Integrating Students with Learning Disabilities into a Content ESL Classroom

Introduction Bell Multicultural is a high school located in Washington, D.C. with a predominantly language minority student population. A considerable number of these students are recent immigrants to this country, requiring English as a Second or Other Language instruction. Academic transition for these students is facilitated through sheltered content classes during their first year at Bell. Sheltered content is an alternative to Bilingual Education programs, having the advantage of making content courses such as math and science accessible to students while simultaneously working to improve their English language skills. Because the student population at Bell does not consist entirely of ELL’s, these classes have also been used as remediation for students with full English proficiency. I taught two sections of a sheltered content pre-algebra course. All but four students in one class were part of the “Literacy” group, recent arrivals with limited academic skills. The exceptions were students with learning disabilities who were fluent in English, placed in these particular sections because of poor performance in past math classes. The second class consisted of a larger number of Fully-English Proficient (FEP) students who were receiving academically remediation. The remainder of the class consisted of Non-English Proficient (NEP) students who had strong academic skill. Bell combines NEPs and FEPs on the philosophy that joining low English proficiency students and slow learners can have positive synergy effects for both groups—the English speakers take a lead in groups through their superior understanding of presentation while being helped out by the academic aspects of class. Despite the anecdotal evidence from administrators and experienced teachers that pointed toward the benefit of joining ESL and Learning disabilities students in one class, I found an affective distance between the two groups in my classes. They wanted to sit separately, work alone and in general didn’t show much interest in connecting with the members of the other group. I tried to change these attitudes using targeted teaching strategies. My classroom study examines and compares the effectiveness of these strategies in each of my two classes.