Standards That Impact English Language

Learners
By
Diane Staehr Fenner, John Segota
In this article written for Colorn Colorado, Dr. Diane Staehr Fenner and John Segota discuss the
ways in which language proficiency and teaching standards can help shape the instruction of
English language learners.
They also discuss the relationship between these different sets of standards and their connection
to the implementation of the Common Core State Standards.

Why Standards Matter

In a standards-based curriculum, all students particularly English language learners (ELLs)
face demanding academic and cognitive requirements across content areas and grade levels. To
fully and successfully participate in school, ELLs must simultaneously acquire English language
proficiency (ELP) and achieve academically across content areas. In fact, two kinds of language
proficiency are necessary for school success: the social and intercultural competence of using
English in the classroom, and the academic language necessary to access the content areas such
as English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies.
Standards provide a tool for defining the language as well as the content that ELLs are expected
to achieve. In order for ELLs to succeed academically in US schools, both ELP standards and
professional teaching standards for English as a second language (ESL) teachers are needed to
ensure achievement for ELLs.

ELP Standards
English language proficiency standards act as a starting point for identifying the language that
ELLs must develop to successfully access and negotiate content in and beyond the classroom.
ELP standards do not stand alone, but provide the bridge to the content-area standards expected
of all students in U.S. classrooms. Although academic content-area standards mandate high
levels of achievement in content learning for all students, they do not provide educators
strategies needed to assist English language learners because they assume student proficiency in
and ability to use English to engage with content. ELP standards are therefore used in
conjunction with content-area standards to provide guideposts for educators in helping English
language learners develop the academic language proficiency in English necessary to reach the
high levels of achievement outlined for all students.
The first national ELP standards in the U.S. were published by TESOL International Association
in 1997. Entitled ESL Standards for Pre-K-12 Students, these standards were the first to promote

a vision of effective education for the growing population of English language learners in the
U.S. With the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), the federal government
recognized the need for language standards to assist English language learners in developing
English proficiency, and thus mandated for the first time that each state develop ELP standards
for their English language learners. As a result, each U.S. state -either on their own or within
different state consortia developed ELP standards for use within their school systems. The
standards developed by the World Class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) Consortia
are now used in 27 states, and were adapted and augmented by TESOL International Association
in the revision of its own standards in 2006.

Professional Teaching Standards for ESL

As with the standards movement in general, the 1990s and 2000s saw a great deal of variety in
the field of English as a Second Language (ESL) and the preparation of teachers to teach ESL.
During this period of time, the number of ELLs at the P-12 level in school was increasing
dramatically, particularly on the east and west coasts. California, New York, and Florida, along
with Texas and other states in the Southeast, experienced an exponential growth in the numbers
ELLs they served. Education Week(2011) reports that from the 1997-1998 school year to the
2008-2009 school year, the number of ELLs enrolled in public schools increased from 3.5
million to 5.3 million, or by 51%.
When TESOL International Association became a member organization of the National Council
for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) in 1999, it was because the association felt
it was in the best position to help define the field for teachers who would be teaching these
students English. The association began developing standards for the national recognition of P12 ESL teacher education programs that were first put into practice in 2001. These standards,
which were revised in 2009, represent what pre-service teaching candidates earning their initial
licensure in ESL should know and be able to do in order to effectively teach ELs. More than 200
institutions of higher education have used the TESOL P-12 Professional Teaching Standards as
the framework for their ESL programs for national NCATE recognition purposes.
The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) first developed its standards
for "accomplished" teachers of English as a new language (ENL) in the late 1990s, and then
revised them in 2010. Currently, there are over 1300 Nationally Board Certified teachers in
English as a New Language using the NBPTS ENL standards as a framework. Both sets of
standards' revisions reflect recent changes in the educational landscape for ELLs and their
teachers such as accountability expectations and assessment requirements for ELLs, emphasis on
academic language learning, expansion of ESL teacher roles, developments in technology and its
application to education, research-based understandings of the nature of language and language
learning, the role of language and culture in learning, and the role of advocacy in the education
of ELLs.
Both TESOL International Association and NBPTS revised their professional standards for ESL
teachers during the same timeframe, and their standards could reflect the current state of the field
of teaching ELs. Although the TESOL and NBPTS standards' formats and purposes differ (see
Table 1), they do have similarities (Harper & Staehr Fenner, 2010). Both are professional

standards for ESL teachers, focus on teacher qualifications in US school settings, and represent
high-quality teaching of ELLs. They also both include a performance-based review process that
uses standards-based evidence and documentation of the impact on student learning.

Table 1. TESOL and NBPTS' Professional Teaching Standards

TESOL P-12 Professional Teaching

Standards

NBPTS English as a New Language

Standards

Developed for ESL teacher education programs

Developed for individual ESL teachers

Address teacher competence at the initial ESL

licensure/certification level

Address teacher competence at the

accomplished level after at least 3 years
of classroom experience

Provide national recognition of ESL teacher

education programs

Award certification to individual ESL

teachers

26 states require participation; other ESL

teacher education programs voluntarily
undergo the process

Voluntary participation by individual

ESL teachers

What is most important about the commonalities between the TESOL and NBPTS standards is
that they both recognize a unique academic discipline that is both separate from other content

areas yet serves to complement them, and one that is increasingly important for the U.S.
education system.

Common Core State Standards

In addition to the developments in the field described previously, the introduction of the
Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is also having a marked impact on ESL education. When
they were first introduced in 2010, many uncertainties existed regarding how these standards
would be implemented and assessed for ELLs. Although the CCSS did include some basic
information about implementation with ELLs, much research still needs to be done in this area.
Several prominent organizations and researchers have begun work looking at this question,
recognizing that the implementation of the CCSS for ELLs is important for all teachers as
increasing numbers of educators across the content areas work with ELLs.
Addressing the question of ELLs and the CCSS, the following are some activities that are
currently underway:

WIDA is in the final stages of updating its ELP standards, which will be called English
language development (ELD) standards, to illustrate the alignment with the CCSS.

TESOL International Association is also developing ancillary information for its

standards that show the relationship to the CCSS.

Other states, beyond those that are members of WIDA, are also having conversations
about revising their ELP standards to align them with the CCSS, creating new ELP assessments,
and providing specialized professional development for teachers regarding the impact of the
CCSS on ELLs.

How These Standards Work Together

While it's important that all teachers receive professional development and information on best
practices on working with ELLs, professional development is simply a baseline and is not
sufficient in and of itself. Just as ELP standards do not work alone, the same is true for academic
content standards when it comes to ELLs. Similarly, the expertise of both ESL teachers and
content teachers is needed to help ELLs achieve, so it's critical to have professional teaching
standards for ESL educators such as those provided by TESOL and NBPTS.
In order to provide effective professional development for those who teach ELLs, teacher
educators must first have an understanding of the systematic role that content area and ESL
teachers have in teaching ELLs. Within this framework, each of the three components (teachers,
standards, and assessment) constantly interacts and influences each other as parts of an
inseparable system. An optimal system triangulates these elements and develops them equally so
that ELLs are able to learn content and language simultaneously. One component cannot be
neglected, or the other two will not flourish. Figure 1 represents the multifaceted approach to

teaching ELLs that triangulates the relationship between content standards, ELP standards,
content assessments, and ELP assessments to support overall academic achievement for ELLs.

Policy Questions/Needed Areas of Research

However, much more research needs to be undertaken to effectively implement the CCSS for
ELLs and determine the role of ELP and teaching standards in future conversations about teacher
preparation and evaluation. Below we frame potential research needs as policy questions.

ESL teacher certification requirements vary dramatically from state to state, resembling a
patchwork quilt. With such tremendous variation among these credentials each state offers, what
are the specific credentialing requirements among the states?
What is the impact of ELL teacher preparation on ELL achievement?

How can the TESOL P-12 Professional Teaching Standards as well as the National Board
for Professional Teaching Standards' ENL Standards add to the conversation on how to meet the
needs of ELLs as they work within the CCSS framework?

In order to truly provide guidance on how ESL teachers' expertise can best be utilized to
implement the CCSS, we need much more information on their current roles. What is the role of
the ESL teacher across multiple contexts in the United States?

Because the population of ELLs in US schools will only continue to grow, ELL issues
and ESL educators must be central to the conversations that are currently taking place regarding
the implementation of the CCSS, not an add-on or an afterthought. This level of collaboration
will help make sure that ELLs are considered during this groundbreaking phase in the US
education system.