The Challenge of Educating English Language Learners in Rural Areas.

0
810

Rural school districts are experiencing an influx of language minority students. Rural communities generally have little experience with people from other cultures and have fewer resources and bilingual people. At the district level, leaders who view the influx of immigrants in a positive light are more likely to prepare a well thought out plan for serving their English Language Learners (ELLs). An example shows the steps taken in a rural Virginia district to implement a well-researched program that set the district on the right path for years to come. Although the district provides structure and guidance, it is the school principal who ensures that programs are properly implemented and maintained. Schools that are successfully helping their ELLs have principals with positive attitudes towards their new population. Successful principals arrange training sessions for all staff on cultural awareness, schedule ongoing training sessions for mainstream teachers on English-as-seconcl-language (ESL) strategies, actively recruit ethnically diverse teachers and staff, encourage collaboration between mainstream and ESL teachers, support extended-day opportunities for ELLs, purchase classroom and library resources that broaden student understanding of different cultures, and reach out to parents using their native language. The increased emphasis on standards and high-stakes testing and related questions about fair treatment of ELLS can support rural district efforts to obtain additional funding. The Department of Education provides free ‘technical assistance, and there are often community resources and volunteers that can be tapped. (TD) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. N ‘1* kr) rn The Challenge of Educating English Language Learners in Rural Areas An increasing number of school districts across the U.S. are experiencing an influx of language minority students as the strong economy continues to create a wide range of job opportunities. It is projected that in 20 years about 1 in 6 residents will be of Hispanic origin; and by the middle of this century the ratio will increase to about 1 in 4. The vast majority of immigrants settle in large urban areas, but their numbers are increasing dramatically in rural areas where 57 percent (up from 48 percent in the 1980’s) are of Mexican origin (Huang, 1999). Poultry processing plants and meat packing firms are attracting immigrants to rural areas in record numbers. As Gary Huang reports in his ERIC Digest entitled Sociodemographic Changes: Promises and Problems for Rural Education (January, 1999) “Immigrants in rural areas have attained, on average, less education relative to urban immigrants. High school completion rates, for example, are lower among rural immigrants aged 25 and older than among their urban counterparts. And this gap seems to be widening: metro immigrants who have entered the country since 1980 report increasingly higher rates of school completion, whereas completion rates among recent nonmetro immigrants remains low.” Many educators who work with ELLs in rural areas lament the fact that their language minority students are dropping out at unusually high rates, but they are hard pressed to find solutions to this seemingly intractable problem. Rural communities do not generally have much experience with “outsiders” of any sort. There are many rural areas where a majority of the local residents have had little to no experience with people from other cultures. This can lead to fear and misunderstanding when immigrants begin to settle in an isolated community. In addition, small school districts tend to have less access to resources and bilingual peopleboth of which are essential to meeting the needs of the newly arrived language minority students and their families. In this article, I propose to highlight some promising practices in the area of serving ELLs in rural schools. The problems and challenges are well known, but I would like to emphasize that there are many districts–against all odds–that are making remarkable strides in improving the achievement and high school completion rates of their language minority students. District-level efforts The districts that have leaders who view the influx of immigrants in a positive light are more likely to prepare a well thought out plan for serving their ELLs. Too often, educators in small districts are in denial about the fact that immigrant families are settling in their area, and they put off devising a coherent plan for serving ELLs until the growing BEST COPYAVAILABLE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDU IONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) his document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY arneA 2 TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 1 number of students is impossible to ignore. By this time, teachers and students have experienced a great deal of frustration due to the lack of instructional and moral support. An example of a district that chose the proactive route is one that I encountered in rural Virginia. They had a few language minority students spread out among a lot of different schoolsno school had more than about five or six students. One of the district curriculum specialists was assigned the duty of administering the nascent English as a Second Language program. As is often the case with people who are assigned this task in rural areas, she had no ESL experience. What she did have was a can-do attitude that inspired her to search out resources about the field of ESL and what constitutes a model ESL program. Here are some early steps she took: Called the state ESL person for information Studied the Office for Civil Rights guidelines and recommendations (www.ed.gov/offices/OCR/index) Made a case to the school board that the district was obligated to meet the needs of their ELLs according to federal mandates, and projected the number of qualified ESL teachers that would be needed Instituted a home language survey for the entire district Researched a test that could be used district-wide to assess the English proficiency level of the ELLs Read some key articles from the National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education (NCBE) website (www.ncbe.gwu.edu) Began a hiring process to seek out qualified ESL personnel Assigned the ESL teacher with the most experience as the district’s “lead” teacher Gave the lead ESL teacher a stipend over the summer to write an ESL plan for the district Sponsored and encouraged training sessions for mainstream teachers in recommended instructional and assessment strategies that they could use to increase the comprehension and performance of their ELLs. This district leader took these steps over ten years ago, and, as expected, their language minority population has continued to grow. Due to these thoughtful early steps, the district has become a model for surrounding rural districts that are struggling with similar challenges. This Virginia district is so dedicated to ensuring that ELLs are taught to high standards that they have hired an ESL teacher to teach “sheltered” high school courses for as few as three or four students. This level of commitment is unusual, but itÂ