Are Teachers of English Learners Equally Effective at Promoting Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing?

• In Event: 26.048 - Which Policies and Practices Promote Improved Outcomes for English Learners? Evidence From Large-Scale Quantitative Studies

Abstract

English language learners (ELLs) are a student subgroup that is growing as a percentage of U.S. students and faces acute educational challenges related to learning a language and academic content in tandem (Parrish et al., 2006; Rumberger & Gándara, 2004). Despite growing emphasis on educating ELLs in U.S. school systems and policy, little research examines whether teachers are differentially effective with this subgroup. This omission is troubling given research showing that ELLs face unique learning challenges requiring specialized instruction. First, studies demonstrate that learning English involves developing not only reading skills assessed by most standardized tests, but also listening, speaking, and writing skills (Hakuta, Butler, & Witt, 2000). As a result, developing fluency in English is a process that can take many years (Hakuta, et al., 2000). Second, the instructional strategies used to effectively teach reading and writing might look much different than for listening and speaking, the latter two skills requiring noisier, more participatory classrooms (Rossiter, Derwing, Manimtim, & Thomson, 2010).

This omission in the teacher effectiveness literature is especially pronounced in research using teacher value added (TVA), a method designed to estimate teacher efficacy popularized by its ability to help control for the non-random sorting of students to teachers. With one exception (Loeb, Soland, & Fox, 2014), TVA research ignores the subtleties of English language acquisition and instruction, an omission that is disconcerting for several reasons. For one, research shows that TVA estimates based on different assessments can produce substantively different results, even when those tests are meant to measure roughly the same construct (Lockwood et al., 2007; Papay, 2011). In the context of measuring effectiveness with ELLs, these results could suggest that teachers considered to be effective in raising reading achievement based on academic assessments used for accountability purposes may not be the same teachers deemed effective on an English language development reading test, let alone assessments of listening, speaking, and writing. For another, ignoring these subtleties could have practical implications for teachers. Many school systems now use TVA to make decisions about teacher retention, promotion, and remediation. Perhaps, school systems are unwittingly remediating or even releasing teachers who do not have high TVA scores using academic tests of reading and math, but are actually quite good at generating student gains in English language development.

This paper helps close this gap by estimating TVA using an English language development test with subscales for reading, writing, and listening/speaking, then comparing those estimates to ones based only on standardized reading tests. Specifically, this study asks the following questions: (1) Are teachers differentially effective at teaching speaking, listening, reading, and writing? (2) Are teachers who are effective in improving academic reading skills the same who improve the more rudimentary reading skills tested on English language development assessments? (3) Are differences in teacher effectiveness stable across years, or are differences due to measurement error? Initial results show that teacher effectiveness differs significantly across listening, speaking, reading, and writing, but most of these differences are due to measurement error.

Author

• James Soland, Kingsbury Center at NWEA