Making Consistent Decisions About Accommodations for English Language Learners Texas Comprehensive SEDL Austin, Texas March 16–17, 2009 – Research Summit –

Linguistic Accommodations for English Language Learners Elsa Cardenas-Hagan, Ed.D. Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics University of Houston Valley Speech Language and Learning Center

Use of bilingual glossaries, dictionaries can be a helpful classroom accommodation for ELL students. First language support during instruction can have long-range benefits (NLP). Examples of what we know

Current Practices for English Language Learners-Foorman, Francis, and others During hundreds of classroom observations the use of ESL strategies were not evident. Linguistic accommodations were not evident. ESL blocks typically did not have ESL strategies incorporated into the lesson. Vocabulary instruction was incidental. Differentiated instruction was not observed. Oral language instruction included routine language opportunities rather than meaningful opportunities to practice language skills.

Linguistic accommodations for 1 st grade students with language/literacy delays Investigators- S.Vaughn, D.Francis, P. Mathis, S. Thompson, E. Hagan, P.Cirino, S. Durodola Interventions included the 5 essential components of literacy instruction with some modifications Strong effect sizes for Spanish and English interventions Native language support used for directions Visual aids, explicit instruction, corrective feedback, routines Oral language component Tier 1 and Tier 2 vocabulary instruction

Professional Development Goals Learn the current research on best practices. Learn how to differentiate instruction. Learn the cross-linguistic relationships and how to incorporate this knowledge for instruction. Learn how to incorporate meaningful language opportunities/goals throughout the instructional day. Learn how to provide corrective feedback. Learn how to incorporate explicit instruction. All teachers learn effective ELL instructional strategies.

Future Research Goals Determine the effect of linguistic accommodations upon students with varying language proficiency levels. Describe appropriate type and duration of linguistic accommodations for ELLs with varying proficiency levels. Determine whether some content areas require more or less linguistic accommodations. Describe achievement levels of students who were provided with certain linguistic accommodations. Describe short and long term effects of linguistic accommodations.