GILROY
– If the state’s latest data on English Language Learners is any
indication, immersing a student in their second language and using
standardized test results to shape classroom instruction improves
learning.
GILROY – If the state’s latest data on English Language Learners is any indication, immersing a student in their second language and using standardized test results to shape classroom instruction improves learning.
Almost one-third of Gilroy’s Spanish-speaking kindergarten through 12th-grade students are ready for full-time instruction in English starting next year. The benchmark is more than double what it was last year, before Gilroy Unified School District ended bilingual instruction in favor of full-time English instruction specialized for non-native speakers.
“We had done some preliminary review of data before, so I can’t say I’m really surprised, but I am pleased,” said Martha Martinez, Gilroy Unified School District’s administrator of the English Language Learner program.
In 2001, only 14 percent of the district’s English Language Learners were considered proficient in English. According to the latest tests – administered at the end of last school year – 36 percent now earn that tag, signaling that GUSD is closing the vast performance gap between English Language Learners and students district-wide.
The latest data is based on scores from 1,744 district students who took the California English Language Development Test over the past two years. All English Language Learners take the exam which is administered one-on-one and covers various language skills from reading and writing to vocabulary and fluency.
GUSD is in the midst of two far-reaching district goals. It wants 90 percent of its students performing at grade level in math and reading by June 2004. In addition, GUSD wants to cut the performance gap between any subgroup – such as English speakers and English Language Learners – to just a 5 percent difference.
No more than 11 percent of English Language Learners in the GUSD last year were reading at grade level. Meanwhile, based on other state mandated standardized exams, as much as 60 percent of the GUSD’s English-speaking students read at grade level.
There are roughly 3,000 English Language Learners enrolled in the GUSD, comprising 30 percent of the district’s student population.
“The last couple years we’ve really been aware of the gap (between ELLs and other students),” Eliot Elementary School Principal Diane Elia said. “We didn’t make a big change in (English language instruction) until this year, but we did look at test data over the last two years and we targeted instruction based on that.”
Given the district’s new “neighborhood schools” enrollment policy, the improvement is especially important for Eliot, the district’s only elementary school on the city’s east side.
“Neighborhood schools” mean students attend the campus nearest to where they live. The policy shift triggered an influx this year at Eliot of more than 100 additional English Language Learners, the district’s formal name for students who speak little or no English. Overall, Eliot has less than 400 childrenenrolled.
“We’re pleasantly surprised to see improvement on these tests,” Elia said. “We’re thinking hard about what had made the big difference in performance.”
This school year GUSD dropped its bilingual education program in favor of English Immersion classes, citing research that says students learn more English and perform better on standardized tests when immersed in a language. In theory, this means similar improvements will be seen on standardized tests taken this spring.
“I think the level of improvement can be sustained,” Elia said. “But it is harder to move a student from the intermediate to advanced level than it is to move a beginning-level student up to the middle.”
Student performance on the California English Language Development Test is broken into five levels, from Beginning to Advanced. In 2001, more than half of GUSD students tested in the bottom two proficiency levels. On the most recent tests, a quarter of students rank there.
A similar amount of students between 2001 and 2002 (617 and 656 respectively) perform at the intermediate proficiency level.
Last night, Martinez met with parents of English Language Learners to explain how all the latest data will translate into their students’ classroom instruction. Essentially, proficient students will be encouraged to move from English immersion to mainstream classes.
“What the new scores say to parents and students is, ‘You have the ability to be successful in a mainstream English classroom,'” Martinez said.
In May, the district will hold a “reclassification” ceremony for students who choose to move out of English language development courses.
“These children have reached a milestone and we want them to know that,” Martinez said.
