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Welcome! I am here to tell you everything you need to know about Arizona’s Structured English Immersion Program. An English Learner is a non-native English speaker who is learning English. This typically refers to students who are not fluent at speaking, reading, writing, and/or understanding English like their fellow native English-speaking classmates. What about the demographics? Who are ELs in Arizona? Well as we can see in this graphic, in the 2015-2016 school year, there were a little over 67,000 English learners. Just over three-fourths of these students spoke Spanish at home, taking the majority by far. The four other languages listed in the top five are Arabic, Vietnamese, Navajo, and Somali. Now, how do we figure out who qualifies as an English Learner and who needs these services we can provide to support ELs? First, to assess who may be an EL, we use the home language survey, which a parent or guardian will complete once their child is enrolled. If a student indicates they have a Primary Home Language Other Than English, then these students will take what is called the AZELLA or the Arizona English Language Learner Assessment. This helps to determine whether a K-12 student is proficient at English when the language they speak at home is not English. A proficient score on the AZELLA means that the student is no longer an English Learner. Test results on the AZELLA will help inform class placement. There are some testing accommodations allowed for the AZ ELLA as well for students with disabilities, such as a change in the way it is presented to the student, like having it read aloud. A student can also have someone assisting with response options in that there may be someone helping with bubbling in items. However, the items themselves and what is being measured may not be altered because the students do still need to be assessed on their proficiency in English. What is the difference between these two models for teaching in English to ELs? Well, Sheltered English Instruction is defined in Arizona as a type of instructional approach with a goal of teaching with a more understandable form of English to ELs. This class would be composed entirely of English Learners. The educator would make use of more universal teaching methods such as visual or physical activities to teach all sorts of subjects. This type of program is different from Structured English Immersion because immersion based programs aim to teach a second language by providing intensive instruction in the second language of content areas like Math and Science to EL students. This program is meant to accelerate English language learning. In simple terms, sheltered English instruction focuses more on getting content across rather than learning the language. Structured English Immersion focuses on not only content, but developing English language skills. Arizona’s English language development approach (or LDA) begins with the vital understanding that English Learner students are just as valuable to the educational community as any other student and that every individual educator surrounding them should be invested in their education and success. The goal of this program is to teach language and content instruction for EL students in Arizona. There are four principles of the Arizona LDA arrived at through comprehensive research as important tenets for constructing an effective instructional program for English Language Learner students encouraging them to develop a sense of quote agency, confidence, and determination, end quote. What are the principles of the ELD framework? Well, the first principle discusses asset-based behaviors and expectations. In it, it dictates that educators should recognize the value of multilingualism as an asset. It advocates for integrating and respecting a students home culture and language and being responsive to the EL students needs. It emphasizes the usage of a tailor made response rather than one-size-fits-all. Student agency is integrated by providing opportunities for EL students to show mastery of competency, encouraging students to recognize the strengths and experiences they bring to the learning community, reinforcing a growth mindset, among others. The second principle is that of integrated instruction in disciplinary language and content. It states that all educators should be designing instruction together and use content standards to structure their plan in integrating language and content instruction. Educators should make use of scaffolding, collaborative discussions, and many other tools in order to make this successful. Teachers should immerse students in a language rich environment with interactive and discussion based learning tasks. This principle will support the development of student agency when educators provide choices or open-ended opportunities to select strategies and tactics for mastery of language and content, encourage independent learning by teaching effective strategies for learning language and content, and encourage initiative by creating learning environments that increase motivation and engagement with language and content. The third principle is to use targeted and explicit language instruction. To do so, educators should create opportunities for students to use language and reflect on their understanding across the four language domains and utilize language supports, academic language development, and opportunities for academic discourse. This will help develop student agency if educators provide choices or open-ended opportunities to select strategies and tactics for language acquisition, as well as encourage independent learning and initiative by creating learning environments that increase motivation and engagement with language acquisition as well as teaching effective strategies for learning language. The fourth principle is that of assessment, monitoring, and feedback. This states that educators should use English Language Proficiency Standards to align instruction and assessment. It dictates how educators should be using the ELP standards as well as other diagnostic tools, formative assessment practices, and summative assessments in order to properly look at progress of EL students language skills and content knowledge. This principle will support the development of student agency when educators provide consistent, timely, meaningful feedback, provide varied opportunities for EL students to show mastery of competency, and help EL students develop the habit of self-reflection using various formative assessments. There are four structured English immersion programs that have been approved for use in Arizona public schools. The first one is the two-hour SEI model. The time requirements for the students in targeted EL time for these ELL students are 100-120 minutes per day for 500-600 minutes per week (depending on whether the student is in elementary school or secondary school). In this program, ELL students will be grouped together with other EL peers of similar proficiency level to have roughly two hours of targeted English language development instruction. They are then integrated with their non-EL peers for the rest of the day. The second one is the pull-out SEI model. The time requirements for the students in this program are 50-60 minutes per day for 250-300 minutes per week of targeted ELD time. The same amount of time is allocated for integrated language instruction. Students are pulled from their classes to receive the targeted ELD instruction and receive integrated ELD instruction in at least one subject by a certified ELD specialist. The third one is the newcomer SEI model. The time requirements for the students in this program are 100-120 minutes per day which equates to 500-600 minutes per week of targeted ELD time and the same amount for integrated instruction. The time does not have to be grouped consecutively quote “but should be distributed across the day in a way that maximizes the amount of content area instruction newcomers receive without placing them in environments that lack appropriate supports” end quote. Newcomer students will be grouped with other newcomer EL students but for the remainder of the day they will participate in elective and special area classes among non-EL peers. The fourth one is the 50-50 dual language immersion SEI model. The time requirements for the students in this program are 25-30 minutes per day, meaning 125-150 minutes per week of targeted ELD time depending on the level of schooling the student is in. There will also be 75-90 minutes per day which equals 375-450 minutes per week of integrated language instruction for ELL students. This program dictates that half of the content instruction should be in English and half in the other language (typically Spanish. Teachers work together to make sure that the knowledge transfers between languages.