Diverse Learners [Jered Lee]

[FOUN 3000 Diversity of Learners and Settings]

[Name of the institution]

Diverse Learners

Introduction

Students with English as a second language (ESL) constitute a significant percentage of the population of our nation's schools. This population continues to increase more rapidly than that of native English speaking students (Shore, 2001). The language minority population has a high drop out rate. These students are also among the lowest ranking in academic achievement and expectations. They represent an at-risk population faced with a wide range of challenges (Thompson, 2000).

This presents a unique challenge for teachers as we strive to help these students achieve in learning the English language and the academic material specified in our content area learning standards. Every teacher who teaches subject matter in English to ESL students is not only a teacher of the content area but is a teacher of English as well. As educators, we must continually reflect on our teaching and update our practice to address the needs of this population, placing a strong emphasis on the human side of teaching. We must continually focus on these students and find effective ways to arrange their learning to help them achieve.

Discussion

The way a student learns in an educational environment may be directly correlated to the motivation they demonstrate in wanting to obtain knowledge in a particular academic area. Motivation has been recognized as an essential characteristic of learning for college students This is also due to the fact that it is typically known and understood that college teachers must manage several responsibilities at the same time as noted.

One of the major responsibilities of a teacher to consider is to motivate students to have the desire to attend class and to learn. As part of training teachers concerning on best practices for motivating students, they may also be evaluated on their skills of instruction, building relationships, and classroom management as recommended in Brewer and Burgess. Once these areas just described are developed in positive ways they may also be a further utilized by teachers to motivate students to learn as noted in Brewer and Burgess. It was even suggested in Brewer and Burgess that although students were responsible for learning material in a class, the teacher is in charge of causing their students to be motivated to want to know the information being taught. A study noted in Brewer and Burgess made an interesting point that teachers were perceived by students as having the main responsibility for learners' interest or boredom. A learning environment that is recommended in Brewer and Burgess is one that is based on intrinsic motivation, which takes place when “students participate in an activity for enjoyment, the learning it permits, and/or the sense of accomplishment it brings”.

Barriers to Meaningful Instruction for English Learners

Cognitive load refers to the number of new concepts embedded in a lesson. It is critical that we consistently assess prior knowledge of all students, ESL students particularly, and look to identify the concepts and skills the students do and do ...