Are We Prepared to Respond Culturally? English Language Learners and the Educational Climate in Southeast Louisiana

• In Event: 18.071 - Roundtable Session 5
  In Roundtable Session: 18.071-3 - Attending to the Gray Among the Black and White: Addressing English Language Learner Needs in Southern Louisiana

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide an illustration of the educational climate at the national and state level with respect to teaching English language learners (ELLs). Set in the context of Southeast Louisiana, specific attention was given to demographics of ELLs, the states current Language Instruction Educational Program (LIEP), unqualified inservice teachers, and lack of teacher preparation programs addressing ELL instruction.

Conceptual framework: Drawing upon Freire’s (1972, 1973, 1978) view of public education, this paper attended to the importance of student cultural identity and teacher preparation emphasized by Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) based on the work of Gay (2010), Nieto et al (2008), Ladson-Billings (1994), and Vavrus (2002).

Methods: The following characteristics of CRT were used to guide this discussion of the current educational climate surrounding ELLs in Southeast Louisiana:
1. Demographics of ELLs – students of color, immigrant children, students from lower socio-economic families
2. Louisiana’s LIEP – developmentally appropriate learning process, making connections between school, home, and cultural background
3. Unqualified Inservice Teachers – student centered, teachers proactively using cultural knowledge and experiences, establishing a caring school climate
4. Teacher Preparation – learn how to create conditions of cultural expression congruent with backgrounds of diverse students, cultural background affects learning and student development (Vavrus, 2008)

Data sources: Data were drawn from state and national databases of demographics, state educational policies, local school district staffing data, and relevant studies and meta-analysis reports.

Results: With respect to the demographics of ELLs, 12,000 are students currently enrolled with most concentrated in urban schools. The region experienced an 80% increase in enrollment of Latino, Arabic, and Asian students over the last ten years. These students are primarily in the lower elementary grades and female. Louisiana primarily uses English-only programs which have been proven to provide the least opportunity for achievement among ELLs. When looking at unqualified inservice teachers, demographics indicated that most teachers were culturally significantly different than the ELLs. Data also revealed that not only were the majority of teachers ill prepared to serve ELLs, many were not supported at the campus and district level. ELLs were also being mislabeled as Special Education when there wasn’t and ELL teacher available. Evidence of preservice teachers being prepared to serve ELLs by the teacher preparation programs in the area revealed that courses required for the state’s ESL/ELL certificate were not offered consistently nor programmatically. Certification in the area of ESL/ELL also did not require an assessment to demonstrate competence.

Significance of the study: Discussions generated from this paper are significant to the achievement gap between English speaking students who are the majority and ELL students who are the minority. There is also a high rate of relevance to the dropout rate based English language proficiency, socioeconomic status, and race/ethnicity. There is also significance with respect to the professional development needs of the inservice teachers who are currently unqualified to teach ELLs. Teacher preparation programs also need to reevaluate their curricula to include courses specific to multicultural education, ELL pedagogy, and language acquisition.

Author

• Estanislado S. Barrera, Louisiana State University