RUNNING HEAD: Key Assessment

At-Risk Students in a Multilevel English as a Second Language Class

Grace Chen
Hunter College
Professor Loretta L. Clemente
July 28, 2016

Key Assessment

Summer is a key time for academic programs that can give students a boost before the
school year begins. With students receiving instruction for a variety of reasons including
enrichment, failing grades, and insufficient credit hours, summer school can nevertheless have
negative connotations. English language learners (ELLs) in particular have much to gain from
summer learning experiences, which can provide individualized attention and scaffolding for
academic success. Summer school, however, can also entail multilevel classrooms, additional
stigma, and instruction that does not correspond to student needs. Furthermore, there are added
concerns about violence with most students out of school. Conducting observations at a high
school in Queens, New York, I personally witnessed the promises and challenges of summer
school for educators and ELLs alike.
Background
I observed Mr. Johnson, who had been an ESL teacher for over a decade, teaching
English Language Arts (ELA) to ELLs. Although students from four schools were taking classes
in the same building, Mr. Johnsons class was largely comprised of students from his school.
There were students from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Puerto
Rico, Yemen, and Egypt. Grade levels ranged from entering 10 th to 12th grade, with several overage students. One student I spoke to was 19 years old and worked after school from 4:30 pm to
12:30 am. Another student wanted to graduate high school so that she could better support her
baby. Some students had only been in the country for two months and spoke minimal English
while others had been born in the United States but still struggled with writing and reading
comprehension. Most students were able to communicate in English but preferred to sit with
students who spoke the same language as them.
Each period lasted for 90 minutes, with half the students leaving and the rest remaining in
the same classroom for two periods in a row. Some students started classes as early as 8:30 and
needed to take classes until 2:30 in rooms without air conditioning. Mr. Johnson taught 2 nd, 3rd,

Key Assessment

and 4th periods. In the middle of 3rd period, there was a lunch break during which students had 10
minutes to grab lunch from the cafeteria and return to class immediately. The expectation was
that students would eat while instruction would continue. Additionally, attendance was somewhat
irregular, with students who stopped attending after the first week, others who would miss
several days of class in a row, and several who started attending classes during the last few
weeks of summer school. Furthermore, during periods 3 and 4 on Mondays through Thursday,
teachers in training from an alternative certification program would be responsible for teaching
the students. Under these circumstances, it was particularly challenging for Mr. Johnsen to plan
sequential lessons that served the diverse needs of these at-risk and high-need students.
Observations
Observations were conducted on July 15th and July 22nd. Each observation lasted two
periods for a duration of 90 minutes each. For period 2, Mr. Johnson had 10 students of various
ages and levels. Three girls sat in the back of the room, with only one girl speaking and writing
relatively fluently. On the other side of the room, there was a group of four boys who were
friends and would chat with each other while completing their work. Most of the boys were able
to communicate fluently, with the exception of one who was reluctant to speak. The final two
tables had two students each, with none of them particularly friendly with each other.
Mr. Johnson began the class by asking students to retrieve their folders from the back of
the room, which contained their work in progress. While some students still had to complete
some exercises related to an article about the one-child policy in China, most students were
beginning to read an article entitled Pokemon Go is the next big thing about a popular new
augmented reality game. While the text was only 239 words, it had a Lexile level of 1130L,
which is approximately an 11th grade reading level. Mr. Johnson was therefore using short, gradelevel texts rather than simplified texts with ELL students of varying levels. This method seemed
beneficial since students could practice reading comprehension with complex sentences and

Key Assessment

vocabulary without spending too much time reading long texts. A potential drawback of this
strategy was that since the complexity of the text was limited by the low word count, students
had fewer opportunities to observe the development of complex ideas in the text.
Mr. Johnson began by reviewing a few vocabulary words such as released, sensation,
capture, overtake, and devices. He explained each word to the students and asked them to copy
down definitions. He then asked students to predict what they thought the article would be about
considering its title and the vocabulary reviewed. The text corresponded with the interests of
several of the boys who had downloaded the game onto their phones. One of the students, Ivan,
remarked that the article was probably about how a lot of people are playing Pokmon. Mr.
Johnson waited for a few more responses before moving on. He did not maintain a highly formal
classroom culture and encouraged students to call out answers without raising their hands. Only
3 of the students were more eager to participate with the rest remaining silent.
He then reminded students of the agenda, written on a large piece of chart paper that read:
1) Key Vocabulary Words, 2) Prediction, 3) Independent Reading, 4) Fist to Five, 5) Gist 20 6)
Because, But, So, 7) Discussion A/B, 8) Spelling, 9) Phrase Match, 10) True/False, 11) Synonym
Match, 12) Writing. He showed students that they had already finished the Key Vocabulary and
Prediction portions of the agenda by attaching a paper clip next to Independent Reading.
Students read silently and those who finished more quickly seemed to know what to do next as
they used the Fist to Five technique to signal to him how well they understood the text. One
finger meant that they didnt understand at all, two meant that they needed to go over it again,
three meant that they think they understand but are not completely comfortable, four meant that
they understood it, and 5 meant that they could explain it to someone else. Most students raised
four or five fingers and moved onto the Gist 20 step, with Mr. Johnsons permission. The task
required them to summarize the text using exactly 20 words. Only one of the students raised

Key Assessment

three fingers, which prompted Mr. Johnson to work individually with her to break down
sentences and review vocabulary words. I noticed that in one group, students were comparing
answers and supporting each other, asking support from the strongest English speaker in the
group while continuing to complete their own work.
One of the more advanced students sitting in the front of the classroom had already begun
the Because, But, So exercise. Mr. Johnson had projected a few sentence starters: Pokemon Go
is the next big thing because, Pokemon Go is the next big thing but, and Pokemon Go is
the next big thing so onto the SmartBoard. The exercise prompted students to use
conjunctions to make their own connections to the text. Mr. Johnson checked her answers
individually and told her to move on Discussion A/B, which were a series of reflection questions
such as What social impact have apps had?, How much do you worry about your phone being
hacked?, and What is the attraction of Pokemon Go? She told Mr. Johnson that this was too
easy for her, which prompted him to challenge her to answer all the questions in 5 minutes. He
also encouraged her to check the other students summaries, engaging her as a classroom
assistant. Interestingly, while the questions were meant to be discussion questions, Mr. Johnson
chose to utilize them as writing prompts.
When most of the students completed the Because, But, So exercise, Mr. Johnson
reviewed the sentences students wrote. A different student from each group had to share a
sentence, encouraging students who were reluctant to speak to share their answers. Some
students made errors like Pokemon Go is the next big thing but people play, adding an ending
to the sentence that did not correspond with the conjunction. Mr. Johnson would correct students
on the spot rather than pushing them to revise their own sentences. When the period was over,
students made a note of what part of the agenda they were on and put their folders away. This
approach allowed students of various levels to work on the same material at their own pace.

Key Assessment

During 3rd period, some of the students from 1st period remained in the room while many
other students walked in. In this class, there were 19 students. I noticed that classroom
management was far more difficult with this group of students as they entered the room loudly.
Students sat with friends who spoke the same language, with a group of Arabic-speaking and
Spanish-speaking students sitting at different tables. Two girls, Anna and Sara, entered the rooms
listening to music and speaking loudly. Although Mr. Johnson was standing in front of the room,
many students continued talking and seemed eager to be among their friends. He raised his voice
to get their attention and reminded them that their grades this summer had been around a 65 and
wavered around that average. He emphasized that they could succeed if they focused and
completed todays work. Mr. Johnson seemed sterner with this particular group of students and
showed less tolerance for chattering and off-task behavior. Students had been reading the article
Hunger affects one in eight people and were working on the Phrase Match, True/False, and
Synonym Match portions of the worksheet. Some students had missed previous classes and were
beginning the first steps of the agenda.
I noticed that students seemed to have a clear understanding of what they should be doing
because Mr. Johnson had clearly displayed the agenda for them and they had gone through all the
steps in previous weeks. While some students started working, many were still off-task and
disruptive. Anna and Sara were showing each other videos on the phones in the back of the
room, cursing, and laughing loudly. Another student, Carlos, walked over to see what video the
girls were watching. Mr. Johnson walked to the back of the room and reminded them of school
rules that forbade cellphone use in class. The girls insisted that they were trying to work but did
not have a pencil or a handout on their tables. He provided them with the materials, but the girls
continued chattering and browsing videos on their phones. He then demanded that girls give him
their phones or else he would have to call their parents. Although they protested loudly, the girls

Key Assessment

eventually handed him their phones when he told them that he would return them after class once
he saw that they had completed their work. As he walked away, one of the girls defiantly
remarked that he never followed up on his threats. Instead of engaging them in further
discussion, he walked away and supported several other students. He praised the students in the
front row who were highly focused on their tasks. He continued circulating around the room and
reminding off-task students that their behavior would be reflected in their grades.
As I was observing the students work, I noticed that one of the students who spoke
English fluently had a lot of difficulty with spelling. He told me that he had been born in the
United States but his family was Spanish-speaking and he did not read much outside of school.
His comment reminded me of Bakers (2011) analysis of bilinguals tending to perform the norm.
He cites research that suggests that ELLs who have lived in the United States all their lives
experience the highest rate of academic failure. Low test scores can be related to student
misperceptions about their academic achievement, societal inequities, and poor instruction. I
wondered how teachers could best support students who had highly variable proficiency across
different domains, especially with regard to those who were born in the United States but were
placed in the same classroom as students who had recently immigrated to the country. I also
noticed that Mr. Johnson had various disciplinary issues to manage. Some of the Egyptian and
Yemeni students were not allowed to go to the restroom without an escort for fear that they
would leave the school or start fighting in the hallways. He had to call the Assistant Principal
every time one of these students wanted to leave the classroom. Many of these high-risk students
seemed unconcerned with their work and chattered eagerly with their friends about afterschool
plans to fight another group of students.
When I came back the following week, I noticed that the structure of the classes were
much the same, with the students completing independent work most of the time. The number of

Key Assessment

students had decreased from the previous week and students had moved onto different articles.
Several of the more difficult students from 3rd period were not present that day. I later found out
that one of the Egyptian students, Mahmoud, had been hospitalized because of a fight. His
friends were also not present at school that day. Mr. Johnson spent much of 3 rd period getting
students to stop discussing and watching videos of the fight and return to their work. These
incidents made me realize how heavily situations outside of school influenced student learning
and made me question how students could focus on schoolwork when they were inflicting,
witnessing, and suffering from so much violence.
The Interview
I spoke to Mr. Johnson after the observations and shared with him some of my
observations about his system. When I asked him about the extent to which his methods were
pushing student thinking, he remarked that the 12-step agenda allowed students to work
relatively independently, at their own pace, despite being at different levels. Additionally, the
exercises allowed them to repeatedly practice key vocabulary, comprehension, and writing skills.
He mentioned that the structure of the summer classes and placement of mixed-level students
made it difficult for him to plan for direct instruction, especially since student attendance was
irregular. Having taught the same groups of students before, I understood these challenges. While
I had underestimated the literacy skills of these students by providing them direct instruction on
annotation and summarizing, I saw that Mr. Johnson was able to prompt them to use their
existing skills through the Gist 20. He had developed the system during prior years of teaching
summer school. Even so, I wondered whether there could have been more differentiation of the
material for higher and lower level students along with reading comprehension questions that
required students to make inferences beyond what was explicitly stated in the text. He

Key Assessment

emphasized the importance of scaffolding the material toward rigor rather than discouraging
students with difficult work from the very beginning. He intentionally used short and simple
exercises so that students could more easily process the information in the text and develop a
sense of mastery. In the coming weeks, he hoped to work on a text that the school had committed
to using under Title 3 funding. While the texts would be longer and more complex, he planned to
break down the information into bits so that students would stay engaged.
Many of the students in his class this summer, he told me, had been his former students
and had a reputation for being violent, disruptive, and unruly. For example, one student had
strangled another during the school year yet both were now sitting in the same summer class
together. Students who had received psychological and academic support in self-contained
classrooms due to violent behavior were now in a general classroom. He explained that he had
developed rapport with and influence over the students by winning many small battles. For
example, he was able to take the phones away from Anna and Sara because he had gotten their
compliance before. When I inquired about the possibility of assigned seating, he mentioned that
he would only use the approach if he had full control over the classroom and would not use it
with this particular class since they would simply call out to each other across the room.
Conclusion
In BILED 701, we had discussed ways in which schools could foster the learning of
ELLs from diverse backgrounds. We learned that factors of culture, language, educational
background, and home life could be different for each student. Through the observations, I was
able to witness how teachers need to adapt to the particular circumstances of the classroom in
terms of the length of the periods, group dynamics, and language skills of the students. I saw the
strengths and weaknesses of a system that allowed for flexibility but at times failed to
sufficiently challenge students. As Baker (2011) states, students have different attitudes and
motivations that heavily influence their willingness to engage with the difficult process of

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learning. Motivations include wanting to use language for useful purposes and wishing to
identify with another language group. Citing Drnyei (1998), Baker (2011) offers strategies for
teachers to motivate students, which include create a pleasant, relaxed atmosphere in the
classroom, reduce anxiety, promote learner autonomy, and increase the second language
self-confidence of the learner (p. 266). In Mr. Johnsons class, I saw the positive impact of
integrating these strategies through a highly self-directed system. I would, however, make classes
more lively and interesting and increase each learners goal orientation by understanding what
motivates each student and crafting each lesson around students dreams and realities.

References
Baker, C. (2011). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (5th edition). Clevedon,
UK: Multilingual Matters, Ltd.
Drnyei, Z. (1998). Motivation in second and foreign language learning. Language teaching,
31(03), 117-135.

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