider the range of backgrounds that ELLs represent in our schools.
Who are ELLs?
Among the variables accounting for the diversity of ELLs in the United States are:
• Time in the United States. In some classrooms, students may be newly arrived in the United States, others may have spent more time in the United States, and still others will have been born and raised in the United States.
• Experience of formal schooling. Students who are new to the United States, even if they are beyond kindergarten age, may have variations in their experience of formal schooling in their country of prior residence; so too with migrant students living in the United States.
• Language status. Students may be monolingual, speaking only a language other than English; bilingual, speaking two languages other than English; emergent bilinguals, developing English as they continue to expand their competence in their already established first language; or they may be multilingual, speaking several languages other than English.
• Exposure to English. Because of their varying background circumstances, time in the United States, and time in school, students will have different levels of exposure to English.
• Ethnic heritage. Students may be members of different ethnic groups and, as such, represent differences in ancestry, culture, and, of course, language.
• Developmental differences. It is axiomatic that ELLs will not develop in their language or content learning at the same rate or the same pace or in the same way.
What this list tells us is that no two ELLs are the same. They bring to the classroom diverse experiences, interests, and languages. It follows then that a one-size-fits-all approach to supporting ELLs’ learning will not meet the needs of all students. While the goals for ELLs are equivalent to those for their English-proficient peers—reaching high standards set forth in the new standards—their pathways to attaining the standards may not be. ELL teachers are sensitive and responsive to who their students are, to the resources they bring to the classroom, and to how their students’ learning of content, analytical practices, and language is developing day-by-day in the classroom. Only this kind of sensitivity and responsiveness brings about the successful accomplishment of learning for ELLs in the nation’s classrooms.
Let us now turn to an example of a classroom where the teacher’s practice corresponds to the reformulation of pedagogy in which learning content, analytical practices, and language occur simultaneously. In this classroom, which includes a range of ELL students, assessment is integrated into ongoing teaching and learning.18
. . .
Learning Science Content, Analytical Practices, and Language Together
The third-grade students, all from economically poor backgrounds, are mostly designated ELL and have varying levels of English language proficiency. Some students have very little English yet; others’ English is more developed; and still others are well on their way to becoming very competent English users. Some students are new to the United States, while others have been born to recent immigrant families. All the students who entered kindergarten at the school began as non-English speakers. Since kindergarten, the approach of all their teachers has been to develop content learning, analytical practices, and language simultaneously. As you will see, the rate of language growth for many students has been very fast.
Throughout this vignette, notice how language learning is not regarded as an individual endeavor, and how the students receive many invitations to engage with each other and their teacher to use and develop their English language skills through purposeful communicative activities in content-area learning. In a real sense the students are apprentices in learning language and content together. Apprenticeship involves learning target skills in a social context, a community of learners in this case. Apprentices also learn through modeling, with appropriate support when needed, and coaching, which we will see in the vignette.19
Notice, too, the participant structures that the teacher has established. Students are provided with many opportunities to engage in discourse and have been taught how to participate in the discourse practices of the classroom, listening carefully to their peers, building on each other’s ideas, and giving constructive feedback. The classroom is characterized by notions of joint responsibility for the learning of all students as well as the responsibility individuals have for their own learning.20 In this classroom, students are supported to adopt the stance of generativity and autonomy. In other words, students are developing the skills to support their own learning by using independently what they have learned in the context of engaging with peers and the teacher within a well-structured classroom community.21
Notice also how the teacher supports her students’ language learning through specific pedagogical approaches. She very deliberately models the language she wishes her students to acquire; she provides formulaic expressions—chunks of language the ELLs learn as a unit that enable them to participate in interactions; and she offers prompts and feedback to support language and content learning.22
And finally, pay attention to how the teacher engages in ongoing assessment of her students and helps them to undertake both peer and self-assessment.
Research Study on Desert Cactuses
The purpose of the students’ research study is to support the class’s science focus for the quarter and to contribute to the students’ developing understanding that organisms “have both internal and external structures that allow for growth, survival, behavior and reproduction.”23 In addition to the science focus, their teacher, Ms. Cardenas, has identified several Common Core ELA standards that she wishes to address in this research project.24 These include:
Key Ideas and Details
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.1: Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.
Craft and Structure
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.5: Use text features and search tools (e.g., key words, sidebars, hyperlinks) to locate information relevant to a given topic efficiently.
Writing
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.7: Conduct short research projects that build knowledge about a topic.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.8: Recall information from experiences or gather information from print and digital sources; take brief notes on sources and sort evidence into provided categories.
Speaking and Listening
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.3.4: Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace.
Preparation