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Lack of Research Hinders ELL Teaching
Lack of Research Hinders ELL Teaching

Craig Albers
Craig Albers

December 2009

More than 20% of K–12 students speak a language other than English at home, and that percentage is expected to rise to 40% by the year 2030, according to the U.S. Dept of Education.

Academic skills are considered critical to students’ future physical, emotional, and vocational wellness. But public school records reveal that English language learner (ELL) students, as a group, attain the lowest academic achievement scores. A lack of academic skills is related to poorer health and increased rates of pregnancy, incarceration, and mental illness.

Albers reviewed journals that (a) focus on school psychology, special education, speech-language, or counseling; (b) are peer reviewed; (c) transmit research results to practitioners; and (d) focus on K–12 issues or students aged 3–21.

An individual article was considered to focus on ELL students if it specifically indicated that the topic was directly connected to ELLs or if ELL participants were central to the study.

ELL-related articles published within school psychology journals were categorized as having a primary focus on (a) assessment, (b) consultation, (c) intervention, or (d) other miscellaneous issues.

Most coverage of ELL student-related issues occurred in the special education journals (11.3% of the articles). Speech-language journals accounted for 10.1%, school psychology journals 6.5%, and counseling journals 4.8%.

Student-service providers, including school psychologists, want to offer linguistically diverse students the services that are effective and legally required. But they need access to professional guidance, culturally appropriate assessment tools, and effective intervention strategies.

Unfortunately, the school psychology literature does not reflect the linguistically diverse demographics of children attending U.S. schools, says UW-Madison education professor Craig Albers. Albers and colleagues conducted a study of peer-reviewed articles published between 1995 and 2005 in leading school psychology and other journals (see sidebar).

They found that published research documents the problems of linguistically diverse students, including lower self-efficacy and self-concept, significantly higher reported social alienation, and disproportionately high levels of certain disorders (e.g., post-traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation). But they found relatively little research addressing prevention and comprehensive early intervention services that could reduce risk.

Moreover, few articles focused on ELL-related issues, and of those that did, most contained no information that would guide practices with ELL students. This suggests significant issues have yet to gain the attention of researchers, educators, and student-service providers, Albers says. In particular, Albers’s review revealed pronounced gaps in  the literature concerning:

  1. Administering and interpreting social-emotional and behavioral assessments
  2. Reports leading to the development of new assessments
  3. Implementing or improving social-emotional and behavioral intervention strategies for ELL students, and
  4. Reports focusing on the development of new intervention techniques.

Without this kind of information, Albers says, school psychologists and other educators may feel unprepared to respond to their students’ academic, social-emotional, and mental health needs. Albers says school psychologists need more ELL research in these critical areas:

  1. Traditional assessment practices, including continuing examination of potential bias relating to cognitive testing and other assessment procedures;
  2. Knowledge and application of assessment and intervention services relating to ELL students’ behavioral, social, and emotional needs, resulting in well-defined evidence-based practices;
  3. Prevention and early intervention services with ELL students, including the extension of response-to-intervention (RTI) procedures; and
  4. Training and professional development regarding ELL student issues.

This research was partially supported by an award from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.