Beyond Conversational: Supporting Long-Term English Learners (LTELs)

Welcome to your Morning Boost, brought to you by AWB Education. Here we amplify knowledge, widen reach, and broaden impact in education, delivering your daily dose of professional development. This program is sponsored by Grundmeyer Leader Services, where together we are transforming education, one leader at a time. Now get ready to amplify your day with your Morning Boost. Good morning, Welcome to your Morning Boost. My name is Melissa Grinstead and I'm the lead ESAUL contributor at AWB Education. Back as your host today and looking forward to providing you a tipper trick today as you work towards your mission of serving elidentified students. So today we are going to talk about long term English learners that are often called el tel's. So these are kind of a group of els that we often overlook. They've been learning English for several years, more than five, yet they still haven't reached the proficiency levels expected for their grade. It's important to understand that this is not about intelligence. These students are capable, just as capable as their native English speaking peers. Where their challenge lies is really in the fact that language acquisition is complex and they may have specific needs that just haven't been fully addressed yet. So when we think about l tells and the common challenges that they face, I think one of the biggest lens is simply that they're proficient enough to sort of fly under the radar and get by, but they have some unique needs that need some explicit instruction and strategies to address that. Sometimes we just don't get around too because we're really mobilizing all of our troops, so to speak, to our newcomer and emerging eels. So that's definitely a contributing factor to some of that stagnation that we see. Some of these l tells may have just received inconsistent or inadequate English language instruction. Often what we notice is that their instruction may have been rooted in more conversational and they've gotten really proficient at that, but there's some gaps in their academic language and they haven't necessarily received that explicit instruction in that area, and that's really where some of those gaps will come, and their ability to access content like in classes like science and math. And then often we do see some social emotional challenges as well. Some of our l tells report feeling frustrated or discouraged by their lack of progress you know, I'll hear them say like, why am I still and identified English learner? I've been doing this for years. I you know, can talk to all my teachers and friends, no problem. What's the deal? Kind of that sort of sentiment. So they've got some unique challenges that they face. So when we think about how to best support our l tels, I think, first of all, there is no we don't necessarily identify them explicitly with any sort of formal assessment. Right, we just know they've been an English learner for more than five years, they're an l TELL. But we really need to go beyond that and kind of dive into their specific language skills and identify where are their strengths, where are their weaknesses. Is there a specific domain that's holding them back? You know, where is the root of maybe their weakness that we can specifically target, And then finding that time and intentionality to provide that targeted instruction is going to be crucial. Often that's going to me that they need explicit instruction in like I said, that academic vocabulary, maybe it's grammar or language structures, and that needs to happen alongside their content area instruction. Right, and then on top of that, we need to continue to provide them that supportive and inclusive classroom environment where they feel that their needs are met and that they are encouraged and lifted up and ready to take on those challenges in the areas that they need to work on. I think, just like any of our English learners, it's important not to discount the power in using visuals or reality to help our l tels with some of those more abstract concepts. I think sometimes we assume that those strategies are just appropriate for emerging level or newcomer yels, that all of our eels, and I would argue all of our students can benefit from some of that support as well, particularly when concepts are more abstract, right, I think we need to remember to use those sentence frames and graphic organizers whenever we're asking our l tels to show us what they understand in writing. Sometimes it's just that barrier of how do I organize my writing or how I know what I need to say, but I don't know how to start it. That kind of a feeling that impedes our ltels from being able to show us what they know and understand. I think it can't be lost on us that those collaborative learning activities where students have the opportunities to interact with peers and practice their language skills as their discussing content, are going to be super powerful. And then again, anytime that we can incorporate students' native languages into our instruction, whether that's helping to reinforce a concept by helping students pair an academic vocabulary term with maybe what it is in their native language. Anytime we can leverage that, that's going to be super helpful as well. I think lastly too, we can't discount that family piece is important. So we talked about that with our life students, right with our ltels, getting in contact with families, understanding their backgrounds, what are their hopes and their dreams for their kiddos, what challenges might they see that they're facing. Anytime that we can really reinforce that whole child picture, it's going to help us be better equipped to support our students where they are at. So that is your Morning Boost for today. Thank you for listening. I hope that this was helpful and we will talk again tomorrow. That concludes another episode of your Morning Boost. We hope today's daily dose of professional development helps you amplify knowledge, wide in reach, and broaden impact. Your Morning Boost is an AWB Education production brought to you with the generous support of Grundmeier Leader Services. Join us again tomorrow for more. Until then, keep boosting your impact.