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Students with English as a Second Language (ESL)
Definition and Rationale
ESL learners are learners of English as a Second (or additional) language. ESL learners speak languages other than Standard Australian English (SAE) as their first language(s) and bring rich and diverse linguistic and cultural knowledges from these to the classroom. Since SAE is the language of instruction in Queensland state schools, it is essential that all learners are given opportunities to learn SAE in order to access the curriculum. ESL learners require explicit instruction in SAE so that they can access the curriculum and participate actively in learning. They require specific kinds of instruction to enable them to reach their full potential as independent learners. ESL teaching supports students by adding English as a second or additional language to their existing language repertoire.
ESL learners are learners who speak languages other than English and are in the process of acquiring SAE. They are not defined by their access to ESL funds or grants. The vast majority of schools in Queensland have students who need intensive, significant or some level of ESL support.
The structure of the KLA sequences presupposes that all learners are proficient speakers of English and that learners have English as their first language. In addition, the learning is presented as a linear process in which new knowledge is built on existing (and prerequisite) knowledge. However, ESL learners come into Qld schools with widely different levels of English and may enter at any year level. It cannot be assumed that they will be able to access the language demands of the learning descriptions presented for their age cohort in the KLA sequences as immediately as their English-speaking peers.
Some ESL learners will have prior formal education in their first languages and will have developed conceptual frameworks to draw on in order to understand and learn the content outlined in the KLA sequences. Other ESL students, who have had little or no schooling in their first language(s), will need greater scaffolding which clearly identifies and teaches the prior learning expectations of the learning experiences presented in the classroom. ESL learners may also bring organisation, structures and understandings from their cultures and/or prior educational backgrounds which do not follow classroom teacher assumptions about prior learning. In all cases, all classroom teachers, across all KLAs, will need to identify the language demands and cultural underpinnings of learning tasks and will subsequently need to deconstruct and explicitly teach both these aspects.
If there is no recognition of the language learning status or needs of ESL learners, erroneous diagnosis of a learning challenge may occur and inappropriate intervention may result. For all ESL learners, issues with:
Ä learning a new language, i.e. English
Ä learning at a level well beyond that which has been previously available to the student
Ä learning through SAE which is well beyond the learner’s ESL level
are predictable issues for language learners and should not be interpreted as ‘the student can’t learn’ or ‘the student has learning problems’. To support these learners to access the curriculum being presented and demonstrate their learning through appropriate assessment adjustments, greater levels of scaffolding should be provided by the classroom teacher.
ESL learners
1. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in Queensland have a broad range of possible linguistic backgrounds:
Traditional languages are only spoken as first languages by Indigenous students as their first language [L1] from some remote areas in the Torres Strait, on western Cape York and in far western Queensland because full transmission of traditional languages has been disrupted in many families by colonial practices and policies. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students who speak traditional languages as their L1 are often acquiring the regional creole as their second language [L2] with SAE being added as their third language [L3]. Opportunities for learning the regional creole occur more frequently through extended family contact and attending regional events than for learning SAE, which is often used only at school. Some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students might also speak languages originating from outside Queensland, for example, Alyawarre from the NT, or Kiwai from PNG.
Creoles are spoken by many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students as their first language(s) [L1]. Current research indicates there are three distinct creoles in Queensland and these also have regional variations. They are full and complex languages which have arisen from historical contact between languages, such as in the multilingual settings in large government settlements or in industries such as cane cutting, cattle and trepanging. Historically, Australian creoles have much vocabulary of English origin (as the colonial lexifying language), but with pronunciations (phonology), meanings (semantics), word formations and endings (morphology), phrase and sentence structures (syntax) and socio-cultural usages (pragmatics and genres) influenced by traditional Indigenous languages. Although Indigenous students who speak a creole are ESL learners, they are frequently not identified as such due to a general lack of awareness that creoles are not just ‘poor English’.
Creolised varieties have become the primary languages of some remote, rural and urban Indigenous speech communities in Queensland. Note that only two Australian creoles have a degree of official recognition: Torres Strait Creole, (also known as Yumpla Tok, Broken, and in one study Cape York Creole), and Kriol . This is not to say that all creole speakers use these terms. On the contrary, in most parts of Queensland local, informal labels are more common. These might make reference to place names (e.g. Lockhart, Curry [Cloncurry], Palm [Palm Island]), or to the kinds of people who talk it (e.g. Murri, Island) or to its non-standard character (e.g. Slang, Broken).
Dialect versus creole: Non-SAE varieties spoken by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students range along a continuum: very distant from SAE through to similar to SAE. Where sufficient linguistic material is shared with SAE and mutual comprehensibility is proven, it would be appropriate to designate a variety as a ‘dialect’. Dialect speakers can also experience difficulties accessing areas of meaning in SAE. The name ‘Aboriginal English’ has been used to refer to a range of different language varieties spoken by Aboriginal people in Queensland (and throughout Australia), including different creoles, as well as to other non-standard varieties and dialects. A single meaning of this term should never be assumed in the Queensland context due to its many possible meanings.
2. ESL learners of migrant heritage born in Australia
These are students who begin school with limited exposure to SAE. They may live in a home where English is not used, or where English is not the only language used or where English is used as a common language between parents without the same first language. Through schooling they may acquire a well developed “social” proficiency which masks a limited SAE ‘academic’ proficiency caused by lack of explicit ESL teaching.
Some students born in Australia may spend substantial time in other non-English speaking countries during their school life and thus experience breaks in their Australian schooling. In these cases, these students continue to require significant support for learning English as a second language.
3. ESL learners who are newly arrived to Australia
ESL learners who are newly arrived to Australia enter school from a broad range of educational backgrounds. They arrive in Australia at any age and might enter school at any time of the year and at any stage in the P–12 school program. Due to their English language needs they may not be able to access learning in the same ways in which speakers of SAE are able to. For example, an ESL student may enter Year 9 as a beginning learner of English and will require some time to learn English through supportive ESL teaching before being able to produce spoken and written English appropriate to the linguistic demands of this stage of schooling. Such learners may continue to need ESL support in mainstream classrooms in order to operate at the level of their peers and reach their learning potential. This includes support to both access the curriculum and also to demonstrate their learning of it.
Some students may have had age-appropriate schooling in their first language and may have completed some English studies. They may already have a good understanding of the culture of school but may not have the same understanding of the learning processes which are valued in Queensland state schools. Other students in this group may have experienced multiple migrations before arriving in Australia, and had few opportunities to access education programs. There may be a mismatch between their previous experience of schooling and that of Australia. In some instances their previous schools may have had few physical resources and provided minimal education services. However, at the time of arrival in Australia these students and their families may not recognise the vast differences between schooling experiences. Though families may report many years of schooling, these experiences do not always equate with schooling in Australia and may give a misleading picture of the level of the student’s prior education.
Due to multiple migrations some newly arrived students may have learned to ‘speak’ a number of languages, but may not have experienced academic learning in any of these languages. They may have no experience with written text for example, having come from an oral language tradition. Some of these students may have never attended school at all and may have experienced traumatic events due to war, famine and disease.
Understanding second language acquisition
Bilingualism
Classroom teachers should be sensitive to, acknowledge, accept and value the use of home languages. Students’ proficiency in their home languages reflects years of learning undertaken outside of an English speaking classroom and provides evidence of students’ cognitive and expressive capabilities. The aim of ESL teaching is to add to students’ linguistic repertoires rather than to detract from them. It is highly beneficial for ESL students to maintain and develop their home languages. Maintenance of students’ home language(s) should be encouraged to confirm and reinforce their identity and full citizenship. In addition, research indicates that students are able to transfer their cognitive, social and cultural capacities in their first language to aid development in their second language. Therefore students with little, interrupted or no literacy background will benefit greatly from assistance with development of school concepts in their first language.
Types of language proficiency
Second language acquisition takes many years and is often described in terms of Cummins’ two types of proficiency. The first is referred to as ‘Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills’ (BICS). BICS is the language used for social everyday communication and is often highly contextualised, used for real life events, sharing personal information and for achieving social functions. Most second language learners immersed in an SAE-speaking context will be proficient in BICS after approximately two years of learning and being exposed to the target language. Students who are proficient in BICS may give a misleading impression that they are able to function in all settings including the classroom, using English. However, BICS proficiency does not necessarily translate into the academic and more abstract language of school.
The second type of language proficiency is ‘Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency’ (CALP). CALP tasks require a greater degree of cognitive engagement and are accompanied by less contextual support. They require distinct technical vocabularies. Developmentally, spoken and written genres become more grammatically complex as information is manipulated and reshaped for particular purposes. These genres, combined with cognitively challenging content and higher order thinking and expression, make the acquisition of academic English a much more difficult and lengthy process (up to 7 years, or more for those with interrupted or no schooling in their first language).
When ESL learners are beginning their second language journey, activities which develop BICS may include shared outings and shared experiences, practical activities, opportunities for repetition, the teaching of formulaic conversation content (e.g. greetings, requests for help) and the development of the vocabulary of school. As students acquire BICS, activities should then approximate the language of school with the inclusion of more academic content, explicit teaching of the genres of school (such as recount, narrative, information report, explanation, exposition) and the increasingly complex grammatical demands of these genres.
Interlanguage and errors
Language learning is a developmental process. As ESL learners make progress in acquiring English, they formulate ever closer approximations of the target language (i.e. ‘learner variety’ or ‘interlanguage’) and so continue to make ‘errors’ when using English. Errors are therefore an important part of acquiring a language and these ‘creative’ errors provide the classroom teacher with key insights into the learner’s developmental stage. They can show that students are hypothesizing about the rules of English and are attempting to apply them. For example, a plural noun is marked in English by adding ‘s’ as in bird/birds. An ESL learner may apply this rule erroneously, or ‘overgeneralise’, in cases where the rule is not applied as in sheep/sheeps. Errors are generally a good indicator of progress and can show increasing confidence with English.
Some errors, however, can also result from L1 transfer to the language being learnt. For example, many languages do not use the same 3-way split for singular 3rd person pronouns: he (singular male), she (singular female), it (singular something else) and so the student may for example use he for she, and so on. Students who speak a creole need explicit ESL teaching to enable them to separate their L1 creole (e.g. Torres Strait Creole, Yarrie Lingo) from SAE. This assists learners to deal with possible transfer between superficially related languages.
Concentration on errors in the early stages of SAE second language learning, rather than on systematic and contextualised language teaching and scaffolding of KLA content, may impede experimentation and hypothesising and lead to a language learning plateau. This does not imply that students, however, should not be engaged in gaining knowledge of the SAE grammatical system at the text, clause, and group and word level. Students should have maximum exposure with minimum pressure for production at the early ESL levels.
Explicit grammar teaching
It is essential to teach SAE grammar explicitly, systematically and consistently, contextualised within the texts being studied. Without explicit and appropriate grammar teaching, second language learners typically plateau at a level below their academic proficiency potential.
Classroom teachers need knowledge of grammatical features at a text, clause, group and word level. This enables them to analyse grammatical features of target texts and identify relevant aspects to share with students. This practice helps to provide ESL learners with equitable access to classroom texts. If teachers teach a meta-language about grammar in SAE then students and classroom teachers will share a common terminology for discussing grammatical forms and structures, and it will be possible to support students in acquiring a deeper and more accurate control of the second language. As the language of school becomes more contextually reduced and more abstract, the ability to explicitly discuss grammar in all key learning areas is essential.
For more information contact the Head of Campus.
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