Appendix 5 English as a Second Language students with language difficulties
The Language Support Program (LSP) provides direct assistance to teachers in developing oral language competency in children and in young people to maximise their learning potential. An assumption of the Professional Learning Guide is that both teachers and learners will be operating in Standard Australian English. While the framework and many of the teaching strategies presented in the LSP are consistent with English as a Second Language (ESL) teaching theory and practice, the following additional advice may assist, particularly when you are thinking about targeting appropriate support or intervention for ESL students with language difficulties.
In Victorian government schools, almost 25 per cent of the population is from language backgrounds other than English. An ESL student is defined as being from a language background other than English if the student, their mother, father or care-giver speaks a language other than English at home. ESL students therefore comprise a significant percentage of students in our schools, and a range of support is available to assist you to meet the needs of these students.
Language and learning
As with all learners, ESL students’ general education attainment is the sum of many factors (e.g. socioeconomic situation, physical and intellectual ability or disability, parental expectations, teacher expectations, school structures and organisation, and the nature of the curriculum). In addition, ESL students are bi-lingual or bi-cultural. They bring other experiences to the classroom, such as being migrants, refugees, or students finishing their schooling in an English-speaking country. These experiences all impact on the rate at which individual ESL students learn.
Language and learning are inextricably linked, and success at school for ESL students can be measured by the rate at which students are able to transfer and express their knowledge from their home language to Standard Australian English. Language is both the means by which they demonstrate what they know, and the vehicle through which they learn and refine their understanding of concepts. ESL students are not a homogenous group, and developing competence in English as an ESL student is a long-term process. Students will develop at different rates depending on a range of factors, including the learner’s:
- previous educational experiences
- degree of exposure to and use of English
- similarities and differences between their first language/s or dialects and Standard Australian English
- age and attitude to English and to being an English language user
- the learner’s in-school and out-of-school environment. (Department of Education and Children’s Services 2006, p. 7.) [5]
Support for ESL students
It is important that teachers and coordinators enlist the support of the resources available to best target the language support best suited to individual ESL student needs. The Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) provides a range of resources and other supports that will help you work more effectively with students from language backgrounds other than English.
The English as a Second Language Companion to the Victorian Essential Learning Standards (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority 2005) [30] provides a framework for assessing student achievement and developing effective learning programs for second language learners in Victorian schools. The ESL Companion describes the stages of ESL learning preceding the English standards for students learning English. As ESL students move through the ESL standards, the English standards are likely to become more appropriate for describing their English language learning. ESL students are also likely to require ESL support when they are being assessed against the appropriate English standard.
The learning needs of ESL students will vary according to factors such as their pre-migration experiences. The ESL handbook (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development 2007) [7] will help you in determining and addressing the learning needs of ESL students. The purpose of The ESL handbook is to provide schools with information on:
- policy and funding for ESL programs
- planning and implementing effective ESL programs.
In Victoria, the Department provides funding to government schools for the employment of appropriately qualified ESL teachers and Multicultural Education Aides to staff ESL programs. Multicultural education aides assist with communication between the school and parents of students from language backgrounds other than English. These aides also assist students in the classroom or on a one-to-one basis.
The overwhelming majority of young people from refugee backgrounds enrolling in Victorian schools have experienced some disruption to their education prior to arriving in Australia. Strengthening Outcomes – Refugee Students in Government Schools (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development 2008d) [11] acknowledges that without interventions at a system and a local school level, many students from refugee backgrounds are likely to experience considerable disadvantage and may fail to achieve their educational and social potential.
ESL students with special needs
Identifying ESL students with special needs may present particular challenges for teachers due to a tendency for teachers to view student characteristics and behaviours through the prism of a student’s English language competence. Students may have a physical, neurological or cognitive disability. They may have a learning difficulty or be gifted in one or more ways. There is a risk that these characteristics may be masked by a student’s lack of competence in English and not acknowledged or attended to.
The struggle to learn English may also be misinterpreted as a learning difficulty and therefore lead to inappropriate labelling, lack of appropriate support and possible stigmatising. Teachers need to recognise whether a student’s language and literacy needs relate to ESL factors or to other factors (Department of Education and Children’s Services 2006, p. 7) [5]. Increasingly, assessment procedures for a range of cognitive functions are conducted in a child’s native or home language, giving education professional support staff a more accurate indicator of cognitive functioning than assessment in English. When a correct diagnosis has been made, an appropriate remedial program can be developed.
The Language Support Program offers effective interventions designed for native English speakers. Many of these interventions may also be beneficial for young ESL students, with the caveat that classroom materials may need to be amended and scaffolded for ESL learners.