This article, for K–12 teachers and teacher educators at
elementary levels, presents four critical factors to consider while addressing
English learners’ (ELs’) language difficulties and helping them develop their
language proficiency. The four factors—family, administrators, students, and
teachers—create the acronym FAST. (Our use of family instead of parents is
purposeful and intended to be more inclusive of diverse kinds of families with
caretakers and guardians who may not be students’ parents.)
The proposed
strategy is inspired by our experiences with ELs in U.S. public schools. We
believe it is best to bring all stakeholders together to create sustainable
solutions in addressing ELs’ challenges, monitoring their progress in class,
and helping them build their language proficiency. ELs in U.S. public schools
are often placed in content area classrooms with native-English-speaking
students. There are a variety of programs, such as bilingual, immersion,
pull-out, after school tutoring, content-based ESL, and sheltered instruction,
to help ELs develop language proficiency and content knowledge at the same
time. Though it may look like the success of these programs stems from the
schools or teachers, there are other factors in place determining their
effectiveness, such as those listed in the FAST framework.
FAST Factors
in English Learners’ Learning
Family
The benefits
of family involvement in children’s lives are well documented (e.g., Barger et
al., 2019; Titiz & Tokel, 2015). There are positive outcomes when
families are involved in their children’s education across all socioeconomic
levels, ethnicities, and ages. Barger et al. (2019) defined two forms of family
involvement: school-based and home-based.
The
school-based involvement includes families participating at the school for
parent-teacher conferences, volunteering for events, or being a part of the
parent-teacher association. The home-based involvement includes parents
encouraging children to do well in their academics, helping with homework,
and/or providing resources at home to assist their children to practice their
skills. It is important to note that the value a parent places on education
also counts as involvement (Barger et al., 2019).
In
Practice
Families should monitor students’ learning through close
communication with teachers and administrators.
Families should be involved in setting goals, and they should evaluate students’ progress toward these goals.
Families should encourage students and praise their work, using “effort praise” (e.g., “Wow. You spelled all the words right. You must
have worked so hard”) as opposed to “ability praise” (e.g., “You wrote them all
right. You are so smart.”), because the latter discourages taking on challenges
and making mistakes with the fear of losing that label (Dweck, 2006).
Administrators
Administrators must be flexible when
working with families because those families may have inflexible work schedules
that may prevent them from participating in school events (Titiz &
Tokel, 2015; Zambrana et al., 2019). Families may have trouble leaving work,
finding babysitters, or finding transportation to get to the school.
Administrators and teachers should work together to create a friendly cultural
environment to help all families feel welcome when entering the school (Titiz
& Tokel, 2015).
In
Practice
Francis et al. (2017) suggested teachers use virtual
environments, like FaceTime or Zoom, to meet with parents to help deal with scheduling conflicts.
To make families feel welcome, administrators can put up posters and flyers with information in different languages around the school and in the main office.
Schools are required to have a translator available during teacher-parent conferences to facilitate communication (U.S. Department of Justice, 2015).
Titiz and Tokel (2015) found that parents desired schools
to create activities that attracted families to participate, such as a reading
night that offers read-alouds in different languages or cultural
activities.
Students
Students
must learn to follow instructions and hold themselves responsible for
completing the assigned tasks. They need to work toward the goals they agreed
on with their families and teachers and self-monitor their progress using a
variety of strategies provided by their teachers. Working together with their
families and teachers, students should develop a growth mindset (Dweck, 2006)
through which they can accept mistakes as growth opportunities, develop a love
of learning, and build resilience working toward their goals.
In
Practice
Students should freely ask questions and seek clarifications in class or at home.
Students should review and practice what they learned, making connections between the text and the world around them (e.g., text-to-text, text-to-self, text-to-world).
Students should evaluate their progress using “I can”
statements (e.g., “I can write four CVC words”) and share with their families
and teachers.
Teachers
Teachers
(and administrators) need to be aware of the cultural background of their
students. For example, Latinx parents may be supportive of their children’s
education, but may not be involved as much for various reasons; Zambrana et al.
(2019) noted that Latinx parents desire to be a part of their children’s
education, but feel that it is the school’s responsibility to teach them and
may feel they are not capable of helping their children academically. A
student’s culture plays a large role in learning style and family interactions.
It is also important for teachers to invite parents into their classroom and
remind them that it takes a team to help children succeed.
Teachers
also have the responsibility to maintain up-to-date training with the best
strategies to assist their ELs—strategies such as using visuals, hands on manipulatives,
realia, cognates, activating background knowledge, sentence stems, and
scaffolding. The TESOL International Association organization and website
offers up-to-date research in best practices as well as resources and
professional development opportunities.
In
Practice
To make families feel welcome, teachers can put up posters and flyers with information in different languages around their classrooms.
Sometimes, parents need an invitation and reminder that they are a valuable resource and they have something to offer, regardless of their educational background. An invitation can be an email, a note taken home by a student, a friendly phone call, or a personal invitation as parents pick up their children from school.
Apply strategies when teaching ELs appropriate to their English proficiency and grade level.
Identify learners’ proficiency level and differentiate instruction addressing their language and content needs.
Seek and identify professional development opportunities
that offer the latest research in best practices for teaching ELs.
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Addressing
all FAST Factors
Though
teachers are only responsible for addressing one of the factors (T) in this
strategy, they can help ensure that all four factors are met and that everyone
is engaged and successful by
keeping in contact with families (through, e.g., a parent-teacher log),
having students work on their part during class time for practice, and
meeting regularly with administrators to keep them
accountable for providing training and resources.
Teachers can
prepare for full engagement by planning ahead and using a table to list and
detail the FAST factors (see Table 1). Teachers first identify a language
difficulty that ELs experience (e.g., limited background knowledge, idioms,
mismatch in pronunciation and spelling). This is done by doing informal
assessments of what the students are struggling with or using the annual goals
set by the school district. Then, teachers should list actionable tasks under
each of the FAST factors: What can families, administration, students, and teachers
do?
Table 1. Addressing FAST Factors (click here to enlarge)
Examples of
the FAST Framework in Use
Example
1
Ms. Soliz, a
pre-K teacher, is currently using the FAST framework model to support and track
her students’ progress on their prekindergarten guidelines.
Family: Ms.
Soliz has put together a binder that contains student goals. During the
parent-teacher conference, she goes over all the goals with the parents and
teaches them how to use this binder at home. Every Friday, she sends the binder
home for parents to work on these goals with their child. A note is included in
the binder for parents to sign, indicating they have worked with their children
on the specific goals at home. Parents are also able to write any questions or
comments within the binder for the teacher.
Administrators: The school
administrator was able to see how she kept up-to-date records on the progress
of each student by simply looking at the binder. The administrator was so
pleased with how this method was informally assessing students’ progress on a
regular basis and involved the family that she implemented this strategy for
the whole school. The administrator held a workshop in which Ms. Soliz
demonstrated how she organized the binder, how she taught the parents how to
use the binder at home, and how to work with the children during school
hours.
Students:
During the week, Ms. Soliz works with the students on reaching their goals to
master all guidelines set by her district.
Teacher:
Each student binder Ms. Soliz creates includes important and specific goals for
each student, addressing the students’ weaknesses and issues directly. She
includes sections on different topics relevant to the class and to the student,
specifically. Ms. Soliz tracks all students’ progress with the binders,
ensuring each FAST factor is addressed.
Example
2
Mr. Fan’s
students are struggling with fluency. Using a four-corner matrix (Figure 1),
Mr. Fan plans how he will approach each component of the FAST framework.
Family: Mr.
Fan will meet with parents/guardians, either during a parent-teacher conference
or by inviting the families to visit the classroom one evening, and talk about
how they can support their child at home. During the meetings, he will explain
that students will have books that are appropriate for their reading level and
are encouraged to read as many times as they wish to become fluent.
Administrators: Mr. Fan plans to
approach his administrator for additional books that students may be able to
use at home and keep for a while to practice with their family. His administrators
will need to be supportive of inviting families over to the school to provide
training.
Students:
Mr. Fan will teach students what they should be doing while reading for
fluency.
Teacher:
During class sessions, Mr. Fan will conduct read-aloud sessions to model
reading fluently; asking questions while reading; making connections between
the text and personal experiences; making guesses of difficult vocabulary using
context; and creating mental images of people, places, and actions.
Figure 1. Four-corner
matrix for reading fluency.
The FAST
framework helps teachers and teacher educators look for ways in which families,
administrators, students, and teachers can work collaboratively to address a
challenge or difficulty an EL is experiencing or track their progress. In such
challenges, a solution is often only possible after all four FAST factors come
into alignment and work together.
References
Barger, M.
M., Kuncel, N. R., Kim E. M., & Pomerantz E. M. (2019). The relation
between parents’ involvement in children’s schooling and children’s adjustment:
A meta-analysis. American Psychological Association, 145, 855–890.
Dweck, C. S.
(2006). Mindset. Random House
Francis, G. L.,
Haines, S. J., & Nagro, S. A. (2017). Developing relationships with
immigrant families: Learning by asking the right questions. Teaching
Exceptional Children, 2, 95–105.
Titiz, H.,
& Tokel, A. (2015). Parents’ expectations from teachers and school
administrators regarding school-family cooperation development. International
Journal on New Trends in Education and their Implications, 6,
172–186.
Zambrana, K. A., Hart, K. C.,
Maharaj, A., Cheatham-Johnson, R. J., & Waguespack, A. (2019). Latino
parent involvement and associations with home literacy and oral reading
fluency. American Psychological Association, 34, 398–409.
Baburhan Uzum, PhD, is an associate professor in
the School of Teaching and Learning at Sam Houston State University,
Huntsville, Texas, USA. His research interests include multicultural education
and second and foreign language teacher education.
Alma L.
Contreras-Vanegas, PhD, is an associate professor at Sam Houston State
University, Huntsville, Texas, USA. Her research interests include English
learners’ experiences as learners.
Teachers
