Linguicism and ELL Learners Essay

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Linguicism and Its Implications for Assessing English Language Learners (ELL) For Suspected Disabilities

(a) Define The Term Linguicism And Explain It In Your Own Words,

Throughout the 1980s, a period of language conservatism resurfaced, with federal officials giving up their proactive position and advocating more decision making be moved to local control. The 1980s in addition saw the increase of the official English or English-only movement, which sparked the contemporary debate around the language and which shaped new tensions for educators teaching linguistically assorted students (Banks, 2006). During the 1990s, the sociopolitical environment became openly antagonistic toward the linguistic rights of non-English speakers with the passage of California Proposition 227 (Doppen & Tesar, 2008). The California proposition made sure that all children be placed in English-language classrooms, despite their English-language ability. Non-English-speaking, immigrant children were permitted to participate in ESL classes for 1 year (180 school days). The proposition's objective was to get rid of bilingual education for linguistically diverse children (Epstein, 2009). Skutnabb-Kangas (1988, 2000) coined the term linguicism to describe language bias and the dissonant dispute over official language.

In my humble opinion though today linguicism is linked with racially and economically subjugated groups, since the turn of this century, linguicism has been used against all languages instead of English. For instance, in the early history of America, German was a language approximately on a par with English and was used in bilingual syllabus during past centuries, however because of the xenophobic policies just before, for the duration of, and after World War I, German-language instruction faded away in the United States (Gibson, 2011).

Linguicism also influences African-American children who may converse in Black English Vernacular (BEV), also called Ebonics (Doppen & Tesar, 2008) or what is progressively being called African-American Language. These have to cope with the weight of the pessimistic stigma attached to the language they converse in. The lingo they bring with them serves as an apparatus that helps them with supplementary language knowledge, just as speakers of Standard English use English to help them learn new languages.

(b) explain how linguicism impacts the education of English Language Learners (ELL),

It is telling that both the 1982 report by Heller, Holtzman, and Messick and the 2002 reports by the National Research Council (NRC) (VanSledright, 2014) on linguicism and the disproportionate representation of ethnic minority students in special education frame issues of disproportional representation in terms of the need to clearly specify the conditions under which disproportionate representation creates problems. The reports deemphasize the extensive focus on various quantitative estimates of minority student overrepresentation (or underrepresented) in different special education categories such as linguicism. Framing the issue this way has special relevance for English-language learners, especially those suspected of having a learning disability. The continuing relevance of some of the conditions specified in the 1982 report, in particular, have held up well over the 20-year period, not only in their contemporary importance but also in the unique ways they affect English-language learners facing rampant linguicism.

Disproportionate representation may be a problem when certain groups of students are inappropriately identified as having a disability they do not, actually, possess. Underlying problems can often be the assessment measures and procedures used and/or subsequent interpretations used for the determination. As many chapters in this book indicate, the linguicism category, more than any other, presents the most controversial and problematic diagnostic challenge. And when the students under scrutiny are English language learners, the challenge is particularly great.

In the VanSledright, 2014 report, the assessment controversy centered on what was then consistent overrepresentation of minority students in the mild mental retardation category, which at that time represented the largest group of students in special education. At issue was the use of intelligence tests with minority students (primarily African-Americans) and related issues having to do with classic notions of test validity (DeNicolo & Franquiz, 2006).

In the report, little was said specifically about assessment issues involving English language learners. In a sense, this is curious in that a major stimulus for national attention turning toward the issue of overrepresentation of ethnic minority students in the mild mental retardation category was the classic research study by Vygotsky, (1978). Her sample included Hispanic as well as African-American students. The key finding in Mercer's study was that many students from ethnic minority groups were diagnosed as educable mentally retarded but were not perceived as disabled, or to have problems functioning successfully, in their homes or communities.

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In other words, they were only perceived "disabled" when they were in school. Mercer questioned the legitimacy of labeling students as mentally retarded given this contradiction. This issue has great relevance for the linguicism category 30 years later. Mercer's sample included both Latino and African-American students (Merino & Scarcella, 2005).

However, major national attention was focused on overrepresentation of African-Americans in special education at that time. The reader needs to recall that 1982 was at the beginning of what has become the largest wave of immigration in the history of the United States, a movement that has dramatically increased the number of English-language learners in the schools (Banks, 2006).

In the 2002 report, the entire assessment system for determining high-incidence disabilities (i.e., learning disabilities, behavior disorders, mild mental retardation) is under attack, especially in the case of learning disabilities. Traditional methods for determining the existence of a learning disability by measuring the discrepancy between ability and achievement has been criticized as conceptually flawed (Epstein, 2009), procedurally cumbersome (DeNicolo & Franquiz, 2006), and largely useless in being able to provide helpful information about potentially effective instructional options (Marston, 1989). These problems are exacerbated when the students being assessed are English-language learners because it is unclear whether low scores on either intelligence or achievement tests are due to actual problems, language difficulties, or unfamiliarity with cultural conventions (Short, 2010).

(c) provide 3 examples of what linguicism might look like in a public school classroom and

1. We now have a reasonably sound research base on critical components for building literacy and avoiding linguicism in the early grades and converging evidence of what approaches prevent reading failure and reduce inappropriate referral into special education (Banks, et al. 2001).

2. We have consistently argued that effective reading instruction principles are directly relevant for teaching reading to English-language learners, although significant modulation and adjustment are required (Banks, et al. 2001). Modulation, for example, would require much greater linkage of vocabulary instruction with word attack and analysis instruction for English-language learners than for native English speakers facing linguicism.

Another focus is the importance of special interventions in the regular classroom to address learning problems, particularly in reading, as early as possible. Both of these issues -- determining rates of academic growth over time as a key criterion of a disability and intervening as early as possible with students experiencing learning problems -- have significant implications for English-language learners.

For native English speakers, these new proposals have an intuitive appeal and there is substantial evidence of student benefit. Essentially, students who enter school with low literacy skills, or who make low rates of literacy growth over time, are considered to be at risk for school failure. As part of the prereferral intervention process, these students are provided with instructional opportunities -- typically more intensity or just more instruction (Erickson & Gutierrez, 2014) which their peers who are not at risk do not receive. By intervening early, the expectation is that many students who would normally not receive help until they experienced sufficient failure to qualify for special education are provided with early assistance that will help them improve their rate of learning and enable them to keep pace with their peers. In this way, a formal referral to special education can be avoided.

But for a large percentage of English-language learners, lower levels of initial English literacy skills can be expected on average because they have not learned English at home the way monolingual English-speaking students have. More important, the very concept of adequate rates of academic growth (at least in English) is largely unknown unless a great deal is known about the proficiency these students have in their native language and in English. In addition, it is important to know about the details of the instructional environment these students experience, which may be very different than that of their native English-speaking peers (Merino & Scarcella, 2005).

Optimal instructional programs for English-language learners, especially when prereferral assessments and interventions are at their most intense for native English speakers, are complex and controversial (Short, 2010). Only in the past 2 years have researchers started to study them, and none of the research is yet complete. Many continue to advocate that native language programs are necessary until a student reaches an adequate level of English-language proficiency. For example, this was the position taken by the National Academy of Sciences report on beginning.....

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