Libertarian traditions appear to have overtaken common sense in the placement of migrant learners in classes. They are usually placed on the basis of their age with their language limitations forgotten. Preliminary findings from a study I am currently involved in suggests that many such placed learners are almost perpetually affected later in their educational lives. In the UK, many learners at further and higher education levels have a history of relocation at a particular age range. What is the situation in your various settings? Do you think class placement should be solely driven by age or should other factors such as linguistic competence play a role?
I can only offer general analysis based on observation of classroom psychology of 13 to 17 year olds in average classrooms. The short answer though is that there is no short or simple answer.
While it seems logical to place ESL students with younger classes (as I assume you advocate), the negative is that in classes other than language (eg science, maths) they will be working on concepts that are possibly too simple for their needs and this will limit their development. In age peer classes they will likely be limited by the language demands as your question implies and so may miss out on the concepts anyway. In both cases they will be limited. Psychologically, depending on their makeup and mindset, being with peers will give them security and goals or make them feel 'dumb', or, with a younger class they could feel out of place or secure in their greater success.
All things considered, they need a system that offers flexibility based on their personal needs. For example, placed with lower grades for all classes but with the clear option for movement into peer classes as soon as it seems fruitful. OR placement with peers for some classes and with lower grades for others based on measured needs etc. Either way, the students themselves need to be engaged in the process of decision making to maximise their motivation and minimise negative psychological implictions.
hi mr Quark,
What I advocate is not to place these learners with those of younger age. rather, I think what they need is a period of catching up in discrete language classes. taking the former option might have psychological effect on some, as they might see it as classifying them as 'failures'. However, letting them have a period of catching up can help avoid the potential fisilization that is almost always inevitable. A period to bring up their linguistic skills while they may be doing some work in the other subject areas that do not require language skills is what I advocate. But then, how many subject areas are not language informed? a14 year old who has not heard 'good morning' talk less utter the phrase suddenly finds himself studying English, History and science in year 10 (4th year of secondary school) simply because his age requires him to be in that class group. What hope of success does this learner have in his final secondary school exam the following year? I say it is a recipe for failure
Dear Gordon,
I am in agreement with concern regarding not only learning the country's national language but also the linguistic skills within the language. In California my home state we have a long history of migrant workers moving from San Diego Cal. up the entirety of the west coast into Washington State and returning back to Mexico. Over the years a system of assessment has been developed in which content understanding and English linguistic skills have been separated into two assessments. As to the content understanding the test are given in Spanish as a way to achieve a better measurement of the students depth and breath of the subject matter.
Secondly these students were as you suggested grouped together as speakers not of age and has had some commendable results. Meaning as a group one class period was spent on learning the language and its grammar and then they broke into their age based grade classrooms.
Third, all the schools on the migration from south to north and back south were connected via the web. In this manor the next school would receive up to the day evaluations of where these students were as to content knowledge's and linguistically.
I hope this may help.
Douglas
Thank you Douglas. Your model appears to be the commonsensical solution. I am afraid, common sense might not be common at all. That is the problem with many policy positions
Douglas, I am impressed by the common sense and humane process. Iy clearly stems from a desire to give equitable treatment to these students. Why do we not do this for all students all the time. In ALL my science classes, there are students who have specific literacy weaknesses not necessarily related to ESL status. They simply have missed significant literacy skills in their schooling for whatever reason. We specifically use whatever processes we can to work around these weaknesses in assessment of concepts by using multimodal, oral, whatever techniques to gather evidence of understanding. We accept that their weaknesses have meaning in terms of a standard but it shouldn't become the main factor in the overall decision. Unfortunately, I don't think this is all that common, especially as a systemic solution as Douglas describes.
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