Who Are "Struggling ELs"?

In a recent article by Andrea DeCapua, "Building Bridges to Academic Success Through Culturally Responsive Teaching," I have yet again found new vocabulary and categories to help me to think and speak more clearly about about the challenges my students face and about my own challenges in teaching them.  I guess I shouldn't be too surprised by this; a few years ago my understanding of my students and of my teaching practice was transformed by the themes of SLIFE and MALP which I discovered in the work of DeCapua and her colleagues.  More recently, I have found her focus on using a Culturally Responsive Approach, and on Reframing the Conversation About Students With Limited or Interrupted Formal Education From Achievement Gap to Cultural Dissonance to be exceptionally helpful.

This recent article revisits those themes, but DeCapua's wording and emphasis have shifted in significant ways.  The primary difference is that the targeted population are described here as "Struggling Els" rather than as SLIFE.  Those familiar with DeCapua's work know that the two categories overlap substantially, but they may be surprised by the absence of the term SLIFE in this article, given how central it has been in her previous writing.  I don't know why she chose this approach, but I can definitely relate to it.  When I was preparing my presentation for the 2016 South Western Alberta Teachers' Convention, I found it very difficult to come up with wording for a title and summary that accurately communicated my topic while allowing teachers to connect it to their own perceived needs.  In the end, I chose "More Than ELL," because I knew that many teachers have English Language Learners who are having difficulties that go beyond language acquisition.  I also know from experience that many of those difficulties stem from limited or interrupted formal education but that teachers rarely recognize this factor and would not be drawn to a session addressing it.

Another concern for me is that the label "Students With Limited or Interrupted Formal Education" puts the emphasis on what students lack.  It is a deficit-based term, rather that difference-based one.  DeCapua seems to be very concerned about this as well.  She writes:

But I now ask, how appropriate is such a deficit view?  If we measure struggling learners through the lens of formal education, then yes, they are lacking.  But what if we recognize that their “reality” is distinct, that their ways of thinking and perspectives on learning, derived from their prior culturally based learning experiences, are different rather than deficient? Doing so invites a very different conversation.

Under a deficit-based model, the problem is seen as residing within the student, and the emphasis is on "fixing" the student or making up for what they lack. In a difference-based model, the problem is seen as resulting from a mismatch between the student's current skills, abilities and/or attitudes and those demanded by the learning tasks. The emphasis is on helping the student to use their strengths and to connect their prior learning to the learning outcomes. The two approaches tend to feel very different to both student and teacher, and the prior approach can be very alienating to students who are already having difficulty relating to their teachers and fellow students.  This is a lesson I learned clearly as a learning support teacher grappling with the language of "disability", but I believe that it applies equally well to understanding the experiences of students with cultural differences.

After reading this article, it seems to me that this lesson is particularly important in understanding the needs of struggling ELs.  According to DeCapua,

Struggling ELs (1) have not had access to commensurate formal education relative to their age; 2) have low or no literacy skills; 3) are missing grade-level content knowledge; and 4), do not see themselves as learners within a formal educational paradigm.

This list closely resembles the qualities she has previously used in defining SLIFE, but in those descriptions, the last point was more often described in terms of a need to develop academic ways of thinking, or to adapt to cultural differences in learning and teaching.  

I was particularly struck by the way that this article uses the phrase "incomplete identity as learner," instead.  This description is broader and is much more immediately applicable to the students I currently teach.  My school is an outreach school where almost all of the students are ELs who already have more education than their parents.  The students who struggle most tend to be those who have difficulty seeing the relevance of academic education and engaging with the school system.  For many, their identity as a learner (at least within the formal schooling system) is significantly weaker than their identity as a contributor to their family or peer group, or as a member of their cultural and/or religious community, or even as an employee.  When these other aspects of their identity come so much easier and seem so much more meaningful, it is not difficult to understand why a student would focus on them instead.  If we do not successfully bridge this difference, they will not sufficiently engage with the school system to develop their literacy or content knowledge.  Treating their differences as deficits merely weakens the student's identity as a learner and increases the risk of accelerating their disengagement.

It is true that the terms on DeCapua's list above can be interpreted in terms of what students "lack", but as the article progresses, she helps to re-frame these qualities in terms of difference.  I find this to be especially true with respect to the identity issue.  She explains that we must 

"draw on and honor the prior experiences and current knowledge of struggling ELs, experiences and knowledge that may not be (and in most cases are not) school-based ways of thinking and school knowledge."  

Doing so could provide them with the success needed to build their confidence and strengthen their identity as a learner within the formal education system.  

In the second half of the article she goes into greater detail about how exactly to create a bridge to success for struggling ELs.  This is where she ties things back to her previous work with Culturally Responsive Teaching and with MALP.  This ground has been well covered by DeCapua in other places and I will admit to skimming through it.  At the time, I was still reflecting on the importance of the role of "identity as learner" in the education of struggling ELs and relating it to individual students of mine. It fits so well with what I have been observing and provides a much clearer lens with which to focus on the challenges we face.  I know that I will eventually shift back to focusing on the principles of Culturally Responsive Teaching and of MALP to try to incorporate them more fully into my practice, particularly now that their relevance has been reaffirmed.  But for now I am still pondering the implications of this shift in language and approach and considering the possibilities that it offers.