I am currently experiencing the realest of ‘assimilation’ scenarios in my World History classes. Miami has a large, minority-dominating, Spanish-speaking, student population. Historically, new immigrants or low-level ELL students were excluded from mainstream classes in an attempt to focus on English language acquisition. The students’ teachers would be bilingual and the students would receive instruction in English with bilingual support and accommodations. I, was a product of an exclusion ELL academic environment and learned the language within two years with enough proficiency to transition to a regular, mainstream classroom.

Nowadays, Miami does not self-contained ELL classrooms and instead, all ELL students are integrated and assimilated to mainstream classrooms. Even the lowest ELL students in level 1 or 2 who have little to no knowledge of the English language, are included in regular classrooms with other non-ELL students.

Before the school year started, I would have stated without hesitation that assimilating ELL students was a no-brainer. However, the challenges I’ve faced for the past quarter of the year, and the disservices to both ELL students and non-ELL students in my classrooms is paramount. 50% of my classes are low-level ELL students who have not yet grasped English and therefore, struggle to understand anything I teach, even with accommodations. They fail every single exam or quiz because of their language deficiency. I try to translate everything as I teach, but my non-ELL students get impatient and I lose significant instructional time when I have to explain everything in two languages. I feel terrible for my ELL students because they have to either sink or swim in all their inclusion classes. They look lost and the content goes over their head. I wonder how they’re able to fare in their other classes without a bilingual teacher who can offer some assistance. All of them have poor grades, not because of their lack of motivation or studying, but because the language hinders them. It’s as if I were to take a social studies class in Greek. Obviously, as much as they try to assist me, the language barrier will overshadow all my effort and I will not be able to master the content. See below ELL student experience outlining his experience in a mainstream classroom:

Moving forward, I wish the low ELL students who have not yet grasped enough of the English language, are self-contained where they can focus on learning enough to be assimilated. A class that can provide the support they so desperately need and are not getting in assimilated classrooms. Alternatively, if the districts continue to support assimilation classrooms, I at least hope we get the support of a paraprofessional for the benefit of my ELL students, and so my non-ELL students are not negatively impacted. In all, the current arrangement of assimilating all ELL students without the necessary support, is clearly not working.