Unit 5 assignment contract terms template law204 – business l

Unit 5 Assignment Contract Terms Template
LAW204 – Business Law I
Quoted Definition with Citation
Definition (in your own words)
Example
Offer
Acceptance
Bilateral Contract
Unilateral Contract
Promissory Estoppel

References
Annotated Bibliography
Jane Doe
Root, C., (Vol 1, No. 1, April, 1994). A Guided to Learning
Disabilities for the ESL Classroom
Practitioner. Retrieved from http://www.
Idonline.org/article/8765/
A Guide to Learning Disabilities for the ESL Classroom
Practitioner
By Christine Root
This article, A Guide to Learning Disabilities for the ESL
Classroom Practitioner, begins with a statistical information
about the amount of people in the general population with
learning problems. Also, it includes a clinical definition of a
learning disability by Dr. Melvin Levine from the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Based on extensive research by
Martha-Sue Hoffman, the article lists the four categories of
detailed behaviors associated with learning disabilities. Along
with the description of types of learning disabilities, effective
strategies are included that can be implemented into the
classroom environment by the teacher to help improve student
engagement and understanding.
Christine Root provides a well- research article on the
definition of a learning disability as well as the types of
disabilities displayed in students with learning concerns. The
article dispels myths surrounding people with learning problems
and implores teacher not to accept these myths as truths. The
classroom teacher’s responsibility is not to perpetuate student
failure.
Along with defining and describing the various types of
learning disabilities, the article includes research by leaders in
educational research such as Howard Gardner and Betty

Edwards. Learning strategies that focus on bringing out the
strengths of each students are included in the article as well.
These techniques are easy to incorporate into any classroom
routine and instruction. The focus on the article is to ensure
each student is provided every opportunity to be successful
especially in a cultural diverse classroom.
Template for Journal Article Annotated Bibliography
All articles should relate to topics covered class (see Course
Schedule for topics).
Your name should be on the cover sheet of the document and
the title of the assignment should be in the Running Head of
each page (see APA style for formatting requirements). Check
the Online Writing Lab by Perdue (OWL) for any style
questions or ask the GMU librarian. Remember to page number
your paper.
Article Citation
· Citation (APA style):
Summary
Provide a one-two paragraph summary of the article.
· What is the key point of the article?
· What did you find striking or interesting about the key point?
Reflection
Provide your personal response to the article in two or three
paragraphs.
· How specifically will I be able to use the information and
knowledge to improve or enhance my role as an educator of ELs
in terms of approaches, strategies, methods or techniques?

Submit your assignment via Blackboard as one document.
This article was downloaded by: [Temple University Libraries]
On: 25 November 2014, At: 03:10
Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered
Number: 1072954
Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street,
London W1T 3JH,
UK
Critical Inquiry in Language
Studies
Publication details, including instructions for
authors and subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hcil20
When Special Education
Trumps ESL: An Investigation of
Service Delivery for ELLs with
Disabilities
Sara E. N. Kangasa
a Temple University
Published online: 21 Nov 2014.
To cite this article: Sara E. N. Kangas (2014) When Special
Education Trumps ESL: An
Investigation of Service Delivery for ELLs with Disabilities,
Critical Inquiry in Language

Studies, 11:4, 273-306, DOI: 10.1080/15427587.2014.968070
To link to this article:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15427587.2014.968070
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of
all the
information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our
platform.
However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make
no
representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy,
completeness,
or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and
views
expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the
authors, and
are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The
accuracy of the
Content should not be relied upon and should be independently
verified with
primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be
liable for any
losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses,
damages,
and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising
directly or
indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the
use of the
Content.
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hcil20
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.108
0/15427587.2014.968070

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15427587.2014.968070
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private
study purposes.
Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution,
reselling, loan,
sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to
anyone is
expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can
be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
D
ow
nl
oa
de
d
by
[
T
em
pl
e
U
ni
ve
rs

it
y
L
ib
ra
ri
es
]
at
0
3:
10
2
5
N
ov
em
be
r
20
14
http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

WHEN SPECIAL EDUCATION TRUMPS ESL:
AN INVESTIGATION OF SERVICE DELIVERY FOR
ELLS WITH DISABILITIES
SARA E. N. KANGAS
Temple University
Through an ethnographic study of one suburban elementary
school, the delivery
of services to English language learners (ELLs) with disabilities
was
investigated. The data analysis revealed that often disability-
related and
English as a Second Language (ESL) services were in
contention, as
scheduling, teacher expertise, school culture, and ESL program
models often
resulted in the prioritization of services. Consequently, ELLs
with disabilities
were not positioned as learners with Second Language
Acquisition (SLA) and
disability-related learning needs. The findings of this study
indicate the need to
promote a more robust understanding of the legalities of ESL
services for
school personnel and to develop teachers’ knowledge of
pedagogical
approaches for ELLs with disabilities from an interdisciplinary
and integrative
perspective.
English language learners (ELLs), individuals who are in the

process of acquiring English as an additional language, are a
growing and significant student population in many countries
where English is the majority language. For instance, in the
United
States, ELLs are projected to be one-fourth of the student
population by the year 2025 (U.S. Department of Education,
2006). Consequently, English language education is a
profession in
which well-trained practitioners and researchers are in demand
to
meettheneeds oftheselinguisticallyand culturallydiverse
students.
Within the ELL student population, there is a subgroup that
presents profound educational challenges to practitioners—
ELLs
273
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Sara E. N. Kangas,
Doctoral Candidate, Department of Teaching and Learning,
College of Education, Temple
University, Ritter Hall 466, 1301 Cecil B. Moore Avenue,
Philadelphia, PA 19122. E-mail:
[email protected]
Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 11(4):273–306, 2014
Copyright q Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1542-7587 print/1542-7595 online
DOI: 10.1080/15427587.2014.968070
D
ow
nl
oa

de
d
by
[
T
em
pl
e
U
ni
ve
rs
it
y
L
ib
ra
ri
es
]
at
0
3:
10

2
5
N
ov
em
be
r
20
14
mailto:[email protected]
mailto:[email protected]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15427587.2014.968070
with disabilities.1 ELLs with disabilities constitute 8.4% of the
ELLs
in American public schools (Zehler et al., 2003). Yet not only
are
educators today struggling to disentangle second language
acquisition (SLA) from various disabilities, they are also
attempting
to form pedagogical practices that support these students’
multiple
demanding needs whether linguistic, cognitive, behavioral, or
social.
Recently, a growing body of research has emerged on ELLs’
placement into special education, primarily focusing on rates of
referral to special education (Artiles, Rueda, Salazar, &
Higareda,

2005; Samson & Lesaux, 2009), the referral process (Klingner
&
Harry, 2006; Ortiz et al., 2011), and specific literacy
interventions
for these learners (Denton, Wexler, Vaughn, & Bryan, 2008;
Kamps et al., 2007; Viel-Ruma, Houchins, Jolivette, Fredrick, &
Gama, 2010). Ethically, researchers and educators have been
invested in understanding referral processes as a matter of
social
justice to ensure ELLs are not disproportionately represented in
special education. Yet there is an apparent critical need to
consider how schools can provide services to ELLs with
disabilities
that adequately target both their linguistic and disability-related
needs; therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate how
one particular school attempts to provide individualized
services
to meet the educational needs of ELLs with disabilities.
Literature Review
ELLs with disabilities are an underresearched school -age
population, and the limited amount of empirical research
conducted on this population has been rather narrow in focus,
concentrating on only two educational matters. First, extant
research has primarily investigated special education referral
rates
and practices for ELLs, and second, recent studies have
explored
how specific literacy interventions can mitigate poor academic
performance for these learners.
1In this manuscript I use the term ELLs with disabilities instead
of ELLs with special needs,
because the former term is broader, encompassing all
impairments whether physical,

cognitive, or emotional, whereas the latter term typically
connotes that these learners only
have cognitive or learning-based impairments.
S. E. N. Kangas274
D
ow
nl
oa
de
d
by
[
T
em
pl
e
U
ni
ve
rs
it
y
L
ib

ra
ri
es
]
at
0
3:
10
2
5
N
ov
em
be
r
20
14
Referral Rates, Practices, and Determinations
A majority of the research that has been conducted on the
populationofELLswithdisabilitieshasfocusedonreferralratesand
processes with the underlining purpose to promote and to ensure
educational equity for a vulnerable population of learners.
Particularly, disproportionate representation of ELLs in special

education has become an urgent concern. According to De
Valenzuela, Copeland, and Qi (2006), disproportionality in
representation can take two forms—underrepresentation and
overrepresentation. Both are determined in comparison to the
general student population, but in underrepresentation there is a
lower number of a particular group of students in special
education
and in overrepresentation there is a higher number of a
particular
group receiving special education services. As extensively
explored
by Donovan and Cross (2002), racial minority learners have
been
historically disproportionally represented in special education
in the United States. For those who are linguistic minorities,
disproportional representation has also occurred with some
distinct
patterns of representation according to grade level and
disability
category. For instance, in recent years scholars have found
disproportional representation of ELLs in special education by
grade level.Specifically,Samson andLesaux (2009)found
thatELLs
were underrepresented in kindergarten and first grade yet
contrastingly were overrepresented in special education in third
grade across all disability categories. These findings suggest
that
there is a pattern of waiting to refer ELLs for special education
until
ostensibly they had sufficient time to progress academically.
This
inference is corroborated by Ortiz et al. (2011), who found that
ELLs suspected of having a learning disability (LD) were
mostly
referred in second grade and then in third grade, again
suggesting

that there is a notable shift in educators’ expectations of ELLs’
language proficiency; that is, educators surmise that by second
and
third grade ELLs’ poor academic performance is attributed to
the
presenceofadisability,andnotEnglishproficiency.Similarly,Artile
s
etal.(2005)foundthatin severalurbanCalifornianschoolspatterns
ofoverrepresentationemergedaccordingtogradelevel;ELLsinthe
secondary level were overrepresented in the disability
categories of
intellectual disability and learning disability but
underrepresented
in the disability category of speech and language impairment.
Service Delivery for ELLs with Disabilities 275
D
ow
nl
oa
de
d
by
[
T
em
pl
e
U

ni
ve
rs
it
y
L
ib
ra
ri
es
]
at
0
3:
10
2
5
N
ov
em
be
r
20
14

Together, Samson and Lesaux (2009) and Artiles et al. (2005)
indicate that age may be a factor influencing the proportionality
of
ELLs’ representation in special education. These findings l end
supporttoHibeland Jasper’s (2012)recent studywherein
educators
delayed referring ELLs for special education services possibly
for
ELLs to develop further in their second language (L2)
proficiency.
Not only do disproportional representation patterns emerge
according to grade level, but also as delineated in Artiles et al.
(2005), there are apparent patterns in disproportional represen-
tation according to disability category. De Valenzuela et al.
(2006)
in a study of one southwestern American school district found
that
ELLs were overrepresented in special education in the following
disability categories: emotional disturbance, intellectual
disability,
learning disability, and speech-language impairment; however,
they were underrepresented in the developmental disability
category and proportionally represented in the category of
“other
health impairment.” Similarly, ELLs in Indiana were over-
represented for intellectual disabilities and communication
disorders, but despite these patterns of overrepresenta tion,
underrepresentation was more prevalent in the remaining
disability categories (Levinson et al., 2007).
Underrepresentation
draws attention to the reluctance educators may have in

referring
ELLs for special education services, a reluctance based in the
possibility of misdiagnosis, inability to provide bilingual
assess-
ments for referral, reaction from and confusion of parents, and
limitations of staff both in number and expertise.
Overall, disproportionality studies have been narrow in
scope. Klingner et al. (2005) argue that “concern about
disproportionate representation is focused on the ‘judgmental’
categories of special education—those disabilities usually ident-
ified after the child starts school and by school personnel rather
than a medical professional” (p. 3). Although narrow in focus,
research on special education representation is significant in
terms of educational implications, as these studies allude to the
importance of improving referral practices as a preventative
measure against disproportionality.
To date there has been a preponderance of discussion,
speculating about the potential causes of disproportional ELL
representation yet without sufficient empirical inquiry. Klingner
and Harry (2006) conducted an empirical study investigatin g the
S. E. N. Kangas276
D
ow
nl
oa
de
d
by
[

T
em
pl
e
U
ni
ve
rs
it
y
L
ib
ra
ri
es
]
at
0
3:
10
2
5
N
ov

em
be
r
20
14
causes of disproportionality. Through a qualitative study of
educational and placement meetings for 19 academically
struggling ELLs, Klingner and Harry found that for a majority
of the ELLs no prereferral strategies were implemented prior to
testing, and that ELLs were referred on the basis of limited
testing
evidence. Ortiz et al. (2011) likewise found that ELLs suspected
of
having an LD were referred for special education services with
scant evidence. More specifically, for only 10 of the 44 ELLs
studied there was sufficient evidence for the initial referral.
Ortiz
et al. argue that the implementation of the referral process in
one
school district as a whole was not evidence-based and could
have
led to erroneous special education referrals. Ultimately, these
studies indicate that referral to special education should not be
a
result of a single measure (i.e., diagnostic assessments adminis-
tered by school psychologists) but rather a multimeasure
approach that includes formative assessments and ecological
evaluations—an examination of the learning environment.
By doing so, educators avoid immediately locating “the learning

problem” within the child and instead consider how the learning
environment is influential in a student’s academic performance.
In light of the educational equity that is jeopardized by
special education disproportional representation, some scholars
(e.g., Orosco & Klingner, 2010; Ortiz et al., 2011) recommend a
prereferral intervention model known as Response to Interven-
tion (RtI) for ELLs. Unlike the discrepancy system, wherein
students are tested and referred to special education, RtI
“focuses
on intervening early through a multitiered approach where each
tier provides interventions of increasing intensity” (Esparza
Brown & Doolittle, 2008, p. 66). When a student requires
additional support—more than what is provided by the
classroom
teacher—she will then receive targeted small group instruction
aimed at her academic and even behavioral needs (National
Center on Response to Intervention, 2010). For ELLs culturally
responsive pedagogy may also be one approach for targeted
instruction (National Center on Response to Intervention,
2010; Orosco & Klingner, 2010). Only after all feasible
interventions and accommodations have been implemented will
a student go through the referral process. One advantage of this
model is that it is purportedly data-driven (Ortiz et al., 2011),
allowing struggling learners to receive systematic, documented
D
ow
nl
oa
de
d

by
[
T
em
pl
e
U
ni
ve
rs
it
y
L
ib
ra
ri
es
]
at
0
3:
10
2
5

N
ov
em
be
r
20
14
interventions, thereby reducing disproportional representation
in
special education. For example, Kamps et al. (2007)
investigated
ELLs andnative Englishspeakersin first andsecondgrade at risk
of
failure due to reading difficulties. Through both direct and
small
group instruction within the RtI model the experimental group
of
ELLs made significant gains on several assessments, indicating
that
for ELLs with reading difficulties, direct instruction may be an
effective intervention and necessary preceding step before any
consideration of referral for special education.
Despite accolades from scholars, RtI challenges practitioners,
necessitating they provide tailored or differentiated instruction
according to the learners’ heterogeneous needs. Orosco and
Klingner (2010) found that many teachers did not have the
expertise to differentiate instruction for ELLs in particular

when
implementing RtI interventions, suggesting that the touted
referral model can only be effective in preventing
disproportional
representation if educators can properly differentiate instruction
and provide accommodations to ELLs.
Instructional Interventions and Strategies
With the majority of research focusing on special education
referral
matters, consideration of what teachers can actually do in the
classroom with learners who have disability and ELL needs has
been
scarce. Yet some scholars have attempted to address this gap by
investigating specific interventions for ELLs with disabilities.
The
purposeofthesestudiesistoidentifyconcreteinterventionsthatcan
improve academic performance, in particular reading and
writing
for ELLs, especially given the current high-stakes standardized
testing environment in American schools. Literacy interventions
studies have included Denton et al. (2008) who conducted a
study
featuring small group direct instruction for middle school
English-
proficient students and ELLs with severe difficulties in reading
in
either special education or remedial reading classes. The results
of
the study revealed no statistically significant differences
between
the control and experimental groups in several critical aspects
of
reading proficiency, such as fluency, word recognition, and
comprehension. From these results Denton et al. (2008) suggest

that learners require more intense interventions than the daily
S. E. N. Kangas278
D
ow
nl
oa
de
d
by
[
T
em
pl
e
U
ni
ve
rs
it
y
L
ib
ra
ri

es
]
at
0
3:
10
2
5
N
ov
em
be
r
20
14
40-minute sessions provided to those assigned to the
experimental
condition. However, Viel-Ruma (2010) found that writing skills
could be improved through direct instruction for ELLs with
LDs.
Specifically, the results of the multiple-probe across
participants
design (i.e., a study in which intermittent data sets of
participants’

performance are collected throughout the implementation of
interventions) indicated that the three participating high school
ELLs increased correct word sequencing and sentence length in
their writing from the baseline condition.
As demonstrated, the current scope of ELL and disability
research is quite limited. Despite the research conducted on
referral
rates and processes as well as specific literacy-based
interventions, no
empirical research has explored how educators holistically
address
the educational needs of these learners after referral.
Specifically, it
remains unknown not only to what extent but also how
educators
provide instruction and services that target the many complex
and
demanding needs of ELLs with disabilities. This study attempts
to
address this profound gap in literature because as a critical
matter of
educational equity, researchers and educators should not only
care
how ELLs are referred to special education, but what that
education
is like for the learners once they are referred. Therefore,
following
research questions guided the scope of this study:
1. To what extent is there confluence or conflict in providing
English as Second Language (ESL) and disability-related
services2 to ELLs with disabilities?
2. What local institutional factors either promote or hinder
confluence of services relating to disability and SLA?

3. How does the confluence or conflict of ESL and special
education services position ELLs with disabilities?
Theoretical Framework
For the theoretical framework of this study I utilized
positioning
theory (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999). With origins in social
2I use the term disability-related services to describe services
delivered through special
education and services relating to the disability that are not
provided within special
education (e.g., speech language therapy, occupational therapy,
physical therapy).
D
ow
nl
oa
de
d
by
[
T
em
pl
e

U
ni
ve
rs
it
y
L
ib
ra
ri
es
]
at
0
3:
10
2
5
N
ov
em
be
r
20

14
psychology, positioning theory pertains to how identities are
constructed in dynamic spaces. A position, according to Harré
and
van Langenhove, is a combination of characteristics—or more
simply, an identity—assigned to an individual either by the
individual herself or other parties. This assigned identity,
however, is dynamic, influencing future social experiences.
Positioning theory is an expansion of the concept of position to
consider the dynamic manner in which positions can collide,
congeal, develop, transform, etc., as individuals continue to
interact through social relationships. Positioning, more specifi -
cally, occurs through “speaking and acting,” as it is through
these
that “people actively produce social and psychological realities”
(Davies & Harré, 1999, p. 34). That is, an individual ’s actions
and
discourse create not only a position but also a reality.
Although Harré and van Langenhove (1999) conceptualized
five pairs of positioning practices, each comprising two distinct
and
often opposing parts, I will employ as the theoretical lens the
following two pairs: 1) self and other positioning and 2) tacit
and
intentional positioning. Self and other positioning can simply be
understood as either the practice of positioning oneself (i.e.,
self
positioning) or positioning another (i.e., other positioning),
respectively. Second, there is the dichotomous tacit and
intentional

positioning. In tacit positioning the positioning discourse or
action
that occurs is unintentional, whereas in intentional positioning
the
individual performing the positioning is, in fact, deliberate in
her
actions. Applied to this study, I analyzed how the discourse
(i.e., how
schoolpersonneltalktoandaboutthelearners)andactions(i.e.,how
school personnel instruct and provide services to the learners)
other
position ELLs with disabilities during service delivery and how
this
positioningconstructsasocialrealitywithintheclassroomandschool
.
Methods
Site Description
Williams Elementary School3 is located in a suburban town in
Pennsylvania. Williams educates more than 600 students and is
3Pseudonyms are used throughout the study to protect the
identities of the participants.
S. E. N. Kangas280
D
ow
nl
oa
de
d

N
ov
em
be
r
20
14
identified as a Title I school—a designation for schools
receiving
federal assistance based on the percentage of low income
students
per school. The Williams student body is 81% Caucasian, 8%
African American, 8% Asian, and 2% Hispanic, and
significantly
the school district Williams belongs to, Cedar View, has
doubled
its enrollment in the past 10 years. As the school district is
expanding, so have the needs of its students; teachers and
administrators have reported increases in ELLs, bilingual
learners, racial minority learners, and learners from lower
socioeconomic statuses.
More recently, Williams Elementary began instructing all the
elementary-agelearnerswith autismliving withinthe bounds of
the
school district, resulting in a relatively large population of
learners
with disabilities within just one school. In addition to students

with autism, Williams also has learners with learning
disabilities,
speech or language impairments, and orthopedic impairments.
At Williams, 12 students are identified as ELLs, two of which
are
identified as having a disability, while one other ELL is being
monitored for special education referral. The ESL program
models at Williams are both push-in, during which an ESL
teacher
provides support to ELLs during content instruction in the
general
education classroom, and pull-out, when ELLs receive English
language instruction as a small group in a separate classroom.
Overall, the school district administrators prefer the push-in
model, believing that ethically students should not be divided
into
separate learning environments because of differences, whether
linguistic or ability-based. However, when the general
education
and ESL teachers present a case wherein an ELL may perform
better within a pull-out setting, the school district acquiesces.
Participants
To recruit appropriate participants in the study, the Williams
ESL
teacher and I identified potential practitioner participants who
were currently instructing at least one ELL with a disability
with
no restrictions on the subject matter the practitioner instructed.
In total, there were six participating focal practitioners and
paraprofessionals: two mainstream teachers, one ESL teacher,
and one special education teacher and two paraprofessionals

D
ow
nl
oa
de
d
by
[
T
em
pl
e
U
ni
ve
rs
it
y
L
ib
ra
ri
es
]

at
0
3:
10
2
5
N
ov
em
be
r
20
14
specializing in autistic support (see Table 1). Originally, when I
entered the site I considered the role of the paraprofessionals
distinct from the practitioners, yet after several weeks at the
site I
observed that the paraprofessionals in many settings bore a
significant, and in some cases, primary role in teaching. For this
reason, I regarded paraprofessionals and practitioners as
fulfilling
similar roles within the site.
In addition to the six focal practitioners and paraprofes -
sionals, 11 additional school personnel, whom I refer to as key
school professionals, participated in the study. These

individuals—
the school’s speech pathologists, occupational and physical
therapists, specialist teachers (e.g., Spanish, library) principal,
reading specialist, and the district level ESL administrator—
were
not responsible for educating the students on a daily basis but
rather interacted with ELLs with disabilities frequently or could
provide insight about service delivery from an administrative
perspective.
In the school there were only two ELLs with identified
disabilities. These two students were diagnosed with autism or
an
orthopedic impairment. In Mrs. Roberts’ first grade class there
were two female ELLs from India. One learner named Marti is a
L1 Urdu speaker and the other student named Lula is an L1
Bengali speaker (see Table 2). Along with her family, Lula
immigrated to the United States prior to the start of primary
school. Lula often baffles her teachers because of her complex
learning needs; she was diagnosed with an orthopedic impair-
ment, resulting in difficulty in her gross motor skills, such as
walking, coordinating movements, and achieving balance, for
which she receives physical therapy in a pull-out setting.
In addition to having an orthopedic impairment, Lula is being
monitored for a social and emotional disturbance. The ELLs in
Mrs. Roberts’ class, including Lula, receive pull-out ESL
instruction with other first grade ELLs in a separate location
with Mrs. Franks.
In Mrs. Harris’ third grade classroom, there is one ELL who
was diagnosed with autism. Ahmed is a native speaker of Arabic
who arrived to the United States as a first grader two years prior
(see Table 2). Unlike other students in the school with autism,
he
is considered highly functioning. For this reason Ahmed was
placed in an inclusive classroom where an autistic support

S. E. N. Kangas282
D
ow
nl
oa
de
d
by
[
T
em
pl
e
U
ni
ve
rs
it
y
L
ib
ra
ri

es
]
at
0
3:
10
2
5
N
ov
em
be
r
20
14
T
A
B
L
E
1
P
ra
ct
it

io
n
e
r
a
n
d
P
a
ra
p
ro
fe
ss
io
n
a
l
P
ro
fi
le
s
T
ea
ch
er
A
ge
G
ra
d
e

P
ro
fe
ss
io
n
a
l
R
ol
e
S
u
bj
ec
t
Y
ea
rs
T
ea
ch
in
g
S
p
ec
ia
li
za
ti
on

M
rs
.
B
ro
ck
E
a
rl
y
6
0
s
K
-5
P
a
ra
p
ro
fe
ss
io
n
a
l
R
e
a
d
in

g
In
te
rv
e
n
ti
o
n
1
7
E
le
m
e
n
ta
ry
E
d
u
ca
ti
o
n
M
rs
.
F
ra
n
k

s
L
a
te
4
0
s
K
-5
P
ra
ct
it
io
n
e
r
E
S
L
1
1
E
a
rl
y
C
h
il

d
h
o
o
d
E
d
u
ca
ti
o
n
E
S
L
C
e
rt
ifi
ca
ti
o
n
M
s.
G
la
ss
M
id
2
0

s
K
-5
P
ra
ct
it
io
n
e
r
R
e
a
d
in
g
In
te
rv
e
n
ti
o
n
2
S
p
e
ci
a
l

E
d
u
ca
ti
o
n
E
S
L
C
e
rt
ifi
ca
ti
o
n
M
rs
.
H
a
rr
is
M
id
2
0
s
3

P
ra
ct
it
io
n
e
r
G
e
n
e
ra
l
E
d
u
ca
ti
o
n
2
E
le
m
e
n
ta
ry
E
d
u
ca

ti
o
n
M
rs
.
M
o
tt
s
M
id
2
0
s
K
-5
P
a
ra
p
ro
fe
ss
io
n
a
l
A
u

ti
st
ic
S
u
p
p
o
rt
2
S
p
e
ci
a
l
E
d
u
ca
ti
o
n
M
rs
.
R
o
b
e
rt
s

M
id
3
0
s
1
P
ra
ct
it
io
n
e
r
G
e
n
e
ra
l
E
d
u
ca
ti
o
n
1
3
E
le

m
e
n
ta
ry
E
d
u
ca
ti
o
n
D
ow
nl
oa
de
d
by
[
T
em
pl
e
U
ni

ve
rs
it
y
L
ib
ra
ri
es
]
at
0
3:
10
2
5
N
ov
em
be
r
20
14

paraprofessional, Mrs. Motts, pushes into the classroom as
specified by his IEP (Individualized Education Program)4 to
support to him and Jeff, a non-ELL boy with autism.
Additionally,
Ahmed receives reading instruction in a pull-out setting with
either Ms. Glass or Mrs. Brock and push-in ESL services with
Mrs.
Franks and two other ELLs with no disabilities.
All ELLs with disabilities within this study received the ELL
designation after parents indicated on the home language survey
that another language besides English was spoken in the home.
Based on this response, ESL teachers administered the WIDA-
ACCESS(AssessingComprehensionandCommunica tioninEnglish
State-to-State) Placement Test (W-APT), an English language
placement test commonly administered for school-age students.
Data Collection
I conducted an ethnographic case study (i.e., a case study
employing ethnographic methodology) for six …
LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION
IN A GLOBAL WORLD
PRACTICES, ISSUES AND CHALLENGES
No
va
S
cie
nc
e P
ub
lis
hin
g,
Inc
.

Additional books in this series can be found on Nova‘s website
under the Series tab.
Additional e-books in this series can be found on Nova‘s
website
under the e-book tab.
No
va
S
cie
nc
e P
ub
lis
hin
g,
Inc
.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION
IN A GLOBAL WORLD
PRACTICES, ISSUES AND CHALLENGES
LAP TUEN WONG
AND
ADITI DUBEY-JHAVERI
EDITORS

New York
No
va
S
cie
nc
e P
ub
lis
hin
g,
Inc
.
Copyright © 2015 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in
any form or by any means: electronic, electrostatic, magnetic,
tape, mechanical photocopying, recording or
otherwise without the written permission of the Publisher.

We have partnered with Copyright Clearance Center to make it
easy for you to obtain permissions to reuse
content from this publication. Simply navigate to this
publication‘s page on Nova‘s website and locate the
―Get Permission‖ button below the title description. This
button is linked directly to the title‘s permission
page on copyright.com. Alternatively, you can visit
copyright.com and search by title, ISBN, or ISSN.
For further questions about using the service on copyright.c om,
please contact:
Copyright Clearance Center
Phone: +1-(978) 750-8400 Fax: +1-(978) 750-4470 E-mail:
[email protected]
NOTICE TO THE READER
The Publisher has taken reasonable care in the preparation of
this book, but makes no expressed or implied
warranty of any kind and assumes no responsibility for any
errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for
incidental or consequential damages in connection with or
arising out of information contained in this book.
The Publisher shall not be liable for any special, consequential,
or exemplary damages resulting, in whole or

in part, from the readers‘ use of, or reliance upon, this material.
Any parts of this book based on government
reports are so indicated and copyright is claimed for those par ts
to the extent applicable to compilations of
such works.
Independent verification should be sought for any data, advice
or recommendations contained in this book. In
addition, no responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any
injury and/or damage to persons or property
arising from any methods, products, instructions, ideas or
otherwise contained in this publication.
This publication is designed to provide accurate and
authoritative information with regard to the subject
matter covered herein. It is sold with the clear understanding
that the Publisher is not engaged in rendering
legal or any other professional services. If legal or any other
expert assistance is required, the services of a
competent person should be sought. FROM A DECLARATION
OF PARTICIPANTS JOINTLY ADOPTED
BY A COMMITTEE OF THE AMERICAN BAR
ASSOCIATION AND A COMMITTEE OF
PUBLISHERS.

Additional color graphics may be available in the e-book
version of this book.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
English language education in a global world : practices, issues
and challenges / Editors: Lap Tuen Wong, and Aditi
Dubey-Jhaveri (Centennial College, Pokfulam, Hong Kong,
China).
pages cm. -- (Languages and Linguistics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-63483-497-1 (hardcover)
1. English language--Study and teaching--Foreign speakers. 2.
English language--Globalization. 3. Applied
lingusitics. I. Wong, Lap Tuen, editor. II. Dubey-Jhaveri,
Aditi, editor.
PE1128.A2E4855 2015
428.0071--dc23
2015027286
Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. † New York

No
va
S
cie
nc
e P
ub
lis
hin
g,
Inc
.
CONTENTS
Preface ix

List of Contributors xi
Part I - The Major Theoretical Paradigms in English Language
Education
and their Implications in a Global World 1
Chapter 1 Standard English, English Standards: Whose
Standards
are They in English Language Education? 3
David Nunan
Chapter 2 English Language Education and Globalisation: An
Applied
Linguistics Framework 13
Jeffrey Gil and Robyn Najar
Chapter 3 ESL vs EFL Learners: The Benefits of Combining
Language
Acquisition and Explicit Instruc tion Approaches 25
Claude Goldenberg and Ken Romeo
Chapter 4 Learner Autonomy in the Eastern and Western
Contexts 35
Wen-Cheng Hsu
Chapter 5 EFL Teachers‘ Professional Learning Needs: Working
with Multimedia and The Cloud 47
Shirley O’Neill
Chapter 6 English Teachers As Moral Agents: Behind the

Facade of English
As a Lingua Franca 61
Hangyan Lu
Chapter 7 Influence of Language Background on English
Reading
Comprehension Skills: Cross-Language Transfer Effects 69
Amir Sadeghi and John Everatt
Chapter 8 Deconstructing ‗Mono‘-Lingualism: Considerations
of Value
for ‗English‘ ‗Language‘ Education in a Global Setting 81
Nick Pilcher and Kendall Richards
No
va
S
cie
nc
e P
ub
lis
hin
g,
Inc
.

Contents vi
Chapter 9 Examining Globalisation As a Guiding Paradigm in
English
Education 91
Barrie Barrell
Chapter 10 The Dilemma of Matching Learning Styles and
Teaching Styles
in English Language Classrooms 99
Wai Lam Heidi Wong, Aditi Dubey-Jhaveri and Lap Tuen Wong
Part II - The Practices of English Language Education in the
Selected Parts
of the World 113
Chapter 11 Exporting Trained Tesol Professionals, not just
Native Speakers:
A Case Study of Georgia State University 115
Kris Acheson and Justin Taylor
Chapter 12 Faculty Perceptions of ESL Students‘ Academic,
Linguistic,
and Cultural Preparedness and Effective Teaching Practices 125
Alana Hoare and Jim Hu
Chapter 13 Language Policy and Practice in Multilingual
Britain: Perspectives
from Mainstream and Complementary Linguistically-Diverse

Classrooms 137
Androula Yiakoumetti
Chapter 14 ELT Practice in Australia Across Three Sectors:
State Education,
Migrant Education, and ELICOS 147
Michael Carey and Ann Robertson
Chapter 15 An Undergraduate Tesol Practicum in a New
Zealand University 161
Moyra Sweetnam Evans
Chapter 16 The Practices of English Language Teaching in
Postcolonial India 173
Senkamalam Periyasamy Dhanavel
Chapter 17 A Critical Evaluation of Current Practices of
English Language
Teaching in Singapore 183
Chitra Shegar
Chapter 18 Towards a Breakthrough in the Deadlocked English
Language
Education in Japan 193
Hiroshi Hasegawa
Chapter 19 The Shifting Focus of English Teaching for
Undergraduate Non-
English Major Students: Reforms and Practices at Tsinghua
University in China 203

Meihua Liu and Weimin Zhang
Chapter 20 Reflection in Practice: Practical Considerations in
the Development
of English for Academic/Specific Purposes Materials in Hong
Kong 217
Ken Lau
No
va
S
cie
nc
e P
ub
lis
hin
g,
Inc
.
Contents vii
Part III - The Issues and Challenges of English Language
Education in the
Selected Contexts 227

Chapter 21 English Language Education in the United States:
Past, Present
and Future Issues 229
Peter De Costa and Kongji Qin
Chapter 22 English Language ‗Education‘ or ‗Industry‘?
Bridging Parallel
Discourses in Canada 239
Rika Tsushima and Martin Guardado
Chapter 23 English Language Education at University: Trends
and Challenges
in Teaching and Learning Academic Discourse in the UK 251
Aisling O’Boyle
Chapter 24 The Issues and Challenges of Teaching English As a
Second
Language in Western Australia: A Focus on Students with
African Refugee Backgrounds 261
Noah Mbano and Rhonda Oliver
Chapter 25 English Language Teaching in New Zealand:
Against All Odds? 273
Diane Johnson
Chapter 26 English Language Education in India: Contemporary
Issues 285
Helen Boyd Toraskar
Chapter 27 Seeking Commonality in Diversity: Challenges in

Designing
and Delivering an Innovative Academic English Language
Writing Course at the National University of Singapore 295
Mark Brooke
Chapter 28 Formal English Education in Japan: What Causes
‗Unsuccessful‘
English Language Learning? 307
Masanori Matsumoto
Chapter 29 Profiling Chinese EFL Learners in Relation to Their
Vocabulary
Learning Strategy Use 317
Xuelian Xu
Chapter 30 The Political and Economic Challenges of English
Language
Education in Hong Kong 333
Arthur McNeill
Index 341
No
va
S
cie
nc

e P
ub
lis
hin
g,
Inc
.
No
va
S
cie
nc
e P
ub
lis
hin
g,
Inc
.

PREFACE
With English becoming the world‘s foremost lingua franca, the
pressure to improve
English language education (ELE) has been steadily increasing.
Consequently, the nature of
ELE has changed drastically in the last decade. This has not
only brought about a number of
changes in the way English is taught and learnt, but it has also
led to various innovative
practices around the world. Furthermore, unlike traditional
forms of ELE, which have been
discussed primarily in a foreign or second language setting, this
volume focuses on the
teaching and learning of English worldwide.
As a result, this edited book titled English Language Education
in a Global World:
Practices, Issues and Challenges aims to shed light on the new
theoretical and

methodological developments in the field of ELE as well as the
major issues and difficulties
faced by practitioners in different parts of the globe. In view of
the disparities in the
pedagogical practices across the world, the book hopes to
provide an in-depth and
comprehensive overview of the theoretical paradigms, practices
and challenges within the
field of ELE.
Broadly speaking, this edited collection is designed to enable
scholars to gain easy access
to multiple perspectives about ELE and to provide them with
holistic and up-to-date
information about the latest trends in this area of specialisation
within ten selected contexts,
namely: the USA, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand,
India, Singapore, Japan, China
and Hong Kong. These contexts have been carefully selected, as
they represent some of the
most influential frameworks and advanced models of ELE
internationally.
The thirty chapters in this collection are divided into the
following three parts to aid

information searching and to facilitate ease of reading:
implications in a global world
– This section includes the theoretical debate about the use of
‗standard‘ English
and the need for deconstructing a ‗mono-lingual‘ conception of
English in a
diverse but increasingly interconnected world; the application
of an applied
linguistics‘ framework to ELE; the advantages of combining
natural acquisition
of English with explicit instruction approaches; the different
perspectives on
learner autonomy; the role of new technology in ELE; the
significance of
English language teachers as transmitters of moral values; the
influence of
students‘ language backgrounds on their English reading
comprehension; and the
No
va
S
cie
nc

e P
ub
lis
hin
g,
Inc
.
Lap Tuen Wong and Aditi Dubey-Jhaveri x
reasons for the lack of clarity regarding the necessity of
matching learning styles
with teaching styles in English language classrooms.
– This part of the book focuses on the best teaching practices in
ELE in varied
contexts and critically evaluates these practices. It examines the
measures taken
to reform ELE, the changes made to ELE curriculum and
practicum, and the
factors taken into consideration for development of English
language teaching
materials. This section also emphasises the requirement of
training English

language educators rather than relying on their native-speaking
proficiency,
assesses the relevance of English education in postcolonial
contexts, and
highlights the importance of language policy in contributing to
good practices.
– The chapters under this section present the past and present
issues in the field as
well as the problems that are likely to surface in the future with
regard to ELE.
Prime among the pitfalls discussed are complications arising
due to economic
and political concerns, and difficulties emerging as a result of
cultural
differences and diversity in general.
However, despite focusing on ELE in ten different parts of the
globe, this book is not
merely for scholars interested in these specific regions. Instead,
it is equally insightful for
those who are keen on understanding, experimenting with or
adopting similar pedagogical
frameworks in their own countries. By drawing readers‘
attention to an array of practices and

issues within ELE, the book intends to highlight that there is no
single perfect method for
ELE to be successful. It advises practitioners in the field not to
rely on a fixed model and
recommends them to keep themselves abreast with the
advancements and progress made in
the area so as to modernise their classrooms and enhance their
practices.
Lastly and most importantly, the editors of this book would like
to express their heart-felt
gratitude to Nova Science Publishers and to the contributors for
their generous support, all of
which have helped towards achieving its realisation.
No
va
S
cie
nc
e P
ub
lis

hin
g,
Inc
.
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Kris Acheson (PhD) currently serves as Lecturer and Director of
Undergraduate
Studies in the Department of Applied Linguistics at Georgia
State University in Atlanta, GA,
USA. An award-winning instructor, curriculum designer and
study abroad director, Kris is
interested in all things cultural and linguistic, including
intercultural competency
development and assessment; ethnicity/race, gender, and class;
and communicative silences.

Her research can be found in journals such as Communication
Theory, Communication
Yearbook, the Foreign Language Annals and Race, Gender &
Class.
Barrie R. C. Barrell (PhD) is Professor of Secondary English
Education in the Faculty
of Education at Memorial University of Newfoundland where he
supervises graduate and
doctoral students working in the areas of visual literacy, media
and English education. Born in
London, England, educated at The City University of New York,
the University of New
Brunswick and the University of Toronto, his interests include
conceptualising public school
curricula and pedagogies for a rapidly changing digital age. He
lives on the edge of the North
Atlantic creating digital texts that combine his writing, drawing,
poetry and photography.
Mark Brooke (EdD) is Lecturer at the Centre for English
Language Communication at
the National University of Singapore. He has published in
several internationally-reviewed
journals in areas such as the sociology of sport, content and
language integrated learning,

teacher training, discourse analysis, qualitative methodology,
learner-centred pedagogy and
educational policy-making. For five years, before his move to
Singapore, Mark was at the
Hong Kong Institute of Education in the Department of English
Language Education where
he offered courses on pedagogical grammar, discourse analysis
and vocabulary studies. He
has a Licentiate Diploma in TESOL from Trinity, an MSc in
TESP from Aston, UK and an
EdD from Durham, UK.
Michael Carey (PhD) has taught and conducted research within
linguistics since 1992 in
the fields of TESOL, pronunciation, academic writing, language
assessment and preparation
for the IELTS. He has worked across all sectors of the English
language teaching profession
in Australia: secondary English education, private and
university based ELICOS, and the
AMEP. He is currently a Lecturer in Education (TESOL and
language and literacy) at the
University of the Sunshine Coast. His role includes coordination
of Secondary Education

programmes and Master‘s courses in TESOL. He also supervises
a number of Master‘s and
PhD research students in various fields of linguistics.
Peter De Costa (PhD) is an Assistant Professor in the
Department of Linguistics and
Languages at Michigan State University, where he teaches on
the Ph.D. Program and the
No
va
S
cie
nc
e P
ub
lis
hin
g,
Inc
.
Lap Tuen Wong and Aditi Dubey-Jhaveri xii
MATESOL Program in Second Language Studies. Peter‘s
primary area of research is the role

of identity and ideology in second language acquisition (SLA),
though he also conducts
research on other issues in applied linguistics, including
English as a lingua franca, critical
classroom discourse analysis and culturally relevant pedagogy
for immigrant ESL learners.
Much of his current work focuses on conducting ethical applied
linguistic research, scalar
approaches to language learning and language learning and
emotions.
Aditi Dubey-Jhaveri (PhD) is a Lecturer in the Centre of
Applied English Studies at the
University of Hong Kong. Her research interests lie in the fields
of new literacies,
multimodality, systemic functional linguistics and appraisal
theory, and journalism education
for second language learners of English. With eleven years of
tertiary teaching experience,
she has published more than 20 journal articles / book chapters /
edited books; served as a
reviewer for journals such as Journalism Studies, Visual
Communication Studies, and Global
Communication and Social Change; and received three grants
for conducting educational

research in Hong Kong. She received the Outstanding Teacher
Award from HKU SPACE
Community College in 2007 and was later awarded the
Postgraduate Fellowship by the
University of Hong Kong in 2008.
Senkamalam Periyasamy Dhanavel (PhD) is a poet, a critic, a
short story writer and an
aphorist. He has authored three volumes of poetry, an edited
volume Critical Perspectives on
American Literature, a critical study The Indian Imagination of
Girish Karnad, two textbooks
titled English and Communication Skills and English and Soft
Skills, and a book called
English Language Teaching in India. He has taught English at
Tripura University and Anna
University. Currently, he is a Professor of English in the
Department of Humanities and
Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India.
Moyra Sweetnam Evans (PhD) has taught ESL at all levels
(beginner to advanced) and
to all ages (preschoolers to mature adults). She has taught
linguistics and English language
and literature to undergraduates and postgraduates. She has
trained second language teachers

in South Africa and New Zealand, has run a language school in
New Zealand and has been
involved in teacher development programmes for language
teachers for many years. She is a
Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the University of
Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
where she co-ordinates a TESOL minor, trains prospective ESL
teachers and supervises
postgraduate research students in second-language teaching,
bilingualism and reading.
John Everatt (PhD) is a Professor of Education at the University
of Canterbury, New
Zealand. He received his PhD from the University of
Nottingham and has lectured on
education and psychology programmes at universities in New
Zealand and the UK. His
research focuses primarily on literacy acquisition and
developmental learning difficulties, and
his current work is investigating the relationship between
literacy and language by
considering the characteristics of different scripts and how
these might lead to variations in
learning/acquisition particularly among those from multiple
language backgrounds.

Jeffrey Gil (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer in ESOL/TESOL at
Flinders University,
Australia. He obtained his PhD degree from Griffith University
for a thesis on the use and
status of English and English language education in China.
Jeffrey is currently involved in the
development, teaching and administration of ESOL and TESOL
topics at undergraduate and
postgraduate levels. He has also taught English as a foreign
language and applied linguistics
at university level in China. Jeffrey has published several
refereed journal articles and book
chapters on applied linguistics topics, including English as a
global language and the global
use and status of Chinese.
No
va
S
cie
nc
e P
ub
lis

hin
g,
Inc
.
List of Contributors xiii
Claude Goldenberg (PhD) is a Professor of Education at
Stanford University where he
teaches courses on the education of language minority students.
Goldenberg taught middle
school in San Antonio, Texas, and first grade in a bilingual
elementary school in Los Angeles.
He has conducted research and published in the areas of literacy
development and academic
achievement among English language learners, home-school
connections, and processes and
dynamics of school change.
Martin Guardado (PhD) is an Associate Professor of Applied
Linguistics and the
Academic Director of the English Language School in the
Faculty of Extension at the
University of Alberta. His research interests include English for
academic purposes, TESL

and technology, and heritage language development. His work
has appeared in edited books
and journals such as Computers and Composition, The Canadian
Modern Language Review
and TESOL Quarterly.
Hiroshi Hasegawa (PhD) is a Lecturer in the School of
Education at Curtin University
in Western Australia. He teaches undergraduate units relating to
Japanese language and
culture, as well as supervises postgraduate students and students
on teaching practicum. His
main research interests include second/foreign language
education, ethics in education, and
ICT-led educational reform and enhancement. He has a
Graduate Diploma in Education
(Language Teaching), Master of Education Studies (LOTE),
Master of Education (TESOL)
and a PhD in Education. He has extensive teaching experience
from primary to tertiary level
and has served on various types and levels of examination
panels and committees in charge of
the production of the tertiary entrance examination.
Alana Hoare holds a Master of Education degree from
Thompson Rivers University,

British Columbia, Canada. Her background consists of teaching
at an elementary school;
providing career education for adults with special needs; and
instructing adult ESL students.
These experiences have provided the inspiration for research in
academics and ESL
education. Currently, Alana is a Continuing Education
Coordinator at Thompson Rivers
University. Her research interests include faculty perceptions of
ESL students‘ academic,
linguistic, and cultural preparedness and effective teaching
practices; language problems in
ESL writing; and ESL student preparedness for transitioning
into academics and academic
faculty response.
Wen-Cheng Hsu (PhD) obtained two master‘s degrees (MA in
English Language
Teaching and MA in Life-long Education) and a PhD degree in
TESOL from the University
of Nottingham in the UK. His teaching experience spans more
than 15 years across different
levels and cultures. Before joining Xi‘an Jiaotong-Liverpool
University, a Sino-British

university in China as an EAP tutor, he had taught EAP and
TESOL-related courses to
English and non-English majors in Taiwan and the UK for 8
years. His research interests
include learner autonomy, vocabulary acquisition, motivation
and other psychological
attributes related to language education.
Jim Hu (PhD) is an Associate Professor at Thompson Rivers
University, British
Columbia, Canada, where he teaches TESL certificate courses
and English for academic
purposes. Earlier, he taught English in China. His research
interests include second language
academic writing, writing problem treatment, pedagogical
grammar, second language
development theories and applications, and qualitative research
methods. He has published in
journals such as English Quarterly, TESL Canada Journal,
Canadian and International
Education, and The Qualitative Report, and is a frequent
presenter at conferences including
TESOL International Conventions. His research has received
support from Social Sciences
No

va
S
cie
nc
e P
ub
lis
hin
g,
Inc
.
Lap Tuen Wong and Aditi Dubey-Jhaveri xiv
and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Diane Johnson (PhD) is the Convenor of the General and
Applied Linguistics
programme in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the
University of Waikato in New
Zealand. She has published a number of articles on issues in
language teaching and learning
and has conducted a variety of pre- and in-service, teacher-
training seminars both in New
Zealand and abroad. She has been a principal writer of National

Curriculum Guidelines
documents for the New Zealand Ministry of Education. Her
research interests are centred on
language teaching methodology, language teaching materials
development, curriculum and
syllabus design, language-teacher training, and discourse
analysis as it relates to language
teaching.
Ken Lau (PhD) is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for
Applied English Studies, the
University of Hong Kong. Ken has extensive experience in
designing and writing materials
for EAP and ESP courses, particularly those for engineering
students. He has a wide range of
research interests including assessment of reflection, English as
a Lingua Franca and written
discourse analysis. Currently, with David Gardner, he is
working on a study which profiles
the English learning experiences and use of English among the
first-year students at an
English-medium university.
Meihua Liu (PhD) is currently an Associate Professor of
English at the Department of

Foreign Languages and Literatures, Tsinghua University, China.
Her research interests mainly
include EFL teaching and learning in the Chinese context,
reticence and anxiety, language
attitudes and motivation, EFL writing, and learners‘ study
abroad experiences. She has been
publishing widely on these issues in internationally refereed
journals.
Hangyan Lu (PhD) is an Assistant Professor of English and
Applied Linguistics at
Centennial College, Hong Kong. Her teaching and research
focus on English academic
writing, literacy practice and identity, and morality of English
teaching. Her PhD was a
narrative inquiry into the construction of gendered identities in
the reading practices of
university students studying English in Sweden and in China
respectively. She is also
interested in the ethics of care in the general field of higher
education.
Masanori Matsumoto (PhD) is an Assistant Professor in Applied
Linguistics at Bond
University in Australia. He graduated from Kyoto University of
Foreign Studies in Japan and

completed his doctoral study at University of South Australia.
His primary research interest is
in second language learners‘ motivation, especially in the
learners‘ cultural/linguistic
backgrounds and their influences on the learners‘ perceptions of
various factors that may
affect their motivations for target language learning. He has
published research articles in
several international journals and presented papers in a number
of international conferences.
Arthur McNeill (PhD) is Director of the Center for Language
Education and Associate
Dean of Humanities and Social Science at the Hong Kong
University of Science and
Technology. He is also Honorary Professor at the Northeastern
University in China. He has
served as director of several university English language
centres, including the Chinese
University of Hong Kong and the Universities of Surrey, Sussex
and Dundee in UK. His
academic interests include second language acquisition,
vocabulary, language awareness and
curriculum development and he has published numerous
academic articles, chapters, books

and textbooks. He holds a PhD in applied linguistics from the
University of Wales, UK.
Noah Mbano (PhD) is an academic at Curtin University. He has
taught English as a
second language (ESL) in Intensive English language centres
for many years across remote
and metro Western Australia. He started his lecturing career at
Curtin University before
No
va
S
cie
nc
e P
ub
lis
hin
g,
Inc
.
List of Contributors xv
accepting a position at the University of Southern Queensland
where he worked from 2012

till re-joining Curtin University in December 2014. His research
interests are in applied
linguistics and TESOL with a special focus on the teaching of
English as a second language to
refugee background students.
Robyn Najar (PhD) is an Associate Professor and Head of
ESOL/TESOL at Flinders
University, Australia. She has spent over 30 years working in
ESOL/TESOL and has, for over
ten of these years, worked outside of Australia teaching English
as a foreign language (EFL),
training teachers and developing programmes, curriculum and
materials ‗in …
Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 20(1), 50–57
Copyright C© 2005, The Division for Learning Disabilities of
the Council for Exceptional Children
The Critical Role of Vocabulary Development for English
Language Learners
Diane August
Center for Applied Linguistics
Maria Carlo
University of Miami

Cheryl Dressler and Catherine Snow
Harvard University
English language learners (ELLs) who experience slow
vocabulary development are less able to
comprehend text at grade level than their English-only peers.
Such students are likely to perform
poorly on assessments in these areas and are at risk of being
diagnosed as learning disabled. In
this article, we review the research on methods to develop the
vocabulary knowledge of ELLs
and present lessons learned from the research concerning
effective instructional practices for
ELLs. The review suggests that several strategies are especially
valuable for ELLs, including
taking advantage of students’ first language if the language
shares cognates with English;
ensuring that ELLs know the meaning of basic words, and
providing sufficient review and
reinforcement. Finally, we discuss challenges in designing
effective vocabulary instruction for
ELLs. Important issues are determining which words to teach,
taking into account the large
deficits in second-language vocabulary of ELLs, and working
with the limited time that is
typically available for direct instruction in vocabulary.
This article highlights the need for sustained attention to
the vocabulary development of English language learners
(ELLs), reviews the research on means to develop the vocab-
ulary knowledge of ELLs, presents lessons learned from the
research, and describes several important issues that should
be considered in the development of practices to build vo-
cabulary knowledge in this group of students.
Past models of reading considered vocabulary knowledge

an important source of variation in reading comprehension,
particularly as it affects higher-level language processes such
as grammatical processing, construction of schemata, and
text models (Adams & Collins, 1977; Chall, 1987). Skilled
readers can tolerate a small proportion of unknown words in a
text without disruption of comprehension and can even infer
the meanings of those words from sufficiently rich contexts.
However, if the proportion of unknown words is too high,
comprehension is disrupted (Carver, 1994). More recently,
vocabulary has taken a more central role in models of read-
ing as research uncovers its influence on earlier reading and
reading-related skills including phonological, orthographic,
and morphosyntactic processes (Anglin, 1993; Carlisle &
Nomanbhoy, 1993; Muter & Diethelm, 2001; Verhallen &
Schoonen, 1993; Wang & Geva, 2003).
National data confirm that there are large and persistent
gaps between the reading performance of language-minority
and English-only (EO) children. Fourth-grade performance
on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
Requests for reprints should be sent to Diane August, Center for
Applied
Linguistics 4646 40th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20016-1859.
Electronic
inquiries may be sent to [email protected]
reading test shows a 22–29 point scale score advantage
for children living in homes where a language other than
English was never used compared with children who lived in
homes where a language other than English was always used
(National Center for Education Statistics, 2003).
ELLs who experience slow vocabulary development are
less able to comprehend text at grade level than their EO
peers, and they may be at risk of being diagnosed as learn-
ing disabled, when in fact their limitation is due to limited

English vocabulary and poor comprehension that results in
part from this limitation. A recent report funded by the U.S.
Department of Education underscores this possibility (Devel-
opment Associates, 2003). The report refers to a large city
school district where:
the key issues faced in identification of Special Educa-
tion LEP students is the shortage of credentialed person-
nel. In particular, there is a shortage of bilingual special
educators and bilingual school psychologists who can par-
ticipate in the assessment process. Early identification of
students is especially problematic in the district since teach-
ers often do not have the expertise to distinguish a learning
problem from a delay in acquiring English language skills
(p. 32).
The report also indicates that in most school dis-
tricts, achievement and content area tests (83.8 percent of
school districts sampled) or oral proficiency tests in English
(73 percent of districts) were used as one source of informa-
tion for assigning services to special education LEP students.
Of the 11 sources of information used to make decisions about
instructional services, six sources directly assessed English
AUGUST ET AL.: VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT FOR
ELLs 51
literacy or English oral language proficiency skills (achieve-
ment/content tests in English, oral proficiency tests in En-
glish, writing samples in English, teacher ratings of English
proficiency, and literacy tests in English) and one indirectly
assessed English literacy (aptitude tests in English) (p. 32).
LIMITED VOCABULARY OF ELLs

There have been dramatic increases in the number of ELLs
in U.S. schools. Since the 1990–1991 school year, the ELL
population has grown approximately 105 percent, while the
general school population has grown by only 12 percent. In
2000–2001, an estimated 4,584,946 ELLs were enrolled in
public schools, representing approximately 9.6 percent of the
total school enrollment in pre-kindergarten through grade 12
(National Center for Education Statistics, 2004).
Students reading in their first language have already
learned on the order of 5,000–7,000 words before they begin
formal reading instruction in schools (Biemiller & Slonim,
2001). However, this is not typically the case for second-
language learners when assessed in their second language.
For example, Umbel, Pearson, Fernandez, and Oller (1992)
tested the receptive vocabulary of Hispanic children i n Miami
in both English and Spanish. The 105 bilingual first-graders,
of middle to high socioeconomic status relative to national
norms, were divided according to the language spoken in their
homes (English and Spanish or Spanish only). Both groups
performed near the mean of 100 in Spanish. Even though
the group from bilingual homes scored more than one stan-
dard deviation higher in English than the Spanish only group,
both groups were significantly below the mean of the norm-
ing sample in English, even when the socioeconomic status
of the English learners was higher than that of the norming
sample.
Knowing a word implies knowing many things about the
word—its literal meaning, its various connotations, the sorts
of syntactic constructions into which it enters, the morpho-
logical options it offers and a rich array of semantic asso-
ciates such as synonyms and antonyms (see Nagy & Scott,
2000 for a review). These various aspects are related to the
depth of word knowledge, which is as important as learning

many words (breadth of word knowledge). Second-language
learners have been shown to be impaired in depth of word
knowledge, even for frequently occurring words (Verhallen
& Schoonen, 1993).
Cross-sectional data collected on fourth-grade Spanish-
speaking and EO students in four schools in Virginia,
Massachusetts, and California corroborate that ELLs have
limited breadth of vocabulary, and also indicate they lack
depth of vocabulary knowledge as well (August et al., 1999).
To assess breadth of vocabulary, students were tested indi-
vidually on the L form (pretest) and M form (posttest) of
the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test Revised (PPVT-R). The
results confirmed data reported by Umbel et al. (1992): that
there is a large gap in the breadth of vocabulary betw een
ELLs and EO speakers and that the gap does not diminish
over the course of the year (Table 1).
TABLE 1
Means for ELLs and Native Speakers in Breadth of Vocabulary
as
Measured by the Peabody Test (Receptive Vocabulary) English
Version, Standard Scores
Fall Spring
Group Mean N Mean N
English language learners 76.16 106 75.03 63
English only 110.41 205 115.45 84
This study also examined how depth of ELL vocabu-
lary knowledge compares to that of native English speak-
ers. Two tasks examined the child’s understandings of the
multiple meanings of words, one indication of depth of word

knowledge. The first of these was a polysemy comprehension
task. A sentence judgment task was used, in which students
were to decide whether sentences such as the following made
sense:
“We were growing sheep last year”
“Their love for each other grew”
“The boy grew two inches”
“My teacher wants the homework to grow?”
These sentences contained a number of polysemous words
(i.e., those with multiple meanings such as “grow”) and the
student’s task was to say whether the usage made sense in
English. The data once again indicated a gap in the scores
of EOs and ELLs (Table 2). The gap might in fact be larger
because the EO children were close to ceiling (16) in the
spring.
The second task was a production task in which students
were asked to write as many meanings as they could think
of for the words, “bug,” “ring,” “light,” and “hand.” Their
responses were coded with more weight given to meanings
that were more removed from the core meaning. For example,
“a bug in a computer program” is a relatively remote use of
the word “bug,” whereas “an insect” is the core meaning.
Unfortunately, this test was not administered in the spring.
In the fall, ELLs scored approximately half as well as their
EO peers (M = 5.04 for 49 ELLs; M = 10.03 for 132 EO
students.).
In summary, previous research indicates that ELLs know
fewer English vocabulary words than monolingual English
speakers, but in addition, know less about the meaning of
these words.
TABLE 2

Means Correct for ELLs and Native Speakers in Depth of
Vocabulary as Measured by the Polysemy Comprehension Task
Fall Spring
Group Mean N Mean N
English language learners 13.10 109 12.94 32
English only 14.69 203 15.05 43
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234833425_Vocabular
y_Knowledge_and_Reading_Comprehension_in_English_Langu
age_Learners_Final_Performance_Report?el=1_x_8&enrichId=r
greq-1e3730a97835bcbabe4db5624c507592-
XXX&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIyNzQ5NjQyMTtBUzo
xMDQ4NzU1MzQ4NDgwMDdAMTQwMjAxNTY4NDM3OA==
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249237203_Lexical_K
nowledge_of_Monolingual_and_Bilingual_Children?el=1_x_8&
enrichId=rgreq-1e3730a97835bcbabe4db5624c507592-
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249237203_Lexical_K
nowledge_of_Monolingual_and_Bilingual_Children?el=1_x_8&
enrichId=rgreq-1e3730a97835bcbabe4db5624c507592-
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/21650959_Measuring_
bilingual_children's_receptive_vocabularis?el=1_x_8&enrichId
=rgreq-1e3730a97835bcbabe4db5624c507592-
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/21650959_Measuring_
bilingual_children's_receptive_vocabularis?el=1_x_8&enrichId
=rgreq-1e3730a97835bcbabe4db5624c507592-

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232518465_Estimatin
g_root_word_vocabulary_growth_in_normative_and_advantaged
_populations_Evidence_for_a_common_sequence_of_vocabular
y_acquisition?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-
1e3730a97835bcbabe4db5624c507592-
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232518465_Estimatin
g_root_word_vocabulary_growth_in_normative_and_advantaged
_populations_Evidence_for_a_common_sequence_of_vocabular
y_acquisition?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-
1e3730a97835bcbabe4db5624c507592-
52 SPECIAL SERIES: LEARNING DISABILITIES IN
ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS
RESEARCH BASE FOR DEVELOPING
METHODS TO BUILD VOCABULARY IN ELLs
Transfer of Cognate Knowledge
Second-language acquisition research has identified transfer
as an important process involved in the acquisition of a sec-
ond language. Transfer is defined as “the influence resulting
from similarities and differences between the target language
and any other language that has been previously (and perhaps
imperfectly) acquired” (Odlin, 1989, p. 27). One striking sim-
ilarity between Spanish and English is the large number of
cognate pairs the two languages share. These offer the possi -
bility for transfer to occur for a meaningful number of words.
Holmes and Guerra Ramos (1995) characterize cognates as
vocabulary items in two different languages that are similar

both orthographically and semantically. They consider the
existence of cognate vocabulary to be crucially important,
stating that cognates account for from a third to as much as
half of the active vocabulary of an average educated person.
Nash (1997) estimates this active vocabulary to range from
10,000 to 15,000 words.
There have been several investigations of cognate transfer
in English reading comprehension and vocabulary inferenc-
ing skills. Most recently, Dressler (2000) investigated cognate
awareness in a sample of fifth-grade Spanish-speaking ELLs
who had been taught to search for cognate relationships as a
strategy in reading English text. The students who had been
taught the strategy were more successful in inferring meaning
for (untaught) cognates than a control group, but there was
variability in the application of this knowledge source among
cognates, with the degree of phonological transparency be-
tween cognates playing an important role in fifth-grade ELLs’
ability to detect a cognate relationship. Connectio ns between
pairs that are more phonologically transparent (amorous–
amoroso) were more easily perceived than the connections
between pairs that are opaque (obscure–oscuro) on the basis
of sound. In addition, since upper-grade ELLs vary widely
in their ability to read in Spanish, it seems important to con-
sider linguistic information all Spanish speakers, regardless
of their level of native- or home-language literacy, may ac-
cess in identifying cognate pairs, that is, the spoken forms of
the words in question.
In another study involving elementary grade students,
Garcı́a (1991) found that fifth- and sixth-grade Spanish-
speaking ELLs did not understand the meanings of English
words that were cognates to familiar Spanish words, and
failed to recognize relationships between cognate pairs that
shared a high degree of orthographic and semantic overlap.
Jimenez, Garcı́a, and Pearson (1996), on the other hand, found

that sixth- and seventh-grade Latino bilingual students who
were proficient in reading English frequently and successfully
used their knowledge of Spanish in inferring meaning for
English cognates. Durgunoglu, Nagy, and Hancin-Bhatt
(1993) also investigated cognate awareness in ELLs’
English reading comprehension. They found that while stu-
dents’ awareness of cognate relationships was varied and lim-
ited, the transfer role of that limited awareness was important
to second-language reading. Finally, Hancin-Bhatt and Nagy
(1994) sought to determine whether or not cognate recog-
nition abilities followed a developmental trend. They found
that, from grade 4 to grade 8, students’ recognition of cog-
nates increased quite rapidly.
A second, indirect type of information that potentially fa-
cilitates transfer results from the systematic relationships be-
tween Spanish and English suffixes, as in the regular cor-
respondences between the English {ity}, {ing}, and {ly}
and Spanish {idad}, {a/endo}, and {mente}, respectively.
Hancin-Bhatt and Nagy (1994) investigated Spanish–English
bilinguals’ use of morphological knowledge in native- and
second-language cognate recognition. Specifically, they stud-
ied the extent to which students in grades 4–8 recognized sys-
tematic relationships between suffixes in English and Span-
ish. The authors found that students more easily recognized
cognate stems in suffixed words (e.g., amicably) than noncog-
nate stems in suffixed words (e.g., shortly), suggesting that
cross-language transfer may play a role in the learning of
English derivational morphology rules.
In sum, review of the literature suggests that (1) knowledge
of the cognate relationships that exist between Spanish and
English is a powerful example of positive transfer in that this
knowledge has been shown to facilitate English reading com-
prehension; (2) the extent to which cognate relationships are

perceived is related to the degree of semantic, orthographic,
and phonological overlap they share; (3) English morpholog-
ical analysis is initially learned through cognates; and (4) the
ability to recognize cognates develops with age.
Effective Vocabulary Instruction
Given the importance of vocabulary to oral and written lan-
guage comprehension (NICHD, 2000), it is astounding that
in the past 25 years there have been very few quasiexper -
imental or experimental studies focused on English vocab-
ulary teaching among elementary-school language-minority
children. This is in contrast to a wealth of research on vocab-
ulary learning among monolingual English speakers, enough
to justify the inclusion of vocabulary as a key component of
reading instruction in the report of the National Reading Panel
(NICHD, 2000). The National Reading Panel found over 45
experimental intervention studies focused on vocabulary.
Perez (1981) reported a study of the vocabulary learning
of 75 language-minority Mexican American third-graders.
The children received 20-minute daily oral instruction in
word meanings, focusing on compound words, synonyms,
antonyms, and multiple meanings for about 3 months. One
group received instruction in pronunciation of the words and
memorization of definitions. A second group used the same
list of words and focused on making semantic maps with
the words, and making predictions of word meanings. A
third group developed a matrix showing the relationships
among the words and predicted word meanings. A fourth
group completed the same chart as the third group, as well
as completing cloze sentences. The children in all groups
were asked to complete written recalls about the social stud-
ies chapter on the second and third days of the lessons and
again 4 weeks later. They also completed multiple-choice vo-
cabulary tests. The group that constructed relationship maps

and completed cloze sentences outperformed the group that
worked on pronunciation and memorization of definitions.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250055159_The_Read
ing_Strategies_of_Bilingual_Latinao_Students_Who_Are_Succe
ssful_English_Readers_Opportunities_and_Obstacles?el=1_x_8
&enrichId=rgreq-1e3730a97835bcbabe4db5624c507592-
AUGUST ET AL.: VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT FOR
ELLs 53
The former group also outperformed the pronunciation and
memorization group on text recall. This study shows that ac-
tive processing of word meanings leads to greater recall and
understanding of word meanings, but it was only a brief learn-
ing trial using one list of words, so its long-term implications
cannot be assessed.
Another vocabulary study with ELLs examined the ef-
fectiveness of procedures for presenting words to first-grade
Spanish dominant students (Vaughn-Shavuo, 1990). In this
doctoral dissertation, children were randomly assigned to two
groups. Both groups received vocabulary instruction during a
30-minute daily English as a Second Language (ESL) class.
One group worked on learning words that were presented
in individual sentence contexts. The other group worked on
words presented in meaningful narratives, dictated their own
sentences using the target words, and examined picture cards
that illustrated the word meanings. During 3 weeks of in-
struction, 31 words were presented to each group. By the end
of the training, the latter group, whose instruction was more
elaborated than the first group, showed better ability to use
the English vocabulary than did the control group (21 words

learned vs. 9).
Carlo et al. (2004) developed, implemented, and evalu-
ated an intervention designed to build breadth and depth of
word knowledge and reading comprehension in 254 bilingual
and monolingual children from nine fifth-grade classrooms
in four schools in California, Virginia, and Massachusetts.
The intervention, which consisted of 15 weeks of instruction,
was organized around the topic of immigration; the curricu-
lum relied on a variety of text genres including newspaper
articles, diaries, firsthand documentation of the immigrant
experience, historical accounts, and fiction. Instruction was
delivered for 30–45 minutes 4 days a week. Every fifth week
was devoted to review of the previous 4 weeks’ target words.
Students’ classroom teachers were trained by the researchers
to deliver the instruction. In accordance with research indicat-
ing words are best learned from rich semantic contexts, target
vocabulary words were selected from brief, engaging reading
passages. A relatively small number of vocabulary items were
introduced each week (12); the words were those that stu-
dents at this level were likely to encounter repeatedly across
texts in different domains. Although there were relatively few
words introduced each week, activities helped children make
semantic links to other words and concepts and thus attain
a deeper and richer understanding of a word’s meaning as
well as learn other words and concepts related to the target
word. In keeping with research-based best practice previously
cited, the lessons also taught students to infer meanings from
context and to use roots, affixes, cognates, morphological re-
lationships, and comprehension monitoring.
Although there were no treatment gains on the PPVT, the
ELLs improved on several measures of vocabulary and com-
prehension. Students did better in generating sentences that
conveyed different meanings of multimeaning words, in com-
pleting cloze passages, in tests of knowledge of word mean-

ings, and on measures of word association and morphological
knowledge. On a cloze test, used to evaluate comprehension,
students showed significant improvement, but the impact on
comprehension was much lower than on word learning. It is
clear from these results that this multifaceted training led to
improved knowledge of the words studied.
A recent study to develop breadth and depth of vo-
cabulary in ELLs involved 293 Spanish-dominant limited
English proficient third-grade students enrolled in eight el-
ementary schools in two school districts in El Paso, Texas
(Calderón et al., in press). Both the experimental and control
students had been instructed in Spanish for reading, language
arts, and content areas since kindergarten. The students had
been identified by their schools as “ready to begin their tran-
sition into English.” Over the course of approximately 23
weeks, vocabulary was taught as one component of a 90-
minute reading block. It was taught in two contexts—through
decodable books and through children’s literature. To build
word knowledge through decodable texts, DVDs were used to
preview the vocabulary. The DVDs contained skits that illus-
trated key vocabulary that appeared in the decodable books.
In addition, 30 minutes per day of oral language activities
revolved around grade-level children’s literature.
This second venue provided the primary method for build-
ing children’s vocabulary knowledge. Teachers pretaught vo-
cabulary, developed vocabulary through reading and dis-
cussing each book, and reinforced vocabulary through oral
language activities that occurred after the story had been
read. Children in the control group participated in Reader’s
and Writer’s Workshops. The Reader’s Workshop was a daily
forum for focused attention to reading. In guided reading,
shared reading, and independent reading, students worked
with their teacher and with other students to hone their de-
coding skills, increase their fluency, and monitor their com-

prehension. In book discussion and activities to build vo-
cabulary and enrich their comprehension, students improved
their understanding of texts, learned to make inferences and
connections about texts, and became more competent and
confident readers. The Writer’s Workshop set the stage for
teaching and learning about writing. The workshop format
established a daily time block focused on writing. The em-
phasis was on the writing process, which mimicked the stages
of writing that expert writers use: from generating ideas to
getting thoughts down on paper or on the computer, from
drafting to soliciting and incorporating comments, and from
revising to polishing for clarity and correctness. The writing
process culminated when students published and presented
finished pieces to their classmates.
Children in both conditions were pretested in the fall
and posttested in the spring using four subtests of the
Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery-Revised (WLPBR;
Woodcock, 1991) in both Spanish and English: picture vo-
cabulary, letter-word identification, word attack, and passage
comprehension. After adjusting for the initial pretest dif-
ference, the experimental group outperformed the control
group on three of the four measures: word attack with an
effect size of +0.21, passage comprehension with an effect
size of +0.16, and picture vocabulary with an effect size
of +0.11.1
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE RESEARCH
This section describes lessons learned from the research that
might be useful in developing future interventions to build
the vocabulary of ELLs. It is important to keep in mind that
each intervention discussed in the previous section consisted
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250055375_Closing_t
he_Gap_Addressing_the_Vocabulary_Needs_of_English-

Language_Learners_in_Bilingual_and_Mainstream_Classrooms?
el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-
1e3730a97835bcbabe4db5624c507592-
54 SPECIAL SERIES: LEARNING DISABILITIES IN
ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS
of a variety of strategies. Thus, it is difficult to know whether
certain strategies in an intervention were more effective than
others. Nonetheless, it is possible to formulate some con-
clusions based on this body of research. First, it is appar -
ent that the instructional practices used in the cited studies
build on a number of vocabulary instructional practices that
have been effective with EO learners (Beck & McKewon,
2001; Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002; Beck, McKeown,
& Omanson, 1987; Beck, Perfetti, McKeown, 1982; Craik
& Tulving, 1975; Stahl, 1999; Stahl & Clark, 1987; Stahl &
Fairbanks, 1986). These strategies include providing defini -
tional and contextual information about each word’s meaning;
actively involving students in word learning through talking
about, comparing, analyzing, and using the target words; pro-
viding multiple exposures to meaningful information about
each word; as well as teaching word analysis. Second, there
appear to be several strategies that may be especially impor -
tant for ELLs. They are addressed in the following section.
Take Advantage of Students’ First Language
One method of building vocabulary is to capitalize on stu-
dents’ first language knowledge if this language shares cog-
nates with English. For example, the Vocabulary Improve-
ment Project (VIP) (Carlo et al., 2004) taught students to
draw on their cognate knowledge as a means of figuring out

the meaning of new words in English. In a study designed
to assess the extent to which students in the VIP used their
knowledge of cognates in inferring word meaning, Dressler
(2000) found that cognate performance depended to some ex-
tent on the characteristics of cognate pairs. These characteris -
tics included (1) the degree of phonological transparency be-
tween the cognates, and (2) the degree of orthographic over lap
shared by the cognate pair. The findings of this study suggest
that while literacy in Spanish would provide students with
access both to orthographic as well as phonological sources
of information about cognate relationships, it is possible for
students to draw connections between cognate pairs on the
basis of sound alone, so that students who are not literate,
but are orally proficient in Spanish are likely to benefit from
instruction in cognate awareness as well as those who are
literate in Spanish.
Teaching Spanish-literate children to take advantage of
their cognate knowledge is a powerful tool because many
English words that are cognates with Spanish are high-
frequency Spanish words, but low-frequency English words.
Thus students are likely to know the words in Spanish (con-
cept and label) but lack the English label. Moreover, many
of these words are what Beck, McKewon, and Kucan (2002)
label Tier 2 words. Tier 2 words include words that …
Special Series
Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 20(1), 1–5
Copyright C© 2005, The Division for Learning Disabilities of
the Council for Exceptional Children
Learning Disabilities in English Language Learners: Identifying
the Issues

Peggy McCardle
National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, NIH,
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Joan Mele-McCarthy
Office of Special Education & Rehabilitation Services, U.S.
Department of Education
Laurie Cutting
Johns Hopkins University
Kathleen Leos and Tim D’Emilio
Office of English Language Acquisition, U.S. Department of
Education
America’s non-English-speaking student population is di-
verse, multicultural, multilingual, and academically chal -
lenged. Although the students bring a wealth of culture, tra-
dition, diverse languages, and rich heritage into our class-
rooms, they are also the student group with the highest drop-
out rate, lowest achievement scores, largest mobility rate,
and highest poverty (U.S. Department of Education, 2004;
U.S. Department of Commerce, 2004b). The challenge for
non-English-speaking students, or English language learners
(ELLs), is not only overcoming the language barrier, but also
overcoming low expectations and low academic achievement.
Therefore, there is a great need to better understand how to
best teach ELLs; even more challenging is to sort out how
to identify and teach ELLs who have learning disabilities
(ELL/LD). The focus of this special issue is to examine these
complex issues within a research context. The articles are
an outgrowth of a symposium on ELL/LD that took place
in October 2003, the goal of which was to begin to iden-
tify research priorities for ELL/LD. The U.S. Department
of Education and the National Institutes of Health jointly

organized this symposium, which was also supported by
several other agencies and organizations.1 The introduction
The assertions and opinions contained herein represent those of
the au-
thors and of their symposium participants as recorded and
interpreted by
the authors; they should not be taken as representing official
policies of the
NICHD, NIH. OSERS, OELA, or the U.S. Departments of
Health & Human
Services and Education.
Note that Dr. Cutting participated in the symposium planning,
imple-
mentation, and the writing of this article during her tenure as a
Society for
Research in Child Development fellow at the NICHD.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Peggy McCardle,
National Insti-
tute of Child Health & Human Development, 6100, Executive
Boulevard,
Suite 4805, Rockville, MD 20852-7510. Electronic inquiries
may be sent
to [email protected]
provides a brief overview of the context for the symposium,
as well as available federal data on the number of ELLs in
the United States and the services they receive; the rest of the
special issue is devoted to articles by symposium participants
on the specific research topics and approaches to studying
ELL/LD.
ELL/LD IN THE UNITED STATES: FACTS
AND FIGURES

According to the Census 2000 Brief (U.S. Department of
Commerce, 2004b), nearly one in five Americans speaks a
language other than English at home and the proportion of
language-minority2 individuals in the United States grew by
nearly 50 percent during the past decade. Of the language mi -
nority individuals in the United States, the Hispanic commu-
nity is the largest, exceeding 39.4 million (U.S. Department
of Commerce, 2004a).
Given the dramatic increase in language-minority indi-
viduals in the United States over the past decade, it is not
surprising that non-English-speaking students are the fastest
growing subgroup of children among public school popu-
lations, with an annual increase of approximately 10 per-
cent. In fact, the number of students designated limited
English proficient (LEP)3 in grades K-12 increased by 72
percent from 1992 to 2002 (Donovan & Cross, 2002; U.S.
Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, 2003). Fur -
ther, while in 1992 only 15 percent of U.S. teachers had
one or more LEP students in their classrooms, by 2002
that figure had risen to 43 percent (Zehler, Fleischman,
Hopstock, Stephenson, Pendzick, & Sapru, 2003). Cur-
rently, there are approximately 5.5 million students attend-
ing U.S. public schools whose native or first language is not
2 SPECIAL SERIES: LEARNING DISABILITIES IN ENGLISH
LANGUAGE LEARNERS
English. Of the students whose native language is not En-
glish, 80 percent speak Spanish. The other 20 percent of
language-minority students represents a total of 440 diverse
languages. Vietnamese is the second most prevalent lan-
guage spoken, totaling about 4 percent of language-minority
students.

The increase in the ELL population in U.S. schools
presents a particular challenge for the school systems, as the
academic achievement of students who are culturally, linguis-
tically, and ethnically diverse historically has not kept pace
with that of their White, middle-class peers. The National
Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has demon-
strated that there is a large achievement gap between minor -
ity students, many of whom are ELLs, and White students.
In 2003 only 15 percent of Hispanic students, 37 percent
of Asian/Pacific Islander students, and 16 percent of Amer -
ican Indian/Alaska Native students in fourth grade read at
the proficient or above levels, in contrast to 41 percent of
White students. All of the above figures are based on assess-
ments administered with accommodations (U.S. Department
of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2004).
These figures are gaining increased focus as the No Child Left
Behind Act (PL 107–110, January 2002) requires all states
to consider the academic achievement levels of all student
groups separately, including ELLs, and mandates that the ed-
ucational needs of all students be addressed.
Just like their non-language minority peers, some ELL
students qualify as having a disability as defined by the Indi-
viduals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 1997). ELLs
who do not easily acquire the English language or do not
perform well academically after several years of instruction
in both language acquisition and academic content are often
referred for special education services. However, ELLs who
qualify under IDEA must have at least one of the impair-
ments specified under IDEA and, because of that condition,
need special education and related services.
Until recently, the prevalence of LDs in children with ELL
in the public school system had been unknown. Despite the
fact that these estimates are somewhat compromised because

Unit 5 assignment contract terms template law204 – business l

Unit 5 assignment contract terms template law204 – business l

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to Unit 5 assignment contract terms template law204 – business l

Similar to Unit 5 assignment contract terms template law204 – business l (20)

More from ojas18

More from ojas18 (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Unit 5 assignment contract terms template law204 – business l