LEvidence - Learners' Background

The interview I did with ELLs in my inquiry group provided valuable information about their backgrounds both in the islands and here in NZ. These may have impacts on the way these learners acquire English as their second language. 

Nationality:
All Pasifika, 4 Samoans and 1 Tongan.

Residency status:
All migrants, 4 permanent residents and 1 on temporary entrance (parents on working visa).

Previous schools:

All had their primary schools in the islands before they moved to NZ and all started at primary level when 5 years old. The four from Samoa were in primary school from year 1 through to 8 at primary context and then left for NZ. The 1 from Tonga had primary school from year 1 through to 6, then to high school for 2 years before leaving Tonga.

Exposure to English in the islands:
All had English as a subject offered at schools, so their exposure to English started in the islands before leaving for NZ. However, their first languages were predominantly used at schools, so their learning of English was very much confined to English periods. They were exposed to English in some other ways - TV, radio, visitors to school - but still very limited. English was not used at home.

Duration of time in NZ:
They entered NZ at different points of time, so their exposure and use of English vary. The graph below displays that.


Home Background in NZ
The 4 Samoans are all adopted by relatives here in NZ so they can come and study. Their real parents are back in the island, and literally their adopted relatives are their 'parents' now. They still have some contacts with parents in Samoa but limited. The one from Tonga is with her real parents here, but on a temporary working visa.

Three come from a bit overcrowding homes - 12 living together, the other with fewer living together. They all have comfortable places to study, no or few books, no bilingual dictionaries, no access to library. They all have access to internet at home. They all do chores at home after school and sometimes too tired to do any homework.

Some of the adopted ones struggle because they miss their real parents in the islands. They become emotional when they can't share their ideas and feelings with those at home. They are sometimes under-pressured at home. The one with the real parents is OK. 

Languages in NZ:
All learners speak and write in their first languages and now learning English as their second language. Their parents here also speak their first languages well with very limited English. Therefore they mainly use their first languages at home, and English is also used but limited among children. 

Community Involvement
All are affiliated to a church in NZ and they are highly involved in their churches. They do not affiliate to any other community group, except their involvement in sports as extra-curricular at school. 

Education & school  in NZ
All have very limited knowledge of the education system in NZ. Some have aspirations of what they want to do in the future and they say that their parents support them with that, and some are still not sure.

They like it here at the college. Two were in other school when they arrived last year and they didn't quite like it there. They like our homeroom, and they feel safe when they are with other ELLs at school.

They are sometimes conscious of their status as ELLs at school and how other students might view them because of their English. 

Conclusion:
I do believe these student backgrounds have implications on the way these ELLs learn English as a second language as well as their overall engagement on learning at school. I am interested to learn more about their relationships and how to take actions to help these learners. 








   

LEvidence - Question 5

Begin to collect evidence and data  and come to the next session ready to share your preliminary findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge i.e. using your baseline student data and evidence

The reading achievement baseline student data and evidence collected from the assessments used are shown below.

English Language Learning Progression (ELLP)
These ELLs were initially assessed using ELLP which is the assessment to measure the ability of second language learners on the four language skills - listening, reading, speaking, and writing. The results showed that they were all at reading Stage 1 in the progression.

At this stage 1 level, learners are only able to read texts which are short and often present ideas in a simple sequence. The texts contain simple and compound sentences with a variety of sentence beginnings but usually no more than two clauses per sentence. With vocabulary, texts use varied high-frequency words and some words that are lower frequency and topic specific and that are strongly supported by the context. With regard to layout of the texts, texts have about three sentences per page and are well supported by illustrations.

This is in contrast to the expectation of the New Zealand Literacy Progression (LLP) where, by year 9 students are required to read and write a wide range of texts in order to meet a variety of specific learning purposes across the curriculum. Increasingly, the language and forms of these texts are subject-specific. By the end of year 10, students should confidently select texts according to their reading prupose and control their rate of reading depending on the nature of the text, their purpose for reading, and the time available.

PAT Reading Comprehension  
Based on Term 1 PAT (Test 7), the graph below shows the learners' mean score to be well below the college year 10 and the national mean scores.

I also did a quick look at the PAT Individual Reports to see how they attempted questions in different text types as well as how they did in comprehension domains tested. Those reflect their strengths and/or weaknesses in reading comprehension.

Out of the 8 different text types in the test, they did most poorly on 2 poems, an explanation text, and narrative texts. All questions in those texts were answered incorrectly by all the five learners. There were three specific reading skills tested - retrieval skills, making local inferences and global inferences. Out of the 42 questions in the test, 37 were on local inferences, 3 on global inferences, and only 2 on retrieval skills. This means these learners scored very low mainly on local inference skills, but so as on global inferences and retrieval skills.

STAR Reading Comprehension

STAR is used at the college to get information on reading comprehension in order to guide a school-wide independent reading programme for all year 9 & 10 students. It measures students’ reading comprehension skills in 5 domains - word knowledge, comprehension and meaning, analysing literary texts, understanding author’s craft, analysing argument and evaluating text. The assessment identifies the learners' reading ages which will then used to identify the right levels of books - Zone of proximal Development (ZPDs) for each learner to read. STAR also presents a year level benchmark which helps to identify students who are above, to be on the watch, to have intervention, or urgent intervention.

STAR Reading Ages
Students	Scaled Scores	Reading Ages (in years & months)
1	163	6.11
2	230	7.07
3	252	7.08
4	224	7.06
5	333	8.04

These scaled scores and reading ages are well below those of their peers in the college year 10 mainstream classes.

I also had a look at how they performed in specific reading comprehension domains tested in STAR. With scores ranging from 1 - 100 (full score), the target learners again scored well below.

Reading Comprehension Domains
Student	Full Score	Word Knowledge	Comprehension & Meaning	Analysing Literary Text	Understanding Author’s Craft	Analysing Argument
1	100	1	2	1	1	1
2	100	3	3	1	3	1
3	100	4	4	2	3	1
4	100	3	3	1	2	1
5	100	9	9	4	7	4

The year 10 benchmark shows 3 of these learners to need urgent interventions in reading and 3 urgent interventions.

From the analysis of these 3 standardized reading comprehension tests, I can identify some specific gaps in the target group's reading.

Summary  - Some Specific Gaps

Understanding purpose and audience of different text types (understanding author’s craft)

- Word knowledge

- Making local and global inference

- Retrieval skills
- Questioning words

- Comprehension strategies and constructing meanings

- Analysing literary texts

Analysing argument and evaluating text

Achievement Levels and Gaps (A Summary)

From a triangulation perspective, these reading achievement data confirm that these ELLs are very low in their reading ability.  They are at stage 1 in ELLP which approximate the curriculum levels to range from below level 1 and level 2. When compared to their peers at school and nationally, PAT shows they are well below both the national and the school year 10 cohort mean scores. STAR also confirms these same learners to have very low scaled scores and Lexile measures. 

These assessment results also show gaps in the learners' specific reading comprehension skills or domains assessed. These gaps are the areas in reading which these learners found to be most challenging. ELLP shows that they can only read very short texts presented in a simple sequence. Sentences used are both simple and compound with variety of sentence beginnings but usually no more than two clauses per sentences. The vocabulary used in the texts are strongly supported by the context. The layout of the texts have about three sentences per page and are well supported by illustrations, very simple texts. PAT also shows that they did poorly in poems, explanation, and narrative text types.

From both PAT and STAR, the following were also identified as gaps in the learners' reading comprehension:

• Skills of retrieving information
• Making local and global inferences
• Understanding author's craft
• Word knowledge and skills
• Comprehension skills and constructing meanings
• Analyzing Literary Texts
• Analyzing Argument and Evaluating Text

Vocabulary Tests

The graph below shows the learners' results in three vocabulary tests they did - basic 535 words level, first 1000 words level, and 2000 words level.
  

The graph shows students 1 & 2 to be having very limited vocabulary. They scored very low in both the 535 and 1000 words tests. Students 3, 4 and 5 scored above 70% in the 535 words test, student 4 scored 100% in the 1000 words test, but they all scored less in the 2000 words test.