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TESOL Matters Vol. 12 No. 4 (September/October/November 2002)

Mary Lou McCloskey, President of TESOL, 2002-2003

Though I love my career as a consultant, teacher educator, and curriculum developer, I never want to lose my roots as a teacher of multilingual, multicultural, school-age learners. So each year, I attach myself to a classroom, where I spend a morning every week (when I'm not on the road or in the air). I become a collaborating teacher researcher with a classroom professional and am able to share in the life of a public school English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) classroom. I have spent several of these part-time classroom years visiting elementary classes at all levels, one year in a secondary "lab" situation for new students with less than third-grade level in reading; and most recently, a year in a fourth-grade classroom in which the majority of the students were new learners of English. That group included students from 11 countries, including Bosnia, the Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, China, and Vietnam. So when I read about, hear about, and discuss the changes that are happening in education in the United States this year, I have not only my professional interest in English learners everywhere, but also a very personal interest in the English learners I work with throughout the year.

The reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), subtitled "No Child Left Behind" (NCLBA), goes into effect this fall in schools across the United States and has the potential to change dramatically the way that English language learners are educated. The number of students in the United States who have limited English skills -- totaling about five million today -- has doubled in the last decade, increasing at a rate four times greater than that of the general school-age population. (In my home state of Georgia, the growth rate was 392%!) Title III of this act, The English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement, and Academic Achievement Act, makes provisions for providing educational services for students who are learning English, combining the former Bilingual Education Act and the former Emergency Immigrant Education Program. Appropriations will be about $665 million per year, with most funds being passed through to states via block funding according to formulas based on the number of students needing services and the number of students who are recent immigrants.

We have been fortunate to have TESOL's advocacy department and the ESEA task force following the act carefully on its trail through the U.S. Congress, but all of us who work with affected students and teachers must watch carefully as it is implemented and advocate strongly for the benefit of learners of English. Because states will be administering funds, we may need to work closely at state levels - providing information and resources to state affiliates and state departments of education for our advocacy work. I'd like to point out a few areas of concern that deserve our careful monitoring.

How Will We Prepare Teachers to Work With Learners of English?

We need to make every effort to promote effective recruitment and quality training of the teachers needed to provide the English language education funded by NCLBA. If English learners were taught in classes of the average national size -- 17 pupils per teacher - up to 290,000 new teachers of ESOL would be needed to serve them (Suarez-Orozco, cited in Zhao, 2002). Moreover, English learners spend only a small portion of their day with ESOL teachers. It is estimated that 45% of teachers in the United States work with learners of English in their classrooms, yet only 12% of these have any training or preparation to work with these students. Many districts and states are choosing to provide home-grown training of their own. How can and should the quality of teacher preparation be ensured in such programs? How can we use our TESOL P-12 teacher education standards to influence the development of high-quality teachers for learners of English?

What is the "Scientifically Based Research" on Effectiveness of English Language Pedagogies? Though Title III provides for flexibility in the choice of pedagogical approaches to English language education, leaving these choices to states and school districts, national requirements are made to link both program design and staff training to "scientifically based research" (see, e.g., Crawford, n.d.; TESOL, n.d.) Broadly interpreted, many of the program models now in use for English instruction, including bilingual and all-English approaches, could be determined effective, but the definition of research described in NCLBA requires rigorous experimental protocols that relatively few studies in education have employed. We must be actively engaged in the research discussions that will determine the possible approaches to English language teaching in the United States.

Will Learners Be Fairly Assessed? How Will Assessment Results Be Used?

Accountability is of central importance in the new act. Students in ESOL programs must be assessed as their language develops. After 3 years in the country, they must be assessed using the same instruments as all grade-level learners. Schools designated as low performers will have severe consequences for low performances on tests including possible loss of funding, replacement of personnel, and opportunities for parents to transfer their students to other schools. Will this result in improved language learning? How will this act affect learning and maintenance of other languages?

In the past year, I've spent time teaching and learning in Egypt, Mozambique, South Africa, Morocco, and France, where I've had opportunities to see firsthand how countries can function most effectively when they welcome and encourage multilingualism. TESOL has long been a staunch supporter of bilingual education, recognizing the advantages of multilingualism for our youth and understanding that strong first language development can support and enhance English language development. The stated goals of the NCLBA are English acquisition and academic achievement in English. Previous Department of Education goals for developing students' native-language proficiency have been dropped. How will this affect our students' acquisition of English? In the long run, how will this affect the availability of language teachers and other professionals prepared to communicate with non-English-speaking areas of the world? Nestled between two oceans as we are in the United States, we often have failed to look around the world at other positive possibilities for language policy.

TESOL as an organization, TESOL's U.S. affiliates, and TESOL members must carefully monitor proposed means of assessment, research, models and methods of teaching and teacher training as the NCLBA goes into effect this fall. We must work with our political leaders in evaluating the new act and make any necessary changes in the years to come. Just as we must not forget the students who are the reason for our work, we must not ignore the political decisions that shape those children's lives.

References

Crawford, J. (n.d.). Guide to Title III of the No Child Left Behind Act. Retrieved August 9, 2002, from http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/T3summ.pdf

Suarez-Orozco, M. (2002, August 5). Cited in Yilu Zhao, Wave of pupils lacking English strains schools. New York Times. Retrieved August 9, 2002, from http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/05/education/05ESL.html

TESOL. (n.d.). Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Aavilable from the TESOL Web site.

Mary Lou McCloskey, President of TESOL, 2002-2003