The Great Debate and Language Learners

“In a similar way to academic second language acquisition generally, the fuel that drives the development of reading competence is the extent to which students are enabled to invest their identities fully in the process of becoming powerfully literate” (p. 91).

In chapter 4 of Negotiating Identities, Cummins places English learners into the heart of the whole language “versus” phonics debate. While his primary argument is for extensive reading in the second language for English learner students, he also seeks to show that the debate as a whole is really quite fruitless and the lines drawn are too rigid. It is not necessarily an either-or debate; both whole language and explicit phonemic awareness approaches have their place in the learning of an ELL student.

Cummins' three points about the debate in regards to ELLs are thought provoking and could profoundly shape the ways English learners are taught literacy skills in their second language. First, he argues that ELLs should receive a phonics and phonemic awareness instruction, but in combination with meaningful exposure to print. Second, Cummins notes that isolated phonics instruction, such as the skill-and-drill method, is ineffective. Most interesting to me was Cummins’ third point: phonics instruction in the second language can begin early on in the child’s academic career, even if he or she does not have an extensive knowledge of the language. However, this does not necessarily influence the student’s comprehension of the material.

From this third point springs two conclusions. First, English learners can be taught phonics skills early on. Letter-sound correspondence and phonemic awareness skills are beneficial, and even Cummins argues that students who are not immersed in a literary environment prior to starting school need these skills to be explicitly taught. Second, though, is that phonics skills alone do not increase comprehension. I have seen this to be true. I used to work at a tutoring/after-school center in a city with a high population of Mandarin-speaking Chinese immigrants. Although most of the students I worked with were English speaking, for many English was their second language. One student in particular, a preschool-aged girl, was a recent immigrant from China. Her family spoke little to no English. Wanting her to be prepared to begin public school in the fall, they brought her to the program for tutoring. Somehow I wound up in the role of tutor, despite my lack of experience. I was given the books of the Hooked on Phonics program and nothing else.

To my surprise, after she learned the names of the letters and their main corresponding sound, she began to read the decodable rhyming books the series uses. Within two months she could read sentences such as, “The fox sat on the box,” after practicing the “-at” and “-ox” word families. It was exciting to see; she knew when she was decoding correctly and felt successful! At the same time, however, since the language was completely new to her, she had very little understanding of the meaning of the words. I attempted to provide that understand through the pictures but the ability to translate into Mandarin would have been so helpful – and eased some of my frustration! This student’s experience illustrates Cummins’ point. Phonics skills are useful, especially, I imagine, when learning a language wholly unlike one’s first language, such as in learning English with a Mandarin background. However, the purposes of reading – for meaning, to build knowledge, and for enjoyment – were absent from our hours turning the pages of decodable books.

Cummins sees immersing children in literary, print-rich environments with authentic texts as crucial to students gaining not only decoding skills (perhaps, for some, without explicit teaching) and phonemic awareness, but also reading comprehension. One reason is that students need to read. That, he points out, is how much of the low-frequency vocabulary and grammatical structures that compose academic language are learned. Students need multiple and varied exposures to that type of language.

The classroom where I am a resident is filled with academic language. The thinking maps that line the walls use words like “analogy” and “discipline” and “sequencing.” The students are hearing them and seeing them. In addition, the students have approximately 30 minutes of silent reading time every morning. Although some of this time inevitably gets eaten away by make-up quizzes, homework checking, and tardiness, it is still crucial to their success. Cummins cites a study in which students read silently or with a teacher in their L2 daily for 30 minutes. After two years, these students performed significantly better than students who had no such exposure (p. 111). These 30 minutes are not wasted time. Not only that, but silent reading allows them the freedom to choose books that are engaging to them, from both the classroom and school libraries.

As a teacher, I need to help my ELL students be immersed in language. I want them to enjoy reading; to do so, they need freedom to read what is interesting to each of them. I wonder how their identities would be shaped as biliterate students if they were given texts in Spanish as well as in English. Recently, my class read a story called Anthony Reynoso, Born to Rope. It was a short story about a Mexican-American boy who ropes with his father. The Spanish words in the story, though few, were exciting to the readers. Even if they do not consider themselves fluent readers in their L1 (Spanish), once they decoded the word or heard it read aloud, they excitedly said, “I know that word!” The knowledge of the language itself is a vehicle for shaping students’ identity not only as bilingual but also, hopefully, as biliterate students.

This relates back to the quote I cited at the beginning of this post. To become “powerfully literate,” one must see power in literacy. One must feel that it can shape one’s identity – for the better. If reading is reduced to a set of skills, it can be lackluster and boring. Students learning the language may feel discouraged, and this might even be damaging to their identities. At the very least, skill-and-drill techniques do not foster an identity of “powerful” bilingualism. Using phonics as one of the tools to help language learners – really, all students – discover reading as the door to a world of knowledge and rich meaning is crucial. Reading should be for meaning, for ELLs as well as for native English speakers, but a rich curriculum emerges through reading: vocabulary growth, grammatical understanding, content knowledge. To learn a language, one must read. 

Language Proficiency and Support

“The second misconception is in many respects the converse of the first. In this case, children’s adequate control over the surface features of English (i.e. their ability to converse fluently in English) is taken as an indication that all aspects of their ‘English proficiency’ have been mastered to the same extent as native speakers of the language. In other words, conversational skills are interpreted as a valid index of overall proficiency in the language.” (p. 61)

In chapter 3 of Negotiating Identities, Cummins shows that an English learner’s ability to use conversational English is not indicative of his or her ability to use academic English or his or her mastery of language conventions. Yet often, their conversational skills are extrapolated to indicate just that. The implications of this are vast: students can be moved out of bilingual education too soon, they can stop receiving language scaffolding and support, they can be seen as having a lower intelligence because they are not performing at grade level on standardized tests.

I have seen this to be true in my own experience in the classroom as well. One of my third grade students, an English learner, received an overall score of Early Advanced on last year’s CELDT test. While a score of either Early Advanced or Advanced is enough to “FEP out” (be reclassified as Fluent English Proficient), a student cannot do so if he or she receives a score of Intermediate on more than one of the four areas tested – speaking, reading, writing, and listening. My student scored in the Advanced range in speaking, but only Intermediate in the other three areas. From her conversational skills, one likely would not be able to tell that she is an English learner. She sounds like an average third grade student. However, her use of pronouns and prepositions in writing is less developed than most of her English-only peers. Although she likes reading and has good decoding skills, her comprehension is lacking. This student will be one of my focus students for my ethnographic study. I am hoping to provide her with meaningful instruction that supports her language learning but also celebrates her current language abilities, namely being bilingual. Many students are like her – seemingly completely proficient, but yet still needing support. I believe it is our job as educators to provide that support while maintaining a high value for what that student offers to the class as a bilingual individual.

What seems to happen, at least at the school I am teaching at, is that there is so much material that needs to be taught that ELD gets pushed aside. The English learners seem about on level with their English-only peers, especially by third grade. Perhaps, however, this is a false assumption based on their conversational and colloquial English proficiency.

The new ELD standards we have been studying recently seem to address this issue. They seem to integrate content standards with the ELD expectations and include new frameworks for the support English learners need at varying stages of language development. These standards point out that language learners need support based on their mastery of the content, prior knowledge, and language skills. For example, a student at the Bridging level (the most developed level according to these standards) might need “light linguistic support” when working with cognitively demanding and complex academic language (2012, p. 9). When the content involves familiar topics or common, conversational English, support might not be needed at all. But support should not be removed entirely. The document states that, following the Bridging stage, English learners transition to a stage of “Lifelong Language Learning” (2012, p. 9). Even in that stage, occasional support might be necessary. It should not be done away with completely based on the assumption that language learners either are not as able as their monolingual peers or have mastered every element of the English language. Both of these assumptions are often hasty and unfounded.

Another way that these new standards address Cummins’ argument in this chapter is in the way they address context-embedded and out-of-context language use. In addition, when combined with the Common Core State Standards, the ELD standards specify language development within both cognitively undemanding and demanding situations. For example, a student at the Emerging level should be able to have a simple face-to-face conversation with a peer. This is a context-embedded and low cognitive challenge task, what Cummins defines as a Quadrant A task. But the standards also address Quadrant B, a context-embedded but cognitively challenging task: at the Expanding stage, students should be able to read about familiar and unfamiliar topics in a contextualized setting. The standards hold students to a high degree of rigor, content knowledge, and language skills; they are also written in such a way that explains the support language learners need.

Anther point that Cummins made that resonated with me was the idea that there is more to English fluency than conversational English (BICS) and academic language (CALP). In addition, he identifies “discrete language skills” which include specific grammatical and phonological skills (p. 65). These are language structures that need to be taught directly or acquired through practice, such as through reading. Students whose first language is English, I believe, acquire many of these skills somewhat automatically. However, English learners need to be explicitly taught these language structures. The danger is teaching them only in isolation, such as through drills and worksheets. According to Cummins, out-of-context and cognitively undemanding activities (Quadrant C tasks) such as these fail to provide students with instruction that fosters their identity and creativity and that challenges them intellectually. I would also guess that these types of language reinforcements are somewhat ineffective.

Why are all of these language issues relevant? Not only do I have nine English language learners in my third grade class, but also the discussion about classifying English learners into proficiency levels and supporting their unique linguistic needs points to a deeper issue, as Cummins shows: students’ identities. In education of bilingual students, or students from socioeconomically disadvantages households, or students of color, the assumption is all too often made that these students have less _____. Less knowledge. Less parental support. Less ability, even. But in regards to language, Cummins cites Gee (2001), who writes,

“almost all children regardless of home income level have impressive language abilities and enter school with ‘large vocabularies, complex grammar, and deep understandings of experiences and stories’…Children who experience difficulties in school lack, not these general language abilities, but rather ‘specific abilities tied to school practice and school-based knowledge.’” (Cummins, p. 70).

Undervaluing or devaluing their language abilities undermines their identities and their potential identities. Accountability and placement tests can reflect this as well. On the speaking portion of the third grade language proficiency test, students are shown a picture of a compass and asked to identify it. Does their inability to come up with the word “compass” mean that they are not skilled at speaking English? Or does it show what they have and haven’t been exposed to? This is not a post about high-stakes testing, but the example points to the bias inherent in many measures used to determine levels of proficiency of English learners. It is not that classifying English learners is unnecessary. But there must be a way both to value the students’ first language and the identity that is already being formed, and to support their English learning appropriately (not assuming they are proficient overall or assuming they are intellectually incapable) while opening up positive identity options. With the English learners in my ethnographic study, I can also explore ways of assessing their content knowledge apart from their  language abilities. These are big tasks, but important ones for the many English learners I will teach in the years to come. 

Identity and Power in the Classroom

“In contrast to coercive relations of power, collaborative relations of power operate on the assumption that power is not a fixed pre-determined quantity but rather can be generated in interpersonal and intergroup relations. In other words, participants in the relationship are empowered through their collaboration such that each is more affirmed in her or his identity and has a greater sense of efficacy to create change in his or her life or social situation. Thus, power is created in the relationship and shared among participants. The power relationship is additive rather than subtractive. Power is created with others rather than being imposed on or exercised over others.” (p. 16)

This is from the first chapter of Negotiating Identities. The power struggle Cummins writes about is foundational to his arguments in the following chapters. Through this quote, the author suggests the debate over bilingual education and teaching students from minority backgrounds is a deeper societal issue that is played out in the classroom. Cummins argues that power is not a zero-sum game; there is not a fixed amount of power that only a limited amount of people can hold. Rather, power can be created collaboratively. In relationships, each participant has the possibility of gaining power. Schools, Cummins argues, often operate under coercive relations of power, in which “the division of resources and status in the society” is maintained and legitimated (p. 15). This means that the teacher has the power, exerted through authority, culture, and language use; students – especially minority students and/or students who speak an L1 other than English – do not. Yet schools should operate to generate and share power with their students.

I agree: the classroom should be a place of collaborating to create a sense of power in students. I want my students to feel empowered to achieve more academically and personally. Cummins ties this empowerment to identity: students’ identities are being shaped in the classroom. Either an oppressed identity or an empowered identity can be the outcome. For my students, many of whom are of a minority ethnic background (Latino) and nearly half of whom are English Language Learners, empowerment needs to happen academically. Many of them are in a home and community environment that respects their culture and heritage; for my students, their cultural background is not lost. Their identity may be “Mexican third grade student, sister, and aunt.” Very few would add the words “writer, mathematician, artist, sports player,” etc. In my work as an educator, I can use my students’ cultural and linguistic background to promote academic success.

In my classroom now, the students are embarking on a cross-curricular study of American heritage and culture, including their own. Based solely on their eagerness to complete the project, many students see this as an unusual but exciting opportunity to learn about themselves in an academic context. This is a step toward empowering students: the project helps publicly legitimize their identities. But there is more to empowerment than opening up identity options that include a student’s linguistic and cultural background.

Lisa Delpit’s “The Silenced Dialogue” (2006) came to mind as I read these chapters. She references the “culture of power” frequently and asserts that students who are not part of that culture – i.e. the students to whom Cummins refers – need to be taught the language and rules of that culture explicitly. That is empowering, according to Delpit. I am struggling with these two viewpoints on how to appropriately exert power in the classroom. While Cummins focuses on English Language Learners and Delpit on students of color, both would argue, I believe, that classrooms are mini-societies in which power is used and transferred. Cummins argues that students should be taught in such a way that they can know their identities and then “challenge the prevailing attitudes in the wider society” (p. 18). I do not think Depit would disagree. But she would add that in order to challenge attitudes pervasive in society, students need to be taught the language with which to challenge – the language of power. Again, I do not think Cummins would disagree, necessarily. But the two viewpoints are even stronger together. Teaching the language of power is also empowering students to effect change presently and in the future.  

Both authors propose the vital role of the classroom teacher in upholding his or her students and providing them with power. These viewpoints, which converge at many points, affect my ethnographic research by providing a lens through which to critically view my school and my classroom environment. Are the cultures of the students upheld and honored? Are students being empowered? What is the definition of empowerment, according to the school officials and teachers? As I spend more time in my classroom and with my students, I will play a part in making these views a reality.