Identification, Assessment, and Programming for ESL · PDF file‘What is Adequate ESL/ESD Support? ... and their report “ESL learners with special needs in British Columbia: Identification,

FIVE CASE STUDIES

BCTF ResearchJune 2003

ESL Learners withSpecial/Additional Needs

Identification, Assessment,and Programmingfor

ESL/Special Needs PROJECT2

RT03-0020June 2003

ESL/Special Needs PROJECT 3

CASE STUDIES

The Vancouver ESL Observationand Support Program ...................................... 17

Authors: Colleen TsoukalasSusan BartonStephanie (Tess) CooperDavid LinsteadCalvin RaveningKiara Yeung

“If the teachers says there’s a problem,there’s a problem.” .......................................... 77

Authors: Dr. Ying Hoh,Jon DinglePatricia Tanaka

A school-based collaboration tomeet the needs of all ESL learners................. 123

Authors: Ingrid JeffreyCathy LarocqueMarlene BileskyVancouver School District

When ESL is not enough ................................ 141

Author: Elaine MayesLangley School District

Providing service for“grey area” ESL students ............................... 163

Author: Cathy PayneVancouver School District

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INTRODUCTION

During the early 1990s in British Columbia,rapid demographic changes resulted ingreater cultural diversity and significantincreases in ESL enrolments in a numberof school districts, especially in the LowerMainland. Such enrolment changessuggest corresponding increases in thepopulation of ESL students with special

needs. Whether such a likely increase was actually reflected in thenumber of student with both ESL and special needs designationsis doubtful, because to have an ESL student formally identified ashaving special needs was, and still is, a difficult process. Ideally suchidentification requires linguistically and culturally appropriateinstruments, with assessors capable of administering assessmentsacross a range of cultures and languages. Neither instruments norcapacity have been commonplace to date in many B.C. schooldistricts. As a result, many ESL students whom classroom teachersbelieve to have a special need have not been through an assessmentprocess to identify whether or not such a need exists, in ways thatare recognized within current Special Education policy.

In terms of policy development, an updated Special Educationpolicy was developed by the Ministry of Education in 1995, whilea provincial ESL policy was developed in 1999. Neither offeredsignificant encouragement to those educators attempting to meetthe needs of a population of students with a combination of needswhich encompassed English language acquisition and some formof special or additional need which impacted on students’ learningability. The Special Education policy (Section C, page 19) recognizesthe additional complexity in planning for students with differentcultural or linguistic backgrounds. The policy also allows for fundingto be granted for both ESL and special needs categories applied toan individual student, but offers little else in terms of assisting thoseresponsible for producing assessments and/or programming.

Although an ESL policy was developed, the focus on ESL at theprovincial level during the ’90s was minimal when compared withthe support for special education, where various specialist staffingpositions existed in the Ministry, and frequent publications andinitiatives were launched. In contrast, ESL staffing has been minimaland no ESL specialist has been employed by the Ministry for someyears. While B.C. generally funded ESL better than other provinces,


confidence in provincial support for ESL programs and servicesamong ESL specialists has remained consistently low. Caps onservice, limiting ESL provision, have largely eliminated service tothose ESL students who still need ESL support but who havereceived it for five years or more. ESL functioned in the ’90s as partof the “Special Programs” division, with its primary, and arguablydominant, focus on special needs. At school district levels, somedistricts built their own support for ESL with district staff or teamsallocated to ESL responsibilities. Until the mid ’90s the undoubtedleader was Vancouver School District, which, in the absence ofprovincial leadership, offered in-service, school support, andcurriculum and pedagogical adaptations both to its teachers and tostaff from other districts. Vancouver then removed such supportsand abolished its ESL district team, causing a vacuum of leadershipin the province which has not been filled. Thus, ESL often appeareda marginalized area in terms of provincial support, with the ESL/special needs focus even more neglected.

This publication has its origin in research which the BCTF initiatedin 1994. The ESL Research Project of that year published a series ofreports1 which described the provision of ESL in sixteen B.C. schooldistricts. It also considered the perspectives of ESL teachers, whodescribed issues of importance to them in providing ESL service tostudents. While there were many such issues, there was also a veryclear priority in the views of B.C.’s ESL teachers, which wasessentially to meet students’ needs to the best of their capacity.Data from surveys of ESL and classroom teachers, and from focusgroups, showed that one of the areas of unmet student needs wasidentified by both ESL and classroom teachers: the issue of ESLstudents with special needs.

Many ESL and classroom teachers who provided data for theresearch project felt strongly that this category of students “fellbetween the cracks” in terms of receiving services to meet theirneeds. Some teachers felt it was because of inadequate assessment,in terms of such assessment not being available or in terms ofexisting instruments’ Eurocentric cultural orientation. Othersdescribed the uncertainty as an ESL specialist when faced witha student learning need different to language acquisition, or thelimited access of ESL students to special education services.

1 ‘The Provision of ESL in 16 School Districts’‘What is Adequate ESL/ESD Support?’‘Classroom Teachers’ Focus Group Responses’‘ESL Teachers’ Focus Group Responses’‘Parents of ESL Students Focus Group’(All published by BCTF Research.)


They also described limits to collaborative approaches betweenESL and special education staff which might have the potential toaddress student needs.

If identifying concerns was the first stage of our research, doingsomething about them was the second. In the second phase BCTFESL research project, a primary focus was to identify and describecurrent issues and guiding principles for providing service to ESLstudents with special needs in the areas of identification, assessmentand program support. The second phase research was carried outby Jean Fowler and Hugh Hooper, and their report “ESL learnerswith special needs in British Columbia: Identification, assessmentand programming” was published by BCTF Research in 19982.This report outlined concerns with an educational system generallyunresponsive to ESL students with special needs.

Five issues were identified from a review of the literature, and as aresult of discussions with local educators:

1. Identification/assessment guidelines, and programming, forstudents with special needs, have traditionally been designed fora mono-lingual (English) mainstream population (Euro-centric).

2. The degree to which identification, assessment, and programmingservices may culturally discriminate against many ESL students.

3. While both the literature and best practices show that effectiveassessment utilizes a range of instruments and processes, thereexists evidence that there is an over-emphasis or reliance onstandardized tests as the measure of assessing ESL students’cognitive development and academic progress.

4. Current assessment practices, which continue to be diagnosisand placement-driven, with special education designations andfunding reinforcing this practice.

5. The current support model, where students are referred to“experts” for analysis and diagnosis, can lead to a limitedunderstanding of the complexity of the issues surrounding theselearners, because no single professional has the necessary skillsand knowledge to identify/assess and provide program supportfor ESL students with special needs. While the structures ofcollaboration, in the form of school-based teams, may exist,collaborative practices and processes are limited.

2 http://www.bctf.ca/Education/esl/ESL-SpecialNeeds.shtml


The authors also developed six key guiding principles, derivedfrom the relevant international literature, to guide identification,assessment, and programming:

1. Diversity across/within cultures, and the uniqueness of thefamily’s world, affect the child.

2. Use of the culture and the language of the child’s home andfamily enhances rather than diminishes his/her learning.

3. Student learning and identity in a multicultural environment isbest promoted through collaboration between school and home.

4. Use of advocacy-oriented assessment acknowledges the child’sabilities, potential, and cultural differences, including C1/L1knowledge.

5. Assessment is an on-going and interactive process.

6. It is important to develop an interactive, reciprocal, andresponsive educational environment to promote learning andempowerment.

Finally, the authors made recommendations in each of the threeareas. In terms of identification, they urged the rethinking andredesign of identification processes, with a much stronger focus oncollecting information from a variety of sources to provide a morecomprehensive student profile.

Three recommendations were made about assessment:

• Create and explore alternative assessment processes building onexisting best practice.

• Continue to question our own contextual and cultural assumptions.• Develop a comprehensive assessment process. Ten components

of such a process were listed, with a strong emphasis on movingaway from diagnostic assessment towards dynamic assessmentwhich might guide instruction.

In terms of programming, the authors recommended six ways todevelop appropriate program support:

• Developing reciprocal and interactive learning.• Empowering students through a cross-cultural framework.• Developing intervention strategies with sensitivity to family

and culture.• Focusing on purposeful and contextualized learning.• Exploring different models of service delivery.


• Building cognitive and academic skills while English languagecapacity is developing.

They also recommended programming which involved inter-disciplinary teams to incorporate the six concepts and strategies.

This report was the first attempt, in a British Columbia context,to systematically identify and address issues around providingappropriate education for ESL students with special needs. Byconsidering the international literature on ESL/special needslearners, and by linking this literature to innovative local practice,the authors contributed significantly to the B.C. educationalcommunity’s understanding of this complex issue. Some educatorswho were piloting approaches and programs expressed relief thatthe dilemmas they were facing were identified and discussed in thisreport. Others said this report provided a useful “first base” fromwhich to move towards sharing ideas and strategies.

The issues and principles listed in this are crucial to our under-standing, and provide a foundation from which to move forwardand provide appropriate programs. They challenge what the authorsconsider to be not only the discriminatory nature but also thehegemony of existing diagnostic assessments, and they suggestalternatives. This can be seen as problematic, for it challenges theconcept of “diagnosis”, where, in the views of the authors, a deficitis identified and a remediation provided. It also implicitlychallenges the assessment systems that have been dominant forsome time and which are reflected in special education policies.The purpose in explicitly stating the nature of this challenge is notto criticize either existing systems of assessment or those whoconduct assessments. Rather it is intended to open up a debate thatneeds to occur. What sort of assessments do we need to meet theneeds of students whose first language is not English and whomay have a special need? Do suitable assessments exist? Are theyaccessible? Are other forms of assessments acceptable which are less“expert” directed, or which are philosophically or methodologicallydifferent to those currently considered appropriate? Would suchassessment lead to quicker programming adaptations for students?Or should we maintain and adapt diagnostic testing but make itmore culturally appropriate? Might some assessments be valuablefor designing programs but not be linked to funding categories?

The goal need not be to select one over another assessment, butperhaps to employ a range of assessments appropriate to needs.This represents a very different approach to assessment because itsuggests flexibility and adaptability of methods depending on need,rather than a fixed assessment range into which students’ needsmust fit.


The debate on assessment philosophy and processes also reflectsthe divide between the worlds of ESL and Special Education, andto the problems of promoting effective collaboration between thetwo. Many ESL specialists stress that a student’s English languageacquisition does not reflect a “problem”, or a “deficit” in the learner.They are not in ESL “to be fixed”, to have a deficit corrected.ESL students can fit anywhere within the continuum of cognitivedevelopment that can be found in the general population. Implicitin this perspective is that ESL specialists may be wary about modelsof intervention that are perceived as addressing deficits. While thisappears a philosophical difference, it has implications for develop-ing effective education for ESL students with special needs. Inaddition, pre-service and in-service education and training tendsto be either ESL or Special Education, with minimal conjunctionbetween the two areas. All of these factors encourage separatespecializations—into either ESL or Special Education—but donothing to foster connections or collaborations.

How, then, does the B.C. educational system address the needs oflearners who are engaged in English language acquisition but whohave additional or special needs? On the evidence to date, a casecould be made that it neither adequately nor uniformly addresssuch needs.

In retrospect, one might have expected a debate of the Hooper andFowler report to consider future directions. Were their principles,issues, and recommendations a sound base for developing newidentification, assessment, and programming options for ESLstudents with special needs? The Hooper & Fowler report urgedprovincial leadership from the Ministry of Education, and manyreaders of the report agreed that this was necessary. However, inthe years since the Hooper & Fowler report was published there hasbeen little debate and no official reaction to it from the Ministryof Education. Nor has there been any alternative Ministry reportor position which addressed the issue of ESL and special needs,although at least one was commissioned by the Ministry but neverpublished.

In the absence of provincial initiatives, BCTF Research initiated athird phase to the research which these reports reflect. If the Hooper& Fowler report provided a useful second phase, it appeared logicalthat a third phase might include descriptions of identification,assessment, and programming strategies. Such descriptions mightallow teachers and other educators to progress from a considerationof principles and issues towards building processes and practiceswhich served students’ learning needs. By explicitly stating andsharing strategies, we also hoped that such descriptions mightencourage debate and reflection concerning appropriate approaches.


Were these approaches worth emulating? Could we identifycommon themes in the various local practices which might leadus to more general acceptance of a range of strategies? Could wedevelop and share information and resources to avoid “reinventingthe wheel”? Were there issues which troubled us from theseexamples, and if so, how might we address them? These were someof our questions in starting the third phase of the research thatthese reports describe.

Expressions of interest from teachers were invited by BCTF Research.As a result, five individuals or teams were invited to share theirwork. Two of these (Elaine Mayes and Cathy Payne) proposed towrite of their ESL/special needs focus within their own elementaryschool classrooms. A third (Ingrid Jeffrey) proposed a description ofa secondary-school-wide approach, with a particular focus on theconcept and use of dynamic assessment. Two others representeddistrict initiatives from Vancouver and Coquitlam. The Vancouverinitiative was an “ESL Observation and Support Program”, consistingof five separate elementary classes for those ESL students needingadditional support. The Coquitlam model demonstrated a districtteam approach to supporting both ESL learners with special needsin elementary, middle, and secondary schools, and the classroomteachers who work with them.

Writing of one’s individual or collective practices in a context wherelittle has been documented or shared is a difficult task, and thosewho joined this project should be commended for their couragein sharing their programs, ideas and progress. Writing about aneducational program or a practice is rarely straightforward. In thisproject there was no history on which to base an approach, andlittle policy to guide it. In some cases there were few supports forteachers in terms of addressing the combination of ESL and specialneeds issues, so that individual classroom teachers were developingand adapting practice in isolation. Even within teams, the supportsexternal to the team were minimal, with individual team membersrelying on and supporting each other. In such contexts the risks forauthors are potentially greater than the rewards, as documentationof any individual or collaborative approach may face challengesfrom those with different views on how identification, assessment,and programming should be addressed. The authors of the fivereports in this publication therefore deserve our thanks andappreciation for being open and explicit about their practices, andfor sharing them with us. Their work enables a new discussion totake place, which advances our collective understanding of practicesand potential directions.

Such a discussion builds on some of the common themes whichemerge from these reports. Such themes include:


• Many of the ESL students identified by teachers in these reportshave additional, rather than special, needs.

• The authors describe building detailed student profiles of ESLstudents with additional needs in order to better identify, assess,and program.

• Communication with parents is important in building student profiles.• Communication and collaboration between classroom teachers

and a range of specialists and other educators needs to occur, butin ways that meet the needs of students and are workable for theteachers and specialists.

• It is possible to utilize a variety of assessment processes beforeformal diagnostic testing is introduced.

• There is a place for formal diagnostic testing.• Informal assessment can lead to quick programming decisions

and adaptations with immediate benefits to students.• Individual classroom teachers’ observations about ESL students

should be respected and be an integral part of the assessmentprocess.

• The capacity of an individual classroom teacher to meet astudent’s educational needs is limited when such needs includeESL and additional or special needs.

• Both specialist and district support are necessary to meet theneeds of ESL students with additional needs.

• The nature of such support includes support for the classroomteacher and direct service to students

• Efficient record-keeping is crucial to attain identification,assessment, and programming effectiveness.

• There are issues in terms of separate classes that should bediscussed in the wider context of the B.C. education system’sinclusionary ethos and policies.

• Networking between teachers working with ESL students withadditional needs is highly effective but very limited.

• There is no systemic sharing of ESL/additional needs informationacross schools and districts in B.C., and little capacity to buildunderstanding of how to meet the needs of ESL students withadditional needs.

The reports elaborate on most of these themes, describing practicesand processes in much greater detail, but three are discussed inmore detail below.

Students’ needs

Most of the authors describe students who are rarely assessed ashaving a “special” need, that is, designated according to SpecialEducation policy, but they all describe students who demonstrateneeds in addition to language acquisition. The distinction between“special” and “additional” is crucial. We cannot conclude overall


whether students are rarely formally categorized as “special needs”because the process is too difficult, or because they do not fit thecategories. Neither are we sure whether teachers or district staffbelieve there is any point in a formal designation if no funds orsupport occurs as a consequence. What we can say is that classroomteachers, ESL specialists, counselors, psychologists and others whocontributed to these reports are convinced of some ESL students’additional needs, and they are finding ways to address them. Thepapers present a strong case that a prompt and persistent focus onsuch needs can result in pragmatic supports, which are of greatervalue to students than protracted waiting for assessments that meanthat few programming adaptations may occur for many months oryears.

Communication and collaboration

The second emphasis is on communication and collaboration, acommon focus of the reports. Respectful communication with thestudent, his or her parents or guardians, and between educators,is common among the authors and the other practitioners whosecontributions they describe. Communication is necessary toeffectively gather and assimilate information, to consider effectivestrategies, and to evaluate progress. Without the initial willingnessto communicate there would be no collaboration. Potentiallyrestrictive professional boundaries are minimal in the work describedin these reports, as the focus is primarily the student, so an under-stated but strong emphasis is how classroom teachers, schooladministrators, counselors, specialists in ESL and in Special Educationtalk and work to identify, assess, and program. It is possible suchcommunication and collaboration is not common in all schools.It is also likely that we are at an early stage of identifying goodcommunicative and collaborative strategies between ESL and SpecialEducation specialists. But the collaborations described here allow usto consider them as potential models. The Case Studies allow us tobuild on these models. If we find and develop these and otherexamples of good practices, we can then share them so that goodcollaborative practices become the norm rather than the exception.

Student profiles

The third focus is on the careful, systematic collection of informationto build a student profile. Such a profile is based on a number ofareas of data collection, including health, developmental history,educational background, family context, and migration. Detailedrecords of the information are kept, so that they can be accessed bythe staff in a school or if the student moves. The profile-buildingalso allows for strategies to be introduced incrementally. As an


example, health screening may identify a hearing or vision problemthat can be addressed, which in some cases may be the onlyintervention required. The reports collectively show how suchprofiles can be developed, recorded, and utilized, and demonstratethe utility and necessity of collecting a wide range of informationto aid identification, assessment, and programming.

Conclusion: The promise and fragilityof potential solutions

The reports’ themes reflect both promise and fragility. The promiseis that B.C. teachers and districts are capable of building capacityto support ESL students with additional needs. Each of the authorsof these reports has demonstrated both the will and the capacityto build on the principles and recommendations of the Hooper &Fowler report, with their documentation of profile-building, thedevelopment of a range of assessment options, and examples ofeffective collaboration. There is also a sense of optimism about thereports, that something can be done and steps taken, that eachpractitioner can play a role and that collaborative action can beeffective and powerful. Such steps are potential building blocksthat we can use to progress with both understanding and strategies.

However strong the promise, the capacity to support ESL studentswith additional needs is currently limited and fragile. There is noevidence to date of systemic support or Ministry leadership in thisarea. Few districts appear able to develop or sustain initiatives toaddress the needs of ESL students with additional/special needs,and there is little collaboration between districts in this area. Cutsto ESL services appear the annual norm rather than the exception,with resulting reductions in support, particularly at the districtlevel. Many such cuts could be a result of the Ministry policycapping service to ESL students after five years.

B.C. has a defined provincial inclusionary philosophy and policy,but there is a need to consider how such ethos and policy applyin practice to those ESL students with additional needs. This willrequire provincial leadership, and a series of initiatives to buildbetter and more responsive systems through practical supports,perhaps documenting and sharing good practice. Recommendation413 of the Special Education Review report makes a tentative startin setting a direction that might facilitate such support, but a

3 Recommendation 41, Special Education Review: “The Ministry of Education shouldinclude on its web site information about successful practices in the provision of service tostudents who have special educational needs and support district, regional and provincialconferences about the provision of services to students who have special educationalneeds.”


more active Ministry role is needed than has occurred to date.Collaboration between districts would also assist in developingand sharing good practice.

If, as these reports demonstrate, a small group of educatorscan develop and share practical yet innovative approaches tosupporting ESL students with additional needs, then with greatersystemic support, much more could be done to address and meetthe needs of such students. These reports are offered in the hopethat they will stimulate debate and action, and that the currentsystemic inertia towards ESL students with additional needs mightchange.

Our thanks go to the authors for sharing their practice, theirperspective, and their passion to meet all students’ needs.

Charlie NaylorBCTF ResearchOctober, 2002

BCTF Research apologizes to all those who contributed to this project for the longdelay in publishing these reports. Even though much has changed since thesereports were written, they still offer many ideas, and share practices and structureswhich facilitate the inclusion of ESL students with additional needs.

At this time, when supports for ESL students, and for students with special needs,are severely impacted by staffing cuts forced by provincial government policies,these reports show that the teachers of B.C. have much to offer in terms of sharinggood practices to meet the needs of all students.

Charlie NaylorJune, 2003

Documents

Identification, Assessment, and Programming for ESL · PDF file‘What is Adequate ESL/ESD Support? ... and their report “ESL learners with special needs in British Columbia: Identification,