English Learners from Different Countries

Dear Ellie,
My school has a very large population of English Learners.  I teach Biology, and I have students from India, Mexico, Russia, China and the Philippines this year, with seven languages.represented.  

Two of my student are twins girls  from Jalisco, Mexico. They re having the hardest time with English, despite the fact that they have been in the country longer than most of the other ELs in my class.

Twin ELs may need to be encouraged to open up to new friendships.

A colleague of mine, a Spanish teacher, told me that she believed that the Mexican girls would be able to learn more quickly that ELs from other nations, because Spanish is more similar to English in its structure, pronunciation and symbols.  Why is this not proving to be true and how do I help them?





Stumped about Spanish,
New Rochelle High School
New Rochell, NY

Dear Stumped,

Your colleague was correct, to a point.  Spanish and English do have a lot of similar phonemes and do use the same letters.  They are both predominately S-V-O languages, meaning common sentences start with the subject, are followed with a verb and then ultimately the object.  In theory, this similarities would make it easier for speakers of one of these two languages to learn the other.

Obviously, individuals and their circumstances will vary.

I'm afraid I don't have enough information to give you a definitive answer, but I can pose some questions that may help you get there.

1. Do any of their family members speak English?
2. Are the girls in a lot of the same classes?  Do they socialize with others or mostly each other?
3. Do they life in a predominately Spanish-speaking neighborhood?
4. What is their education background?
5. Have the girls been diagnosed with any learning differences?

One of the best ways to learn a new language is to immerse yourself in the language and actively attempt to communicate.  If the twins are shy to reach out to others, are relying on each other for conversation, and their family and community allows them to speak their heritage language whenever they are not in school, this can have a profound affect on their English progress.

Also, some of your EL students may have had the opportunity to begin learning English in their home countries.  They may have been fortunate to attend schools that gave them the best background possible to help prepare them for any situation.  Perhaps the twins were not fortunate to have such great resources.  There could possibly be a gap in their education.

And finally, while there are many perfectly healthy multiples with no learning differences, research has shown that multiples tend to have more disabilities than singletons. If you notice anything that may raise a red flag in this arena, you should speak with their counselors.  If other teachers see the same thing and the parents agree to it, academic and psychological testing may be considered.  (Be careful, though. Unfortunately, ELs are more likely to be incorrectly diagnosed with learning disabilities due to language barriers.) 

No matter which, if any, of the ideas above apply to the twins in your Biology class, something you can do to help is to separate them when forming partners or groups, and think of create ways to get them interacting with other students.  Does your school have a club they may be interested in joining?  Maybe they are interested in the Recycling Club, or Environmental Club?

As always, I recommend you speak to the English language specialists in your district. They are your best allies for anything related to your ELs.  

Linguistically yours,

Ellie

References

Finegan, E. (2011). Language: Its Structure and Use (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage

Higher Incidence of disability in mulitiples.  Curtain University.  Retrieved from

http://tandm.curtin.edu.au/sn/sn1.cfm

Mexican twins photo. Retrieved from
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2013/11/29/us/29ttOrphans/29ttOrphans-master1050.jpg