Garcia: What's in a name? 2021
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Emergent Bilinguals and TESOL: What's in a Name?
OFELIA GARCIA
City University of New York New York, New York, United States
One of today’s most misunderstood issues in education throughout the world, and particularly in the United States, is how to educate students who speak languages other than English. In the United States, these students are most often referred to as English language learners (ELLs) by educators or as Limited English proficient students (LEPs) by legislators and the federal government. I argue here that emergent bilinguals might be a more appropriate term for these children.
deficit terminology, + LEP sounds like a disease. This was the term on official NYCDOE docs when I began teaching…
When we label things, we separate and emphasize our differences removing humanity from the process. Time for a change in how our government categorizes these students.
For a course name, I feel like the commonly used “ESOL” English to Speakers of Other Languages is more appropriate than ENL (English as a New Language)
Labeling students as either LEPs or ELLs omits an idea that is critical to the discussion of equity in the teaching of these children. When officials and educators ignore the bilingualism that these students can—and must—develop through schooling in the United States, they perpetuate inequities in the education of these children. Putting bilingualism at the center in speaking of these students is important for (a) the children themselves; (b) teachers and teaching; (c) educational policy makers; (d) parents and communities; (e) the field of language education and TESOL; and (f) societies at large. This article argues for the use of the term emergent bilinguals in referring to these students.
To be clear, ELL is the official terminology for these students, yet you will be understood when discussing them as emergent bilinguals. For reference:
ELL = the person
ENL = the program
TESOL = the degress
—really young age and in America kids don’t often fully learn a second lanuage.
It’s difficult enough knowing one language well, try working on two simultaneously. Being attentive to these unique needs in curriculum can/will create a better and more informed outcome for students.
Calling these children emergent bilinguals makes reference to a positive characteristic—not one of being limited or being learners, as LEPs and ELLs suggest. The term emergent bilinguals refers to the children’s potential in developing their bilingualism; it does not suggest a limitation or a problem in comparison to those who speak English. As such, bilingualism is recognized as a potential resource, both cognitively and socially, consistent with research on this topic (see, e.g., Bialystok, 2001; Garda, 2009, chapter 5). Thus, emergent bilinguals are seen as having an advantage over those who speak English only and for whom becoming bilingual will be more difficult.
I never really realized that English Language Learners had such a negative connotation. Now stepping back, it’s a lot easier to see, especially after watching the video. Emergent bilingual makes it sound so much more positive, so I completely agree with this statement.
“…emergent bilinguals are seen as having an advantage over those who speak English only and for whom becoming bilingual will be more difficult” – Hate to admit, but as a bicultural / bilingual person, I do participate in a greater sense of awareness and understanding of my place and space.
As an international student that study aboard, I went to an international high school in Taiwan. My high school also label student based on their language proficiency. If you’re not fluent in English, you’ll be in an ELL class while others are in a regular English class. Most of the students in the school are Asians, which means they’re first language aren’t English. However, the ELL label still created a gap between these students. People in the regular English will think those in ELL classes may have some problems/limitations learning a new language or just believe they are not putting enough effort in class.
But in other places sometimes it’s not demanded, so the opportunity for the students studying there would be less and they might lose their experience with the bilingual system.
The other reason for referring to these children as emergent bilinguals is that it does away with the false categorization of children as either
limited English proficient (LEP) or English proficient (EP).
Emphasizing the students’ emergent bilingualism places students on a bilingual continuum of more or less accessibility to languaging bilingually.
Categorizing children as LEPs or EPs is a dubious construction that misleads educators and that robs emergent bilinguals of languaging and educational possibilities.
My high school and college offer English Improve program (EIP) to help students. It’s both good and bad in a way because it can help the students to improve English, but at the same time they are being labled
This emphasis truly contrasts the negativity associated with the term “ELL”; bringing them up instead of down.
Making sure that students who may already be overwhelmed with learning another language on top of keeping up with all other subjects feel as though they have the potential to be fully bilingual is important. It’s important to acknowledge how powerful a term to categorize or label someone can be.
Understanding how the present categories of LEP and EP are created in the United States may shed light on why the term emergent bilingual might better serve its children. At present, and for the federal government, LEPs are those students who have been identified in the U.S. Census as speaking English less than very well. Aside from the known limitations of census self-report data and, in the case of children, family report data, this categorization has other problems. The monoglossic and monolingual ideology that permeates the United States takes the most extreme definition—considering as LEPs all those who speak English less than very well. But if we adopt a more heteroglossic approach, allowing for bilingual practices that do not have English monolingualism as the sole standard, emergent bilinguals would be considered only those who do not speak English at all, potentializing their ability to move on the bilingual continuum and to join those whose home language practices include minority home languages as well as English. The potential of bilingualism would then be maximized.
It also makes people, who are labelled as such, feel as if they’re not as smart as the others, that they’re not trying hard enough.
“At present, and for the federal government, LEPs are those students who have been identified in the U.S. Census as speaking English less than very well.” The census is an amazing and powerful tool used by our governing stakeholders/institutions to determine, allocate, and justify economic resources for or against communities of color. This includes education, sanitation, housing, food, healthcare or not, etc.One can argue that the categorization / labeling has embedded in it the language of structural inequality.
The author is challenging the notion that knowing another language other than English is a detriment. the only way to combat that lack of English proficiency is to drill a mono-linguistic curriculum instead. meanwhile in my adult life, I’m constantly reminded of how much of an asset being multilingual is.
Shedding the terms ELLs and LEPs would also accommodate the more heteroglossic language practices of emergent bilinguals and bilinguals in general. Teachers would then be able to hold higher expectations of these children and not simply remediate their limitations and their English learning.
“Teachers would then be able to hold higher expectations of these children and not simply remediate their limitations and their English learning.” It takes plenty of work to develop curriculum in a mono language. In a country where teachers feel unappreciated, underfunded, unsupported, where would the support mechanisms for developing bilingual pedagogy begin?
In recognizing the children’s emergent bilingualism, educators would be building from the students’ strengths—their home language and cultural practices. They could then use the children’s home language and bilingual practices rather than suppressing them or ignoring them. In this way, educators would be able to develop pedagogical practices that are more consistent with research that supports the use of the children’s home language practices (see, e.g., Ramirez et al., 1992; Thomas Sc Collier, 2002).
I am intrigued by how this be done? As I think about the video we saw, and how flustered the math teacher became with the student, partially due to her lack of bilingual skills, I wonder how many of our current teachers really posses that kind of cultural awareness and sensitivity needed to create such a curriculum.
Focusing on the emergent bilingualism of these children, instead of on their limitations and their English learning status, would also help policymakers base educational decisions for these children on their strengths. Thus, instead of providing the remedial education with which these children are often confronted, educational policymakers would be providing them with more rigorous curriculum and more challenging instructional material. Insisting that these children are emergent bilinguals in a bilingual continuum would also call for the development of bilingual education programs and bilingual pedagogy for all children, not just for those to whom this article refers as emergent bilinguals.
This is truly theoretical and conceptual thinking. On a practical level it would require massive system wide political and institutional will. Given the last 4 years of political will in this country, I think that approach would never be supported…but, on a tactical level, in smaller districts, with truly progressive educators, fund raisers, and creative instructors it is possible.
Without an ELL or LEP category, it would also be easier for educational policymakers to demand that assessment be valid for all bilinguals. A more flexible norm could then be adopted that would include all children along a bilingual continuum, instead of insisting on a rigid monolingual standard.
The insistence in a failed monolingual standard is cultural hegemony.I believe that until our educational leaders and policymakers own up to this, and start taking steps toward true and inclusive change, the path toward educational remediation is pretty well set.
More significantly, however, is the fact that if the category LEP is abandoned, there will be no need to exit children out of that category in the 1 to 3 years that the federal government mandates. Instead, emergent bilingual children would slide along the bilingual continuum as their language practices develop complexity and eventually encompass the academic standard language practices of school. Educational policymakers could thus be more patient, understanding that, as research has clearly shown, it takes children 5 to 7 years to develop decontextualized academic skills in one or the other language (Cummins, 1981, 2000; Hakuta, Goto Butler, & Witt, 2000).
Calling these students by a name that does not focus on their limitations would mean that the parental language practices in the home would be the source of the educational expertise. Instead of assigning blame to parents and community for language practices that exclude English, using the proper terminology would encourage the school to see the parents and community as the experts in the child’s language and cultural practices that are the basis of all learning. As such, the parents and community would participate in the education of their children from a position of strength, and not from a position of limitations.
It’s been 21 years since this article was written, can policy makers, institutional pundits, and our leadership be more patient? Imagine: We just pulled out go Afghanistan, after 20 years, at the cost of trillions. If that energy had been harnessed toward the education and creation of a more inclusive nation, would we be discussing this today? Unfortunately, we still have LEP and ELL’s as the defining criteria for bilingualism in our country, change is slooooow thing.
The assumption of English as the dominant language in education also seems to assume that emergent language learners are less educated generally. Drawing from friend’s experiences migrating to this country in middle and high school, I have heard that the focus on English without as much interaction in their first language has caused them to lose the ability to communicate in the ways they want to with family and friends.
FOR THE LANGUAGE EDUCATION PROFESSION AND TESOL
The language education profession is divided in ways that do not support the holistic education of children. Focusing on the children’s emergent bilingualism would integrate the four separate aspects of language education—the teaching of English to speakers of other languages (TESOL), bilingual education (BE), the teaching of the heritage language when available (HL), and the teaching of another foreign language (FL). Teaching would then be centered on the student, and not on the profession.
By focusing on the children’s emergent bilingualism and making bilingualism the norm, the field of language education would be able to move to the center of all educational endeavors for all children. The language education profession must include not just those who speak other languages at home, but also those who speak English and who are becoming bilingual. For TESOL, this change would result in a much more inclusive stance that would recognize the bilingualism of the students served by the profession as an important resource in teaching and learning English.
Bilingual practices are more important in the 21st century than ever. It is clear that the ability to translate, to develop flexible language practices, to language bilingually or translanguage (Garcia, 2009) will be very important resources for all in the future.
The language resources of the United States have never been greater. Despite its insistence on being a monolingual state, the United States has perhaps the world’s most complex bilingual practices. The benefits of harnessing these linguistic resources are more evident than ever for society at large.
The names we use mean something. By looking at children through a monolingual and monoglossic lens and insisting on categorizing them as LEPs or ELLs, the U.S. educational system perpetuates educational inequities and squanders valuable linguistic resources.
I have argued in this article that in order to restore educational equity and harness bilingualism as a resource, we should start by referring to these children as emergent bilinguals. Placing bilingualism at the heart of TESOL will yield many benefits. There will not only be benefits to the children, but also to teachers, educational policymakers, parents, communities, and society at large. And there will be benefit to the language education profession, a profession that is in need of serious overhaul. For TESOL itself, adopting the use of the term emergent bilinguals to talk about the students it serves—instead of English language learners, limited English proficient, or English as an additional language students— would mean including the many languages that make up the TESOL profession and its students, acknowledging the important role that the students’ home languages have in English language acquisition, and presenting the acquisition of English not as a monolingual or monoglossic endeavor, but as one that is bilingual at its core. It would finally recognize that success in teaching English means becoming bilingual, and that the success of the TESOL profession depends, in large part, on the multilingualism of the world and the bilingualism of its students—and not on English monolingualism.
I think this article makes a great case for getting rid of anachronistic labeling practices that do not move the education of our kids forward. Instead, it keeps children in a cycle of dependency because the system is not enterprising and courageous enough to see that what it is serving to an emerging bilingual population is not working.
THE AUTHOR
Ofelia Garcia is a professor in the doctoral program in urban education at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She has been a professor of international and transcultural studies at Columbia University’s Teachers College, Dean of the School of Education at the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University, and professor of bilingual education at The City College of New York. She is a Fellow of the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STLAS) in South Africa, and has been a Fulbright Scholar, and a Spencer Fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Education.
REFERENCES
Bialystok, E. (2001). Bilingualism in development: language, literacy and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cummins, J. (1981). Bilingualism and minority language children. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
Cummins, J. (2000). Language, power, & pedagogy: Bilingual children caught in the crossfire. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.
Garcia, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century. A global perspective. London: Wiley/Basil Blackwell.
Garcia, O., Kleifgen, J. A., & Falchi, L. (2008). Equity in the education of emergent bilinguals: The case of English language learners (Equity Matters Research Review No. 1). New York: Teachers College. Retrieved December 12, 2008, from http://www.tc .columbia.edu/i/a/document/6468_Ofelia_ELL__________ Final.pdf.
Hakuta, K., Goto Butler, Y., 8c Witt, D. (2000). How long does it take English learners to attain proficiency! University of California, Linguistic Minority Research Institute. Policy Reports: Paper hakuta. Retrieved May 27, 2009, from http://repositories .cdlib.org/lmri/pr/hakuta
Makoni, S., 8c Pennycook, A. (2007) Disinventing and reconstituting languages. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.
Ramirez, J. D. (1992). Executive summary: Longitudinal study of structured English immersion strategy, early-exit and late-exit transitional bilingual education programs for language-minority children. Bilingual Research Journal, 16, 1-62.
Thomas, W., & Collier, V. P. (2002). A national study of school effectiveness for language minority students’ long-term academic achievement final report: Project 1.1. Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley, Graduate School of Education. Retrieved December 12, 2008, from http://www.crede.ucsc.edu/research/llaa/Ll_final .html
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