Teaching English Learners Living with Trauma, Violence and Chronic Stress

Judie HaynesNJTESOL/NJBE 2015

Trauma, Violence & Chronic Stress

• Trauma: a response to an experience that is so stressful that it overwhelms an individual’s capacity to cope

• Violence: the use of physical force to harm someone, damage property

• Chronic Stress; a physiological state of hyper arousal that can result in chronic anxiety, hyper vigilance, and limit in regulating behavior

Craig (2006) Yoshikawa (2011).

Response to Trauma, Violence, & Chronic Stress

An individual’s psychological response to a threatening event or series of events

Subjective response to an objective event

All children exposed to it do not experience it

(Craig, 2008, Terr, 1991, Giller, 1999)

Typical development…Community-at-large and more

Peer Group

School

Community

Family

Child

Development Disrupted…

Disruption to relationships children would have formed

Child

Who are English learners living with trauma, violence and chronic stress?

Trauma and Violence

• 107,000 undocumented, minor children, ages of 0-17, were apprehended crossing into the US over the Mexican border from Central America. Many of these children were also unaccompanied.

• 38, 759 in 2013• 68.541 in 2014

Additional examples-

• Natural disasters such as the earthquake in Haiti and the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Citizen Children of Undocumented Parents

4.4 million children born in the U.S. have at least one parent who is undocumented.

Children of Undocumented Immigrants

The challenging pathway to citizenship for their parents is harmful to children’s development-particularly cognitive and language skills- Yoshikawa

What Happens to Citizen Children?

• Often stigmatized and harassed when parents are arrested.

• Stigmatization causes constant fear of peers finding out parents’ identity.

• Citizen children are sometimes warned to keep arrest a secret further contributing to feelings of isolation and shame.

Urban Institute Study: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/talking-about-trauma/201305/the-traumatic-effects-forced-deportation-families

What Happens When ICE Raid Occurs?

• Family is often ostracized by community when parent is arrested

• Social exclusion and isolation can induce depression and accentuate psychological distress among parents and children

• Children can feel labeled as an outcast and are living isolated from their previous social networks

Psychology Today, Talking about Trauma by Muller, R. (May, 2013) http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/talking-about-trauma/201305/the-traumatic-effects-forced-deportation-families

What Can Happen to Citizen Children When Undocumented Parents Are Deported?

• They can be placed in the detention center with parents and then sent back with parents to home country and denied the benefits of their citizenship.

OR• If there are no family members to take them, they’re

separated from parents and placed in the foster care system.

Cohen, E. (2010). Healing the Damage: Trauma and Immigrant Families in the Child Welfare System, A Social Worker’s Denver, CO: American Humane Association. http://www.americanhumane.org/

ELs Living in Poverty

Close to 66% of nation’s ELs come from families whose income is 200% below the poverty level.

Quality counts, 2009, p 15; Goldenberg & Coleman, 2010.

200% below poverty level

Impact of Poverty

• 23% of children in the U.S. are living in poverty• Poverty has an adverse effect on the academic

achievement of children, especially during early childhood. 

• Economic distress can cause long-term psychological and developmental distress. 

Yoshikawa (2011)

How Do We Best Prepare?

The role of empathy v sympathy:

Why is Empathy Important?

• Children have had little control over their lives.

• A single or series of events has occurred or is occurring that is totally out of their control or management.

Role of Empathetic Educators

Requires that we

• Don’t punish students for behaviors they can’t control (from passivity to defiance).

• Use a sensitive, positive and responsive approach

• Support student learning how to “self-regulate” using a gradual release of supports

Important Steps for Trauma Sensitive Classes

1. An empathetic approach2. Collaboratively working to ensure

students feel safe, trusted & welcome3. Drawing on student & family assets

(e.g., funds of knowledge)

Helping Families Access Community-Based Services

Many not familiar with public services including essential programs:• Women, Infants, & Children nutrition [WIC]• Head Start • Public preschool• After school programming• Public health• Housing

Compassion Fatigue

• Teachers should not take on problems and challenges of ELs suffering from trauma and shock as their own.

• Understand risk of compassion fatigue.

How to Create Trauma Sensitive Classrooms

What’s critical?• Using empathy• Supporting students to regulate their own

behaviors in a safe and supportive way• Gradual release of social support

5 Keys to Trauma Sensitive Classroom

• Determine literacy & educational background of student

• Develop routines so that organization of child’s day is predictable

• Tie learning to students personal, cultural, and world knowledge

• Have students work in cooperative groups• Make sure lessons are comprehensible

Routines and Practices

Consistent experiences to feel safe, secure, and welcomeIntentional instruction includes:

– sequencing, – following multiple steps, – Explicit usage of routines and practices that

students can count on

How to Introduce Predictability

• Implement predictable routines in small segments

• Repeat them so students gain control over their learning environment.

Classroom Routines and Practices

Gradual Release of Supports

• Support children as they manage new activities

• Continue to support them until as they learn to do these activities on their own.

• Gradually release support of students

Gradual Release of Support

• Teacher models his/her own thinking• Teacher & student work together• Student collaborates with others in group.• Student assumes responsibility for own

learning.

Teacher

Student

Theme-Based Curriculum that Includes:

• Culturally & immediately relevant content

• Pragmatic tasks that build academic

language

• Collaborative activities that include an oral

component

• Development of listening/speaking

Themed-Based Curriculum Includes:

• Positive emphasis on what students can do

• Predictable organization of lessons

• Literacy and numeracy development when

necessary

• Scaffolded instruction that builds students’

academic English proficiency

Strategies for Teaching EL living WithTrauma, Violence

& Chronic Stress

Connect New Learning to Prior Knowledge

Tie New Information to Students Background Knowledge

• Engage students in challenging, theme- based curriculum with language modifications to develop academic concepts

• Draw from students’ background, experiences, cultures, and oral language traditions

Drawing from Personal & Cultural Knowledge

• ELL students’ cultural knowledge and language abilities are important resources in enabling academic engagement (Cummins)

• ELL students will engage academically to the extent that instruction affirms their identities and enables them to invest their identities in learning.

Provide Comprehensible Input

Plan ahead

Think about how you will support ELs to make the content meaningful and comprehensible.

Use concrete examples and real experiences.

Visuals, modified teacher speech, realia, manipulatives.

Provide Comprehensible Input

Comprehensible Input

• Empower culturally and linguistically-diverse ELs to know what they bring to the classroom is valued.

• It’s about embracing all of the cultural knowledge and awareness that ELs bring into the classroom.

• Have students draw from assets - other students care and support

Use Cooperative Learning

(Pair to Square)

Use Cooperative Learning

• If teacher want to include ELs in the content instruction of their classroom, they should not lecture.

• English native speakers understand only 14% of what is said by a teacher during a

lecture.• ELs will understand even less. Hull, R.H. (2008, November). How to talk to children. Technical sessionpresented at the annual meeting of the American Speech Language-Hearing Association,

Chicago, IL.

Additional Resource Available through by Corwin Press

Judie Haynes atjudieh@optonline.netwebsite at http://www.everythingesl.net/TESOL blog: http://blog.tesol.org/Follow me on Twitter at @judiehaynes

Questions