Connecting with EL
Students & Their
Families: Culturally
Responsive Systems &
Practices
Presenter: Skip Cleavinger, M.A.
Director of English Learner Programs, WCPS
[email protected]
Objectives
 Increase awareness and understanding of important
terms and concepts related to English Learners (ELs)
and their families.
 Examine concepts of language, race, ethnicity and
culture as they relate to our own identity and that of our
schools and classrooms.
 Explore and discuss the notion of Culturally Responsive
Systems & Practices
Objectives
 Examine the characteristics of school culture that have
the most impact on the inclusion/exclusion of students
and families who are culturally/linguistically different
than the dominant culture.
 Discuss strategies to increase language access and parent
involvement
 Discuss principles of effective language and content
instruction for ELs
Why This Workshop
 At the present time, 15 million students in the U.S. public
schools speak a language other than English, and ELs
are the fastest growing group of students across the
country.
 The growth in Kentucky has been dramatic as well.
Currently, approximately 3% of our students in the state
are EL, but Jefferson County, Fayette County, Warren
County, Boone County and others have very high
numbers of ELs. Warren County’s EL population has
increased 136% since 2007, and 11% of our total student
population are ELs.
Why This Workshop
 The world is in the midst of a migrant crisis, and many
are fleeing their homeland to escape war and
persecution. Those who are granted asylum by the U.S.
may be making their way to Kentucky’s schools.
 The resettlement of refugee families to Kentucky along
continually increasing numbers of families immigrating
signifies an increasingly diverse student population.
Concepts & Definitions
 English Learners (ELs)?
 Individuals who are in the process of acquiring the
English
 Students are given based this designation based on the
results of a test of English language proficiency (WIDA
ACCESS Placement Test or the ACCESS).
 Synonymous with English Language Learner (ELL) and
Limited English Proficiency (LEP)
Concepts & Definitions
 Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CLD)- This
term acknowledges cultural and linguistic
differences, but includes the entire spectrum of
language proficiency, including advanced proficiency
in speaking, listening, reading and writing in English.
Concepts & Definitions
Race:
 Political and social construct. “An arbitrary division of
humans based on physical traits and attributes”
(NCCREST, 2008)
 Human genome project revealed that all humans have
similar DNA and there are no specific genetic markers
that can specify an individual’s race.
Concepts & Definitions
Ethnicity
 More complex than race
 Can be based on language, country of origin, religion,
race
 An individual’s “identification” with their particular
ethnic group can vary from very strong ties to very
weak/non-existent ties.
Concepts & Definitions
Culture
 thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors shared by
racial, ethnic, religious, social groups
 One can be born into a particular culture or we can
choose to be part of a particular culture (e..g., religious
and social groups)

Cultural identity is dynamic and can change and shift
Culturally Responsive Systems &
Practices
 The notion of Culturally Responsive Systems and
Practices is predicated on recognizing the “power of
privilege” and the need to create equitable and accessible
educational systems if all students are to have a chance
to be “successful” (e.g., grades, graduation, social
dividends, “Career/College Readiness, etc.).
 “Privilege” can manifest in many ways, but for the
purposes of our conversations today, privilege is
primarily manifested by proficiency in the English
language and proficiency in U.S. school culture.
Hallmarks of Culturally Responsive
Systems & Practices
 Culturally Responsive Systems & Practices encompass
building-wide and classroom-based practices
 Educators work to increase their understanding of the
languages, ethnicities, cultures of their students.
 Implicit and explicit message that languages and cultures
within the school are welcomed and valued.
 Strong instruction and assessment practices exist to
increase content knowledge, disciplinary language
proficiency and analytical skills.
Cultural & Linguistic Capital
Jeff Zwiers (2008) discussed the idea and that culture and language are
forms of capital. There are and four overlapping forms of capital:
social, cultural, knowledge, and linguistic.
 “Social Capital” being the amount and type of interactions with
adults, siblings and peers.
 “Cultural Capital” being the amount of experiences with a
variety of cultures.
 “Knowledge Capital” being the accumulation of knowledge one
has acquired through experiences and education.
 “Linguistic Capital” being the amount and quality of language
experience in many contexts (home, community, religion,
school, etc.)
Cultural & Linguistic Capital
 Students who differ culturally and linguistically from the
dominant culture of the school and community often
lack social, cultural, linguistic capital. Students with
interrupted formal education (SIFEs) all lack knowledge
capital.
 With capital comes privilege.
 CLD students are at-risk for marginalization and “a
dream deferred” (Langston Hughes)
 The 30 Million Word Gap
According to research by Betty Hart and Todd Risley
(2003), children from privileged (high SES) families
heard 30 million more words than children from
underprivileged (low SES) families by the age of 3.
In addition, “follow-up data indicated that the 3-year
old measures of accomplishment predicted third
grade school achievement.”
The Poor Prognosis for CLD students
in U.S. schools
The following slides contain information obtained
from The National Center for Culturally Responsive
Educational Systems (NCCRESt). The information
was drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Of Every 100 White
Kindergartners....
 88 graduate from high school
 58 complete some college
 26 obtain at least a bachelor’s degree
Of Every 100 African American
Kindergartners.....
 82 graduate from high school
 35 complete some college
 11 obtain at least a bachelor’s degree
Of Every 100 Latino
Kindergartners....
 63 graduate from high school
 35 complete some college
 8 obtain at least a bachelor’s degree
Of Every 100 Native American
Kindergartners...
 58 graduate from high school
 7 obtain at least a bachelor’s degree
Rate the Level of Cultural
Responsiveness of Your School
 Please complete the questionnaire and discuss with your
table colleagues.
Strategies to Increase “Cultural
Responsiveness”
Overt/Explicit:
 Understand the languages & cultures within your school
(Culture Grams, Culture Briefs, cultural brokers, etc.)
 Increase the language access of your building
(interpreters, translation, bilingual/multilingual signage,
etc.)
 Parent inclusion & participation (meetings, volunteer
opportunities, home visits, community tours, etc.)
Strategies to Increase “Cultural
Responsiveness”
Implicit:
Communicate to all culturally and linguistically diverse
students that their languages and cultures are important and
valued- and that they will be supported as they develop
proficiency in the language and culture of the community.
Instruction
 The theoretical foundations and pedagogical strategies
for teaching language have changed completely in the
past 10 years. Ensuring that ELs have the most chance
for success requires all of the culturally responsive
practices discussed previously, AND it also requires great
instruction and support in the classroom.
Common Myths about ELs and
English language development
 English can be taught like a subject, and it is the
responsibility of ESL teachers
 ELs must acquire the language of instruction first and only
then can they benefit from for content instruction
 Having strong social language in English means that a
student can understand the instructional and content
language of the classroom
 ELs need time to acculturate, become comfortable, learn
vocabulary for common objects and the language for social
interaction.
Key Principles for Instructing ELs
Inclusion and Language/Content
Growth
 Language develops through interaction
 Deep content learning occurs through questioning,
exploration, explanation, proposing, arguing,
summarizing, etc.
 The language required to engage in rigorous, engaging,
analytical conversation about math or science or social
studies (etc.) is not prohibitively difficult. EL students can
and should be extended the opportunity to be included in
these conversations as soon as possible.
 This can happen much sooner than previously thought.
Instructional “Non-Negotiables” for
English Learners
 A welcoming environment for children with different
language and cultural backgrounds
 Conversation. Writing. Opportunities to use language,
with invitations to converse also extended to students with
limited proficiency.
 Supports & Scaffolds: Language supports are provided in
the form of engineered tasks and texts that allow students
to move beyond what they can do without support (Zone
of Proximal Development). Readily visible forms of
support include, word walls, sentence frames and starters,
graphic organizers, etc.
• Formative assessment: The teacher guiding academic
conversations and assessing students’ language and
adjusting scaffolds and supports as necessary.
• A focus on vocabulary development in context. Efforts to
build vocabulary should not only focus on the words that
are directly related to the unit currently being taught, but
also “high yield” academic vocabulary words that are used
across content areas, particularly words with multiple
meanings in different content contexts (e.g., “table”).
• Interaction with students with strong English proficiency.
Flexible grouping that enables lower proficiency ELs to
interact with higher proficiency ELs is a very robust strategy
according to the most recent research findings.
Teacher-Centered Characteristics that
Suggest Strong Tier I Instructional
Practices Exist
1. Strong TI can exist when teachers know their classroom
“community” well. In the context of English Learners,
they have some understanding of their students’:
 Educational history
 First (and second) language
 Culture(s)
 Proficiencies (i.e., understanding & literacy) in the
first language (L1)
 English language proficiencies (L2)
2. Strong TI can exist when teachers make efforts to
understand ways to support and instruct ELs. This includes
understanding topics such as second language acquisition,
effective practices for ELs in the areas of instruction and
assessment, fostering academic conversation in the classroom.
There are MANY resources, including:
 Colorin Colorado (www.colorincolorado.org)
 Understanding Language (ell.stanford.edu)
 Blog.colorincolorado.org
 Teaching Channel (Search ELL)
 What Works Clearinghouse (http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/)
 WIDA (www.wida.us)
3. Strong TI can exist when teachers believe that
ELs bring tremendous linguistic and cultural
resources and experiences to bear in their
classrooms. They reject the notion that ELs are
“difficult to teach,” liabilities, etc.
4. Strong TI can exist when teachers reject any urge
to “coddle” their EL students by watering down the
content and language demands in their classroom.
They maintain high expectations, and they provide a
lot of support .
The language of our academic disciplines is best
learned when opportunities are given to engage with
rich, academic, grade appropriate text (with
appropriate support).
Summary