Why Must I Do This? The Drawbacks, Benefits and Challenges with EL Inclusion and the Impetus for General Educator Preparation in EL Inclusion

Chapter Aims and Topics

• Discuss the history and rationale for English learner (EL) inclusion and general educator preparation.

• Describe EL inclusion.

• Detail the benefits of EL inclusion.

• Reveal the impact of changes to demographics and the educational landscape on teachers' instruction and preparation.

• Depict the current preparation of general educators to include ELs into their courses.

• Deliberate the rationale for the inclusion of ELs into general education courses.

• Highlight educators' concerns regarding EL inclusion.

• Delineate the challenges to teacher preparation for EL inclusion.

History and Rationale for General Educator Preparation in EL Inclusion

Efforts to provide children with the least restrictive learning environment have been labelled the 'inclusion movement' and are realised by including all learners into the general education classroom despite their unique needs (e.g. special needs or English language learner [ELL]). The inclusion movement is an outgrowth of the civil rights movement of social equity and desegregation, making all public school classrooms accessible to minority populations of individuals of colour, individuals with special needs (i.e. physical, emotional, behavioural and cognitive differences) and individuals from linguistically diverse home environments. Most people think of the 1960s as the peak of civil rights work and influential educational law suits, such as Lau vs. Nichols (1974) in the US, but such laws did not come into effect until the 1970s. A sea change occurred during that time to permanently alter the educational landscape and laws were implemented to address issues of equality based on race, gender, class and ablism (Education for All Handicapped Children Act, 1975; Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 1997; the Lau Remedies, 1975; the Equal Opportunities Act, 1974) (Platt et al., 2003). Advances in EL inclusion accompanied the inclusion movement of learners with special needs (Westby et al., 1994). According to Reeves (2006: 132), the inclusion movement and 'universal access' gained popular acceptance also due to the standards and accountability movements of the 1990s. Philosophically, then, equal access for all learners by providing the least restrictive academic environment possible became the norm.

The resulting open access differentiates the US public school policy, and several other Western countries' school policy, from public schools in many other countries of the world. In many countries, such as Peru and Ukraine, students who do not speak the majority language are frequently excluded from educational opportunities or they must learn the language of instruction independently prior to accessing the educational system. Imagine if you and your family were sent to work in Peru, but your children were not allowed to attend school since they did not speak Spanish at all or not enough to participate actively in schooling.

The US has experienced dramatically increased enrolments of ELs in the last 20 years. Along with these increased enrolments, there has been a shift in the location and diversity of EL enrolments. No longer are ELs and their families living only on the coasts and in the south-west or Florida (NCELA, 2010). Ramirez (2007: 47) noted, 'Most of them [ELs] are in border states in the Southwest, but the fastest growth recently has been in the Carolinas, Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee. They are seeking more opportunities (i.e., pull-factors, such as jobs, affordable housing, and community attitudes) and migrating into areas that have not seen much in the way of immigration for decades. Furthermore, in Fairfax County, Virginia, public "schools serve 21,000 students who speak more than 140 languages"'. When working with current populations of ELs, teachers must be mindful of the diversity of home languages and cultures. For example, many educators think that EL educators work with Spanish speakers from Mexico. In reality, ELs come from all over Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. There is even more complexity in these descriptions too. For example, the 'Mexican' child may have been born in the US and might not be highly proficient in Spanish or his/her native Quechan. It is important that teachers working with ELs have positive attitudes and dispositions about working with learners from the world over.

Various educational systems, teachers, aids, reading specialists and administrators are being asked to include more diverse learners in areas where the systems are new to these changes. In differing states, political debates continually make headlines over immigration policy or access to public schools based on residency status. With all these changes, educators are expected to stretch their skills and dispositions in new directions.

What does EL Inclusion Look Like?

There are several realisations of inclusive classrooms, including 'full inclusion' in which the language learner is present in the general education class for the entire day with or without the assistance of a trained general educator, English as a second language (ESL) educator or paraprofessional (Harper & de Jong, 2004; Turnbull et al., 1995). When the learner is placed in a general education class with no support either in the class from an ESL-trained general educator or ESL/bilingual support staff or from pull-out tutorials, the realisation is called 'sink or swim'. ELs without any language clarity or language learning assistance will tune out, shut down and fail or they will seek to overcome the language barrier and thrive.

Imagine coming to a new country with your family. Everything is new, exciting and scary. You go to school and are placed in a classroom with children who do not speak your language. Your teacher cannot even communicate with you. In class, the teacher explains things, but you do not understand a word. You are given a paper to work on, but you cannot figure out what to do with it and you do not have the words or concepts to complete the assignment. What would you do in this environment day after day?

When an EL is fully included into the general education class with support for the majority of the day, it is considered full inclusion (aka push-in). In a general education class of this type, the general educator may be the sole teacher, might co-teach with an ESL teacher or have the support of an ESL teacher or bilingual education assistant. In the co-teaching situation, both the general educator and the ESL teacher might collaboratively plan with each one teaching a segment of the content or the ESL teacher might have no planning or instructional role other than support and clarification. Support in this instance might entail explaining the concept in easier language, defining, giving examples and teaching enabling concepts or skills, among other supports.

In a full inclusion environment, the roles of the content teacher and support personnel are adjustable. Imagine a scenario in which the content expert and the language expert have the opportunity to plan their lessons with each facilitating part of the lesson to all the learners. Now, compare that to the scenario of the content expert solely planning and delivering content information. And finally, compare those two scenarios to one in which the content expert plans and delivers the material without collaboration, but has the benefit of an ESL teacher or bilingual aide to help explain, clarify and/or elaborate for the ELs during the lesson.

Another realisation is 'partial inclusion' in which the learner is placed into the general education class for part of the day and withdrawn during a class or two. Learners can be pulled out for one-on-one work with an ESL teacher or for an ESL-specific lesson with a small group. During these individual pull-out sessions, ELs are supposed to be taught language and subject matter concepts. However, one-on-one sessions often turn into tutoring, because the learner(s) are behind in their academic work. In individual pull-out sessions, ESL teachers try to provide the concepts and skills that the learners need in order to be successful when they return to the general education class. For example, the learner might be learning how to write simple declarative sentences in the present tense or to read and understand a history textbook description by identifying key adjectives and using word attack strategies to figure out the new words.

When there are several or many ELs who are at the same grade level and who need similar second language concepts, they are often removed from the general education class and grouped together for formal instruction. This realisation of a pull-out session is a sheltered content class with all the ELs learning the same content topic for a course period (Reeves, 2006). For example, all fifth-grade ELs might be scheduled to attend one class of history that has been modified to teach them the history and the language in a more approachable way.

Another approach to providing ELs with the language support they need is programmes in which they spend no time or limited time in the general education course. ELs might have similar schedules to their native-speaking peers, but in classes of only ELs. The standards and the content are roughly the same, but ELs would be taught language-specific information along with the academic content. In these programmes, it is considered good practice to integrate ELs into the specialty courses (e.g. art, music and physical education) with their peers in order to decrease the social marginalisation of ELs, facilitate friendships and language with native-speaking peers and bolster the self-esteem of ELs. Stand-alone, sheltered content classes (Echevarria & Graves, 2011) are not typically considered inclusive if the focus is on core content subjects, such as math, science, social studies/history or English language arts/literature, because they exclusively serve ELLs. These classes provide a 'shelter' from the general education classes by specifically adapting language and content instruction for ELs. Sheltered content classes are usual in areas with high numbers of language learners (i.e. high incidence areas. Unfortunately, providing a shelter also has negatives, such as social marginalisation and stigmatisation of those learning the language. Inclusion into the specialty courses does not always accomplish the aforementioned goals; oftentimes, there is no social bridge for the ELs in those environments. See Chapter 10 for more information on each programme design.

Although sheltered content classes have their merits, the drawbacks are equally as important. Proponents of inclusion (against sheltered content stand-alone classes) note the marginalisation and isolation of ELs from their grade-level peers and fret about the possible loss of academic content when language is a joint focus of the class time.

What Benefits does Inclusion Afford ELs?

ELs benefit in terms of academic and second language learning and socialisation when they are included effectively in the mainstream, general education classroom. First, if ELs are included successfully into the general education classroom, they have access to the grade-level content material provided by a content expert, the general education teacher (Fearon, 2008; Reeves, 2006). When the general education teacher is cognisant of creating rich linguistic and interactive experiences for the learners, they can provide a model for language use and an abundant source of comprehensible input in social and academic language (Cummins, 1979, 1980, 1992) and negotiated language with the learners.

Second, ELs are integrated into the classroom learning so they collaborate with grade-level peers (Chen, 2009; Duke & Mabbott, 2001; Nordmeyer, 2008; Nordmeyer & Barduhn, 2010). This collaboration can offer even more linguistic input in social and academic language (Cummins, 1979, 1980, 1992) and allow students to develop friendships. When collaborating on learning activities, all students would then encounter realistic diverse environments similar to what they will experience in their work and lives outside the classroom. The hope is that this interaction with peers will increase opportunities for cross-cultural understandings among students, develop social relationships and reduce the marginalisation of non-native English speakers.

Chamot (2009) shared three other benefits to ELs when they learn content and language simultaneously. She indicated that when learners study language through content topics and instruction, they acquire new content information that keeps them on track with grade-level expectations. Students are also learning academic language (Cummins, 1979, 1980, 1992) in context, so they can, '... practice the language functions and skills needed to understand discuss, and read and write about the concepts developed' (Cummins, 1979: 20). ELs tend to be more motivated to learn content as opposed to studying grammar and vocabulary in abstract and disconnected ways. They learn how the language is used in academic settings, so they are motivated to engage with the material.

Society benefits when ELs are properly served in our schools. Not only are we preparing all learners to participate in our diverse society as adults, we are overcoming fears and prejudices and creating a healthier society in the process (Hurtado, 2001; McClain, 2008). We are helping communities by educating bilingual learners to fill business, service and educational roles in our communities that help us maintain a national competitive edge. All societies need innovators and critical and creative thinkers to envision the next technological revolution, such as the internet. We do not know from where this new vision will come; when we reach out and invest in our diverse learners, we are expanding our future possibilities. If we exclude them, underserve them, we are short-circuiting the possibilities for future innovations.

We also empower learners to succeed in life so as to be productive members of our communities. ELs tend to be at higher risks of dropping out and/or performing poorly in school and on standardised tests than other students (August & Hakuta, 1997; Crawford, 2004; Gándara & Baca, 2008). Studies show that ELs drop out at dramatically higher rates than other groups due to overwhelming educational challenges such as literacy and interrupted schooling, and personal obstacles such as poverty (Bennici & Strang, 1995; Echevarria et al., 2006; Fry, 2008; New York Immigration Coalition, 2008; Snow & Biancarosa, 2003). Echevarria et al. (2006) summarised research on dropout rates.

A recent study of high school attrition in Texas (Johnson, 2004) showed that 49% of Hispanic students who were ninth graders in 2000–2001 left high school before graduation, compared with only 22% of White students. Another study of districts in the South showed similar discrepancies between Hispanic dropout rates and White dropout rates. (Wainer, 2004: 196)

Findings by the NCES (2004) indicated that language minority students (aka ELs) who spoke English with difficulty dropped out at a rate of 51% and ELs who 'spoke English' with some proficiency dropped out at a rate of 31% in comparison with those who spoke English as 'native speakers' who dropped out at a rate of 10%. In the NCES report for 2012, researchers found that Hispanics who were foreign born dropped out at 31% while the native-born Hispanics' dropout rate was 10%, which yielded an average of 16%.

The successful inclusion of ELs into the general education classroom when educators collaborate has also been shown to create learning environments conducive to success for all the students (Duke & Mabbott, 2001). One reason for this success is the enhanced and concerted co-planning of lessons (Brice et al., 2006), which helps educators who have specific areas of expertise based on their teacher preparation that oftentimes exclude the knowledge of second language acquisition. Brice et al. (2006) state, '... students in ELL classrooms, speech and language or special education classrooms, and general education classrooms all benefit from more lesson planning and co-planning with other school professionals'. Another reason is the depth of content learning and time spent, as noted earlier. According to Simons (2008), 'Inclusion can ease the burden of lesson planning for the teachers. Sharing ideas with each other while creating content and language objectives and activities can solidify lessons (Coltrane, 2002)'.

How are these Changes Affecting Teachers' Instruction and Preparation?

The shifts in cultural, social, political, economic and philosophical perspectives over the last 40 years have nearly cemented the practice of inclusion of ELs into the general education (aka mainstream or regular education) classroom (Harper et al., 2007; Platt et al., 2003).