Notes on the Matter of Isolated LEP Students in the Public School Classroom
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Or: What am I supposed to do with an ESL student?
To more fully empathize with the LEP student, the best preparation a teacher could have is a significant
experience living in a foreign country and learning a foreign language -- which is not the same as taking a foreign
language in college and vacationing in exotic lands.
Traveling and immigrating are matters of entirely different substance. Suffice it to say that living in a foreign land,
surrounded by foreign language and customs, is stressful. Consider, too, that children are most often involuntary
immigrants. They have been uprooted and relocated. How do empathetic teachers approach students who are
experiencing stress? Your answer to that is a good starting point for how to approach an LEP student.
Most schools in the southern Adirondack region have only a few ESL students enrolled at a time. It is not unusual
in this area for a teacher's entire career to pass without encountering a student with significantly limited English
proficiency.
What I have to say at the outset may seem rather obvious. But sometimes stating the obvious (ESL kids are
individuals like every other kid) is needed more than exploration into the obscure (ESL kids come from foreign
cultures).
A student with limited English language proficiency, like every other student, for better or for worse, comes with:
Personal habits
Personality traits, attitudes, and personal character
An orientation to studying and learning born of the home environment
School teachers are presumably already qualified, trained and experienced in working with a broad spectrum of
student personality types, attitudes, and backgrounds. The value of interpersonal skills cannot be overestimated.
A teacher of English as a second language doesn't necessarily have any special insight in this regard. The
biggest part of intercultural communication is interpersonal communication. Communication is colored largely by
the chemistry of personalities -- the teacher's as well as the student's.
The question is: How does limited English proficiency and cross-cultural living affect the student you are
concerned about, and what can you do to help?
Virtually everyone who has learned a foreign language in the home country, and who has later visited the country
where the language is spoken, remarks: "I can usually understand when someone talks directly to me, but I can't
understand a thing when they talk to each other." In one regard, this is because native speech is fast and fluid;
language is spoken in connected chunks, e.g., jyaeatlunchyet? (Did you eat lunch yet?). Yet the largest part of a
foreign language is learned at the level of isolated words. Implications for speaking with ELLs: Slow down, speak
clearly, and choose the commonest words and phrases.
Cross-cultural living and foreign language learning teach one a sense of what are the most repeated words and
phrases, and what constitutes a basic pool of linguistic knowledge -- what a foreigner would implicitly be expected
to understand. Without such experience, expectations of what an ELL will know and not know are problematic.
Idioms are one of the most difficult aspects of foreign language communication. Consider that:
call it a day
keep a straight face
out on a limb
on thin ice
field day
piece of cake
fit the bill
... and hundreds of other "common" expressions are not self-explanatory. Being alert to idioms, and modifying
your speech, e.g.:
stop instead of call it a day
don't laugh instead of keep a straight face
in trouble instead of out on a limb, on thin ice
easy instead of field day, piece of cake
suitable instead of fit the bill
...may be more readily understood by an ELL. Practice circumlocution.
In any case, communication shouldn't stand or fall by the understanding of one word. You may be just as
surprised at what a learner knows as what a learner does not know. If you think a word is "too hard" for an ELL,
give it a try anyway. (For example, I found that English language students in China seemed universally to have a
penchant for the word "suitable" -- as it turns out, it is the translation of a very common phrase in Chinese).
Some terms:
ESL - English as Second Language
EFL - English as a Foreign Language
LEP - Limited English Proficient
ELL - English Language Learner
What causes some people to panic when confronted with someone who does not speak their language is the
notion that spoken language is everything in face to face communication. In fact, it is only a part, albeit a big part.
Apart from the verbal code, communication also takes place in a rich, nonlinguistic context -- nonverbal
communication. The game of charades, for example, forces the player to summon every possible mode of
communication short of actually speaking -- posture, gesture, facial expression, miming, etc. Speaking with an
LEP student, of course, is not a game of exaggerated charades, but the point is, when the subtleties of spoken
language cannot be relied upon, there is still the whole realm of nonverbal communication to work with. A couple
of points to keep in mind here are:
- Volume and tone of voice communicate: Even if someone doesn't understand your language, a mood or attitude
is conveyed in the way you speak. Don't shout. Don't use a patronizing tone. Don't attempt to speak your own
version of "broken English" thinking that will be more easily understood.
- Context communicates: Slow down, step back, and consider the possible understandings that might be
construed from the situation. For instance, as you speak, where do you direct your eyes? What is your body
doing? Could you be sending out mixed nonverbal messages?
LEP students are at various levels of proficiency ranging from almost no English to a high degree of fluency. Even
with extensive experience, it is often a challenge for a teacher to gauge a student's proficiency level. The only
general advice I can offer on this front is: Pay attention to feedback. How does the student respond to what you
say? Make eye contact (don't expect the student to make eye contact with you) and pause for nonverbal
comprehension checks. It is not necessary to say "Do you understand me?" after every sentence. This is more
likely to create anxiety and annoyance than anything else.
What makes gauging proficiency based on student response difficult is that some ELLs enthusiastically respond
in the positive to everything you say, and some barely make a response, regardless of their level of
understanding. As noted above, interacting with an LEP student is like interacting with any other student --
personality may be the largest part (matters of culture are usually best left to persons trained in that subject).
The brutal fact is that our educational system progresses at a predetermined pace with the English language as
the medium of instruction. A teacher has the formidable task of keeping instruction in pace with the curriculum.
For our purposes here, I want to emphasize the role of the student in English language learning. The later an
immigrant student enters the school system, and the less English that student has, the harder it will be for the
student, and the less are the chances of attaining grade level. The ESL student's task in this regard is as arduous
as even the most modest success is admirable.
LEP students, like others in the minority who cannot keep up the pace, require help that the classroom teacher
usually doesn't have time to give. That's where ESL services come in.
Basically, the overarching goal of ESL services in the region covered by WSWHE BOCES is to assist in
mainstreaming LEP students, in contrast to providing bilingual programs or materials. The primary goal of ESL
instruction, therefore, is to teach English language.
Given time and resource constraints, the ESL teacher assists the student in any way deemed useful in raising the
English proficiency level, with an eye toward academic engagement. ESL services may vary as much as the
language proficiency levels, grade levels, intellectual endowments, and personalities of the students involved.
I cannot advise a teacher on the matter of grading an LEP student in academic subjects. This is a matter of
school policy, so I'd say ask the principal or superintendent. (The New York State Education Department has
many mandates, stipulations and accommodations to which I would refer administrators in setting up a
freestanding ESL program -- see links to NYSED at the bottom of this page).
In conclusion, we have questions of expectations within time constraints:
Q: How much of what is done in class can I expect the LEP student to comprehend?
A: The bottom line is, when one ELL enters your classroom, you are not expected to modify your entire teaching
approach. Following the general principles I have discussed, try to establish empathy with the student. Help the
student in the measure the student needs (and wants) help given the myriad variables and constraints as already
noted. This is not exactly a matter of "going with your gut," but it involves the humanness and interpersonal skills
that are the standard domain of teaching.
Q: How much time will it take to bring the student up to grade level?
A: This, of course, depends on proficiency level and age. If a student works hard, gets support at home, and has
ESL support at school, there is a chance an ELL can attain grade level, if only near the margins. Look at the
glass as half full rather than half empty.
Q: How much of the assigned work should I expect the student to complete?
A: Having established empathy with a student, I think a teacher can tell how much effort a student is putting into
the assignments. Modifications can be made according to what an ELL can reasonably be expected to
accomplish, but again, I appeal to your teacherly sensitivities.
Q: What about cultural differences?
A: I would advise anyone who hasn't spent a number of years living in a student's country of origin to suspend all
judgements about what might be cultural differences and instead think in terms of personal differences. One's
perception of a "culture" is by definition a fictional representation, and no individual is a representative of that
fiction in whole or in part. There is no harm in treating with grace and respect a student's "cultural" peculiarities as
personal idiosyncrasies; this is how we should treat each other, after all.
Here is a link to a useful website with
answers to frequently asked questions
concerning ESL/LEP students in New
York State. (The answers don't
necessarily reflect my personal views.)