Linguistic+and+Cultural+Diversity

__** Challenges facing English Language Learners and Standard English Learners: **__

1. English Language Learners (ELL's) are economically, ethnically, and linguistically separated from most mainstream students. There is growing poverty among immigrant children.

2. There are three types of English Language Learners:
 * 1) newly arrived with adequate formal schooling,
 * 2) newly arrived with limited or interrupted formal schooling, and
 * 3) long-term English Language learners.

3. Long term ELL's are students who have been in school in the US for atleast 5-7 years. They are still struggling and are classified as limited English proficient. This means that many of our schools are failing.

__** There are two groups of ELL's that struggle most: **__
 * 1) Long-term ELL's 2.
 * 2) newly arrived with limited formal schooling.
 * These two groups obtain (BICS) and have most informal/conversational English learned, but fail to obtain academic language (CALP) which is needed to succeed in school.

Standard English Learners (SEL's) are struggling readers who speak English as their first language. This group also struggles to obtain academic language needed to succeed in school. This group often goes unidentified/unnoticed and can be marginalized in classrooms or misplaced in special education classes.

__** Gender **__ Gender is included in cultural diversity. In the article Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behavior, Aggressive Cognition, Aggressive Affect, Physiological Arousal, and Prosocial Behavior, the authors stated that even brief exposure to violent TV or movie scenes causes significant increases in aggression, repeated exposure of children to media violence increases their aggressiveness as young adults, and media violence is a significant risk factor in youth violence. The article also stated that even though the video-game research literature is small, the findings overall demonstrate significant effects. Although girls are also known to play video games, the gaming industry gears itself more towards males.

**__Developing Vocabulary__** There are two types of academic words
 * 1) Content Specific - includes technical words related to a specific academic discipline
 * 2) General academic - consists of words that cut across disciplines and appear in different content areas

**__4 ways to promote academic English development in the classrooms(Garcia, 2002): __**


 * providing students with enough exposure to academic English
 * being certain that students attend closely to the features of academic English
 * providing direct and explicit language instruction
 * using a variety of measures to assess the academic language development of English Language Learners


 * Anderson, Bushman. (2001). Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behavior, Aggressive Cognition, Aggressive Affect, Physiological Arousal, and Prosocial Behavior **

**Garcia, E. (2002). //Student Cultural Diversity: Understanding and Meeting the Challenge, 3rd Ed.// Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.**

**Freeman, Y. S., & Freeman, D. E. (2009). //Academic Language for English Language Learners and Struggling Readers//. **