Mainstreaming+ELLs

"To become fully integrated into the mainstream curriculum, these newcomers must learn to adapt to the linguistic, sociocultural, discursive, and academic norms and practices in content areas, and various kinds of accommodation on the part of the school community are also required (Mohan, Leung, & Davison, 2001 - cited in Duff, 2001, p. 104)

Statistics about secondary ELLS - many will wind up dropping out and underachieving. (Collier, 1995, cited in Duff, 2001)

Mainstreaming is viewed as both "positive and pragmatic" - ESL teachers are also being mainstreamed - Language learning is seen as beneficial for all students, not just ESL. (Duff, 2001, p. 106)

ESL students in large mainstream classes had less than one turn in 30 to speak - and then, typically IRE. More opportunities in ESL classes. (Harklau, cited in Duff, 2001, p. 107) Moving into a mainstream class limited their opportunities for English.

Once in mainstream classes, ESL students can understand, but don't interact. (Duff, 2001, p. 108)

"Keeping students in ESL classes for an extended period of time to develop their oral skills is not viable either, due to the mismatch between the language, literacy, and content coverage in ESL classes versus the mainstream and the lack of contact with highly proficient local English-speakers." (Duff, 2001, p. 108)

"Explicitly combined L&C instruction is found less frequently in mainstream content courses unless major reforms initiated by ESL specialists have been implemented successfully . . . " (Duff, 2001, p. 109)

Challenges for ESL students in mainstream classes - 1) lack linguistic, cultural, and geographical knowledge to interpret texts, 2) lack content knowledge taught in previous grades, 3) the content they do have is often not represented in North American curriculum, 4) not used to thinking about social studies from multiple perspectives and critically (Duff, 2001, p. 109)