"What Kind of Person..." - Analyzing SLIFE Reading Comprehension Test Results

Recently, I was analyzing the results of student literacy assessments with a colleague.  We noted that reading comprehension questions which asked the reader to classify a character as a certain "kind" of person were particularly difficult for the adolescent SLIFE we had tested. Questions that began with, "What kind of person is...," were typically met with silence or with the response "good" or "bad."

I was immediately reminded of a section (pg. 53-54) from Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word by Walter Ong. In it, Ong refers to a series of interviews that A.R. Luria conducted among illiterate and semi-literate persons in remote areas of Uzbekistan in the 1930's.  Ong notes that:

Luria’s illiterates had difficulty in articulate self-analysis... Luria put his questions only after protracted conversation about people’s characteristics and their individual differences (1976, p. 148). A 38-year-old man, illiterate, from a mountain pasture camp was asked (1976, p. 150), ‘What sort of person are you, what’s your character like, what are your good qualities and shortcomings? How would you describe yourself?’ ‘I came here from Uch-Kurgan, I was very poor, and now I’m married and have children.’ ‘Are you satisfied with yourself or would you like to be different?’ ‘It would be good if I had a little more land and could sow some wheat.’ Externals command attention. ‘And what are your shortcomings?’ ‘This year I sowed one pood of wheat, and we’re gradually fixing the shortcomings.’ More external situations. ‘Well, people are different - calm, hot-tempered, or sometimes their memory is poor. What do you think of yourself?’ ‘We behave well - if we were bad people, no one would respect us’ (1976, p. 15). Self-evaluation modulated into group evaluation (‘we’) and then handled in terms of expected reactions from others. Another man, a peasant aged 36, asked what sort of person he was, responded with touching and humane directness: ‘What can I say about my own heart? How can I talk about my character? Ask others; they can tell you about me. I myself can’t say anything.’

 I couldn't see my students giving those exact answers, but the pragmatic style of the responses and the emphasis on concrete details rather than abstract categories sounded very familiar!  Ong's explanation of this tendency stands out for me as still being particularly relevant:

These are a few samples from Luria’s many, but they are typical. One could argue that responses were not optimal because the respondents were not used to being asked these kinds of questions, no matter how cleverly Luria could work them into riddle-like settings. But lack of familiarity is precisely the point: an oral culture simply does not deal in such items as geometrical figures, abstract categorization, formally logical reasoning processes, definitions, or even comprehensive descriptions, or articulated self-analysis, all of which derive not simply from thought itself but from text-formed thought. Luria’s questions are schoolroom questions associated with the use of texts, and indeed closely resemble or are identical with standard intelligence test questions got up by literates. They are legitimate, but they come from a world the oral respondent does not share.

This passage reminded me of the power of literacy and the ability of text-based education to profoundly affect how we think about ourselves and others.  It also reminded me of the need to interpret reading comprehension questions with caution.  Our SLIFE who had difficulty answering the "What kind of person..." questions could often recall specific details and events from the story.  It wasn't necessarily that the text was too advanced for them to understand and that we needed to give them easier stories.  It was just that they were thinking about the story differently and focusing on different aspects of it.  This does not mean that we should avoid teaching them the skills for character analysis or the abstract vocabulary for describing kinds of characters.  Instead, I would suggest that we continue to do so, but that we teach those things with texts at their appropriate decoding levels and with content which they find engaging.  We should not to restrict them to texts designed for less mature learners while we build those character analysis skills and vocabulary banks.


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Luria, A. R. (1976) Cognitive Development: Its Cultural and Social Foundations, ed. Michael Cole, trans. by Lopez-Morillas, M. & Solotaroff, L. Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press

Ong, W. (1982). Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. London, England: Methuen

Segregation vs Inclusion? or Assimilation vs Diversity? (Part 1)

Aren't alternative programs and outreach schools for specific cultural groups a form of segregation?  I have heard this question posed explicitly several times in the last few years, but I hear it implied or even assumed far more often.  It is an accusation that stings, because for many years I have identified myself as a strong advocate for educational inclusion.  The term "segregation," with it's connotations of discrimination and bias against diversity, is the antithesis of my beliefs as an educator.  And yet the students in my small Mennonite Outreach school are in a building separate (segregated?) from the public high school in our rural community.  Is this not a contradiction?

I have spent a lot of time researching, pondering and discussing this issue, and I could probably write a book about it.  This blog is not that book.  My intentions here are more modest; I just wish to share a few key ideas that rarely get mentioned in those discussions.  It seems to me that some important considerations are too often being missed. I hope to show how these considerations have shifted my thinking away from a perspective of segregation vs inclusion towards one of assimilation vs diversity.  It may take a few posts to get there, however.

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One key component missing from the discussion has been a full appreciation of the significance of cultural heritage as a form of inheritance.  I see how important it is, for example, for the Low German Mennonite families in my school pass on their language, their faith, and their traditions.  Most of them seem to value this cultural inheritance well above wealth, social status, or educational attainment.  They know that their forebears sacrificed a great deal and endured multiple migrations to preserve that heritage, and they feel a strong duty to communicate that inheritance to their children.

At the same time, I see how challenging it is for them to maintain their heritage in the face of the social and economic pressures that they encounter when they move to Canada. In Preserving Cultural Heritage in the Context of Migratory Livelihoods, Luann Good Gingrich describes and analyzes these challenges in great detail.  She explains how language, education, and work are the primary tools of inheritance in traditional cultures and religions, but how it becomes very difficult, if not impossible, for them to use these tools for that purpose in their new context. The necessary act of migration, which helped preserve the cultural heritage in the past, now threatens to spoil the inheritance.  This double-bind which the immigrant families experience is distressing and confusing and results in divisions within families, churches and communities.  Some will end up rejecting this inheritance altogether and separating from their communities.   Others try to hold on to some aspects of their heritage while adopting other, sometimes conflicting, practices.  Still others will try to maintain the heritage as fully as possible, even if it ends up resulting in severe hardship and isolation.  None of these paths is easy, and each one comes with internal as well as external conflict.

It is easy for those of us who do not experience that conflict to misinterpret the actions and motivations of those who do.  One prime example is when we ask "Why are they so reluctant to send their kids to school?"  We can be tempted to respond out of hurt or rejection, assuming that the issue is primarily about our practices or beliefs that offend them.  We can get overly focused on whether or not to allow Halloween celebrations or books about dinosaurs, or whether to require students to change clothes for gym class.  This focus can lead us to feelings of resentment that lurk behind questions such as, "How far do we need to go to accommodate for them?" and "Why do they get special treatment when others don't?"  At other times we may respond with criticism and judgment, such as when we complain about students who take off religious holidays that they don't understand or when we accuse the parents of hypocrisy for allowing their children to party with other Mennonite teens while rejecting public schools for fear of the "corrupting" influence of the non-Mennonites.

In each of these cases, we make assumptions that miss the point. It never was about us or about their rejection of us.  Instead, it was about the challenges and contradictions that these families face in trying to preserve and pass on their valued inheritance when the old tools of inheritance are either no longer available to them or are no longer effective.

In the meantime, it is necessary to recognize that the false assumptions we make interfere with our ability to respond with empathy and respect for the families who face this dilemma.  Without that empathy and respect, we can not expect to be trusted.  And without that relationship of respect and trust, we can not expect Low German Mennonite families to participate fully in the public education system.  This, it seems to me, is the context that must be considered for any meaningful conversation about segregation vs inclusion of Mennonite students.

This is not the only consideration, however, in in future posts I will address a few other key points.

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Good Gingrich, L. (2014), Preserving Cultural Heritage in the Context of Migratory Livelihoods. International Migration, 52: 1–20. doi: 10.1111/imig.12066

What Factors Affect the Resiliencey of SLIFE?

A little while back, I mentioned the work of Christopher Browder and how I found his research on the education of SLIFE to be very significant.  Recently I have been re-reading his Phd Thesis, which focused on risk and resilience factors in the educational outcomes of SLIFE.  Some of the main findings of that study were that:

• On average, the SLIFE studied had lower achievement on the standardized tests than non-SLIFE English language learners.
• The lower standardized scores for SLIFE were largely due to their lower English proficiency at the time they took the test.
• Lower English proficiency at testing seems mainly to have resulted from having arrived with lower English proficiency and lower first language literacy.
• English acquisition, however, was also slower for SLIFE than other ELs.
• ESOL classes helped students to acquire English faster, and SLIFE generally took more ESOL classes than non-SLIFE English learners.
• Students with lower L1 literacy acquired English more slowly.
• Higher parental education was significantly associated with higher test scores for all ELs; this association was even stronger for SLIFE than for non-SLIFE.
• In general SLIFE reported lower academic self-concepts, pedagogical caring, and social integration than non-SLIFE. 
• After controlling for differences in English proficiency, students’ perceptions of social distance appeared to predict their academic achievement on standardized tests better than their academic self-concept and the other protective or risk factors.  
• Students who perceived a higher social distance had lower HSA scores, even though they had higher English proficiency.
• Low L1 literacy was not well correlated with beginner English and schooling gaps.

Each of these findings have important implications, but the real significance, it seems to me, comes from weaving them together.  In upcoming posts I will dig into those implications and flesh out the bigger picture that Browder's study paints for us.

The Promise of Guided Reading for SLIFE (and the need for critically examining the assumptions made in the literature)

Since SLIFE are English Language Learners, teachers who want to successfully direct their learning must become familiar with strategies for teaching adolescent ESL students.  This task can be overwhelming at first, because the ESL literature is so deep and varied.  Over time, however, some common themes and strategies emerge from these different sources.   Some common examples would be to focus on students’past learning experiences, academic knowledge, content area literacy, and vocabulary acquisition.

Unfortunately, the literature often assumes that ESL students have first language literacy skills, while most SLIFE do not.  A recent article by Montero, Newmaster & Ledger (2014), describes how this disconnect can result in the use of practices that do not fully meet the needs of SLIFE:

"Most secondary teachers are unprepared for the foundational print literacy needs of many adolescent refugees. Secondary ESL teachers have generally been trained in traditional ESL pedagogical practices, which largely assume dominant language literacy abilities. ESL pedagogies that focus on content area and/or general language development are not meeting the academic needs of adolescent refugees with limited print literacy abilities." 

 The rest of the article goes on to describe how the use of a guided reading program can produce impressive literacy gains with SLIFE.  It is worth reading the article in full to get a sense of how such a program might work.  I found their observations and recommendations to be consistent with my own experiences with teaching SLIFE, and I felt encouraged to continue to work toward the implementation of similar strategies my own school.

That being said, this article restates some common assumptions about SLIFE that I have seen in other articles but which do not match my students.  One assumption is that SLIFE tend to be refugees for whom the interruptions in education are a past event.  A second is that the goal of the education of SLIFE is to integrate them into our society.  A third is that they will be placed in separate ESL/ELD programs.  Many of SLIFE I see in Southern Alberta, by contrast, are Low German Mennonites who have ongoing interruptions in education, seek to maintain a degree of distinctness/separateness from the broader society, and/or are enrolled in integrated programs.

In a way, then, my reservations about this article, and about much of the SLIFE literature, are similar to the criticisms that these authors make of the ESL literature in general.  It is not so much the recommendations are wrong as that the assumptions are too broad.  When one's own circumstances do not match those assumptions, one has to be careful about uncritically adopting the recommended strategies.  One may need to be more eclectic and draw strategies from a variety of sources.

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Kristiina Montero, M., Newmaster, S. & Ledger, S. (2014). Exploring Early Reading Instructional Strategies to Advance the Print Literacy Development of Adolescent SLIFE. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 58(1), 59–69. doi: 10.1002/jaal.318
Obtained from: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jaal.318/pdf

"But Don't They Cheat A Lot?"

I was taken aback by the question at first.  In a recent conversation with a colleague at a professional development session, I was describing the students in my Mennonite outreach high school and how we use a lot of distance learning materials with them.  I mentioned how we have used those resources to provide flexible educational programs for students with irregular attendance.  "But don't they cheat a lot?" she asked.  She explained that this had been her experience with ELL students doing independent module work.  She probably said more than that (I think she mentioned something about "copying"), but I stopped listening because we were still in the middle of a session and I was reeling from on onslaught of conflicting emotions.  I felt anger and a need to defend my students; I also felt confusion and a desire for her to clarify what she meant; part of me even empathized with her because I had experienced that same frustration as a teacher.

But I didn't express any of that aloud.  Instead, I leaned over and said that I choose to frame the issue differently.  I said that many of my students are very pragmatic learners and that the completion of the modules seems to them to be the obvious concrete goal.  They tend to use whatever means they have to meet that goal.  I said that I felt that it was my job as the teacher to help them to appreciate that mastery of the learning outcomes is the more important goal.  I didn't get to say much more than that because our presenter was carrying on with the session, and I don't know if I got my point across, but I did see her nod her head as she leaned back into her chair.

I don't know my colleague's ELL students personally, and I don't want to presume too much about their actions or intentions.  What I do know is that it is pretty easy to misinterpret the intentions of those who differ from us culturally.  A crucial insight for teachers of SLIFE, for example, is that our own education paradigms are often very different from theirs.  According to SLIFE researchers Andrea DeCapua and Helaine Marshall, we tend to assume that the goals of K-12 instruction are to produce an independent learner and to prepare that learner for life after schooling, and that the learner brings along an urge to compete and excel as an individual.  We also tend to assume that students come with age-appropriate preparation for literacy development academic tasks.  SLIFE, on the other hand, often come from cultural backgrounds where the preference is for oral communication and information sharing, pragmatic learning with immediate relevance, and working together and sharing responsibility.  They may not come with the literacy skills or with academic thinking skills needed to read and answer text-based distance learning modules independently.  They can easily get focused on the concrete, pragmatic task of completing the modules rather than the more abstract goal of learning concepts.  What we interpret as cheating (i.e. an immoral act of deception) might be motivated more by a pragmatic orientation combined with a reliance on oral information-sharing and presumption of collective responsibility.

It is not hard to see how such differences in assumptions could lead to misunderstandings.  Let us not forget that SLIFE are also constantly facing these misunderstandings and are likely misinterpreting us and our intentions as well.  The cultural dissonance that they experience as they struggle to navigate these differences can seriously interfere with learning and discourage them from attending school.  They need teachers who are willing to question assumptions and meet them halfway.

Do High School English Learners’ Previous Formal Schooling Backgrounds Affect Their English Proficiency Gains?

One of the most frustrating things about the current state of the SLIFE literature is the scarcity of quantitative studies on the subject.  That is why I was so excited when I came across this Slideshare of a presentation given by Christopher Browder at the "Understanding Language Learning Among Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (SLIFE )" colloquium at the AAAL 2014 Convention, Portland, Oregon last March.  Christopher has collected and analyzed data about the English proficiency gains and academic achievement of 199 adolescent English Language Learners along with a variety of risk factors and protective factors which might have influenced their learning.  Included in these risk factors were those related to limited formal education.

In this presentation, Browder focuses on the relationship between high school students' previous formal schooling backgrounds and their gains on English Proficiency tests.  His analysis suggests that SLIFE tended to have lower English proficiency later on because they had arrived with lower English proficiency, not because of slower rates of learning English.  In fact, students’ grade-relative years of schooling was not significantly associated with English gains.  He did find, however, that arriving with lower academic skills, as indicated by their math skills and first language (L1) literacy, was significantly associated with lower English gains.  He recommends giving math and L1 literacy tests during intake of new English Language Learners because these results will be more reliable predictors of their rate of English learning than their grades completed of school prior to intake.

These findings supported my suspicion that the quantity of a student's prior education is often less important to their future academic success than the quality of that instruction.  Many of the students that I have worked with over the years have had several years of education through home or church-run programs that are not directed primarily towards preparing students for secondary or post secondary academics.  If they did spend time the in public education systems in Canada or the United States, it was often fragmented by frequent moves or characterized by emphasis on skill remediation.  Despite having attended school for the expected number of years, they have not received the education needed to be successful at higher level academic tasks.  It was good to know that this pattern was not specific to my (mostly Low German Mennonite) students.  It raised my curiosity as to what other findings may have come out of this research.

This Slideshare presentation  really piqued my interest, and so I tracked down Christopher's email address to ask him if this research had been published.  He generously sent me a copy of his write-up from the AAAL conference (which is available online behind a pay-wall) as well as a write-up for a presentation he made at the 2013 LESLLA symposium (which was not yet available online at the time of this blog post).  He also shared his PhD dissertation (which is available online through ProQuest).  There is a lot more in these documents than what I have discussed above, and I believe that some of his findings are very significant to the field.  I will be be sharing them here as I get the chance.

New DeCapua and Marshall article

The February 2015 edition of Principal Leadership features an excellent article by Andrea DeCapua and Helaine Marshall entitled, Promoting Achievement for ELLs with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education: A Culturally Responsive Approach.  DeCapua and Marshall have collaborated on several books and articles about SLIFE in the past and are two of the leading authors on the subject. This article summarizes several of the key themes from their books into a single, concise article.  It provides a good introduction to the topic for those who are just getting into it and a good reminder for those of us who are more familiar with their work.