Rubinstein-Ávila | ScaffoldingEliane
ContentRubinstein-Ávila
and Language Demands for “Reclassified” Students
page
28
Scaffolding Content and Language
Demands for “Reclassified” Students
A
lthough it has been established
that the development of a sec-
ond (or an additional) language
in the school setting is likely to take 5–7
years, many English Language Learners
(ELLs) are “reclassified” within a year.
A reclassified student is a student who enrolled in
a school district as ELL (English language learn-
er), and who has since been reclassified to FEP
(Fluent English Proficient). The reclassification
processes of students from ELLs to FEPs differ
from state to state, and sometimes from district
to district (Leckie, Kaplan & Rubinstein-Ávila,
2012).
While some states use several measures (in-
cluding the input of teachers and consultation
with parents) to make this potentially faithful de-
cision, Arizona uses only one measure—the Ari-
zona English Language Assessment (AZELLA).
Although it is expected that every ELL student
will, in time, acquire and develop English lan-
guage competencies so she/he can eventually
“reclassify” and exit out of an ESL (English as a
Second Language) or a SEI (Structured English
Immersion) program, students who are reclassi-
fied prematurely are at risk of failing academi-
cally (Combs, 2012; Gandara & Hopkins, 2010).
Thus, the reclassification process continues to
raise controversy.
The education of ELLs is strongly influ-
enced—even dictated—by legislation. Voters’
passage of Proposition 227 (which was given the
canny title “English for the Children”) in Cali-
fornia (1998), Proposition 203 in Arizona (2000),
Copyright © 2013 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.
Voices from the Middle, Volume 20 Number 4, May 2013
g28-33-May2013_VM.indd 28
and Question 2 in Massachusetts (2002) resulted
in a setback for bilingual education in those states,
and led to the implementation of controversial
English-only programs. In Arizona, for example,
the legislation resulted in the implementation
of the 4-hour English Language Development
(ELD) block, which segregates ELL students
from the main student body during most of the
day for at least one year (Combs, Evans, Fletcher,
Parra, & Jiménez, 2005); English is the only dis-
cipline taught during the 4-hour block.
As part of these many changes, the AZELLA
has become the sole measure on which the de-
cision to reclassify a student from ELL to FEP
is based; once ELLs students receive a passing
composite score on the AZELLA, they are au-
tomatically “reclassified” from ELLs to FEP. In
other words, they are exited from the ELD pro-
gram and integrated into the “regular” program
(Leckie et al., 2012).
What are the academic and
linguistic needs of recently
reclassified students?
Given the number of ELLs and reclassified stu-
dents across the nation, preparing these young
students academically is essential for the future of
our nation as a whole (Rubinstein-Ávila, 2006).
The first question regarding the reclassification
of students asks which measures should deter-
mine the decision to reclassify or not. Studies
demonstrate that passing the AZELLA, espe-
cially at the secondary level, does not mean that
a student is necessarily linguistically prepared
to tackle the complex texts they are likely to en-
counter across the content areas without contin-
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 Rubinstein-Ávila | Scaffolding Content and Language Demands for “Reclassified” Students
ued support. This leads us to a broader question:
What does it mean to be “fluent” in a particular
language (in this case English)? Does it mean
one has acquired social language (oral) compe-
tencies to communicate with one’s peers? Or
does it mean an individual has developed English
academic vocabulary and literacy proficiencies to
ensure academic success?
ELLs who are reclassified prematurely lag
behind academically; do they ever catch up? Al-
though the research on this topic is recent, there
is some evidence that as concepts across content
areas and the related textbooks become more
complex at the secondary level, the academic lag
may grow exponentially, and may well contribute
to the low high school graduation rates among
Latino/a students (Gandara & Hopkins, 2010).
As my colleagues and I explain in greater de-
tail elsewhere (Leckie et al., 2012), reclassified
students are most likely to be placed in classes
where little, if any, scaffolding of academic lan-
guage is provided. In fact, some school districts
in Arizona are beginning to recognize that reclas-
sified students may require content and language
support for two years (after reclassification) to
ensure continued comprehensible input. The
premise of this article is that content area teach-
ers not only can, but should be able to scaffold the
content and language demands of their reclassi-
fied students. The rationale is simple; incorpo-
rating particular strategies to teach content will
likely ensure academic success not only for re-
cently reclassified students, but also for the many
native English-speaking students who are not “at
grade level” across the secondary level.
Can everyday teachers across
content area classrooms employ
effective instructional strategies?
Content area teachers may find the task of scaf-
folding the linguistic and academic demands of
the content they teach overwhelming. A com-
mon concern is: “How will I teach students Eng-
lish reading/writing while also teaching them the
content?” The following snapshots from two
Voices from the Middle, Volume 20 Number 4, May 2013
g28-33-May2013_VM.indd 29
page
middle school classrooms (Science and Read- 29
ing) show that scaffolding content and language
demands can be seamlessly integrated into any
lesson. Scaffolding the linguistic demands of
content happens as one teaches the content—not
as an add-on to the content.
The two classroom examples I highlight in
this article were not picked because the teach-
ers have won national or state awards for their
teaching, nor because the lessons are representa-
tive of state of the art, student-centered, inquiry-
based pedagogy. I chose
to highlight these two Scaffolding the linguistic
classrooms precisely be- demands of content
cause most secondary
content area lessons are happens as one teaches
still, by and large, teach- the content—not as an
er centered, and my goal
is to show that content add-on to the content.
and language demands
can be scaffolded to help students achieve Vy-
gotsky’s (1978, 1985) Zone of Proximal Devel-
opment (ZPD), which may be defined in this case
as comprehensible input of content that may be slightly
over a student’s comprehension/linguistic competen-
cies.
This particular district (and school) has a
high ELL enrollment. The teachers in these two
classrooms differ in many aspects; one is fairly
new to teaching and is bilingual (English/Span-
ish), while the other has many years of classroom
experience and is a monolingual English speaker.
However, these two teachers understand that: 1)
it takes several years to acquire and develop aca-
demic competencies in a new language; 2) rather
than expecting students to eventually “get it,” it
is every teacher’s responsibility to provide an in-
structional environment in which the content is
comprehensible to all students. These two teach-
ers are also well aware of the fact that students
who do not develop “school” English by middle
school are less likely to succeed in and graduate
from high school, and even less likely to gradu-
ate from a community college or university. In
sum, they share a commitment to educating all
students.
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 Rubinstein-Ávila | Scaffolding Content and Language Demands for “Reclassified” Students
page
30 to be on task.
Snapshot: A seventh-grade science class
in which content is scaffolded Mr. O’Brien moved continuously around
the classroom, weaving among groups of 4–5
About 35% of the students in this class had been
students seated around crescent moon-shaped
recently reclassified. The topic of the lesson was
tables. He elicited reactions, answers, and expla-
neutrons, protons, and
nations from most students—not only from the
Students knew that blurt- their charges (according
few who raised their hands. Moreover, when Mr.
to the periodic table).
ing one-word (or single O’Brien asked students to provide answers (out
The teacher, Mr. O’Brien
loud), he always responded to their answers with
phrase) answers wouldn’t (a pseudonym), seemed
a “Why?” Students knew that blurting one-word
to know every one of
do. As a result, they (or single phrase) answers wouldn’t do. As a re-
his 28 students by name.
sult, they seemed to have internalized the expec-
seemed to have internal- What especially struck
tation to justify their answers with some type of
me was that although Mr.
ized the expectation to evidence or rationale.
O’Brien was an English
Knowing that many of his students needed
justify their answers with monolingual, he pro-
extra time and practice to formulate their ex-
nounced each name (e.g.,
some type of evidence or planations, Mr. O’Brien provided individual
Julio, Jesus, Rocio, Car-
students the opportunity to “rehearse” their ex-
rationale. men) with a near-perfect
planations before they addressed the entire class.
Spanish inflection. Al-
In fact, he encouraged his students to discuss the
though it was clearly a teacher-directed lesson,
question with their group first, and then “prac-
the learning environment was active, and from
tice” the answer. Mr. O’Brien was also respectful
my vantage point, 100% of the students seemed
of some students’ choice to discuss and problem

connections from readwritethink

ReadWriteThink.org Strategy Guides

Supporting Vocabulary Acquisition for English Language Learners

This Strategy Guide offers teachers support for ELL vocabulary instruction in their English and content-area classrooms.

http://www.readwritethink.org/professional-development/strategy-guides/supporting-vocabulary-acquisition-
english-30104.html

Supporting Comprehension Strategies for English Language Learners

This Strategy Guide is for developing comprehension that incorporates the “gradual release of responsibility” model.

http://www.readwritethink.org/professional-development/strategy-guides/supporting-comprehension-strategies-
english-30106.html

Differentiating the Reading Experience for Students

In this Strategy Guide, you’ll learn approaches that can help you differentiate the reading experience for students
depending on their age, interests, and ability.

http://www.readwritethink.org/professional-development/strategy-guides/differentiating-reading-experience-
students-30103.html
Lisa Fink
www.readwritethink.org

Voices from the Middle, Volume 20 Number 4, May 2013

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 Rubinstein-Ávila | Scaffolding Content and Language Demands for “Reclassified” Students
solve with their peers in Spanish before formu-
lating their answer in English. Rather than as-
suming that communicating in Spanish meant
students were off task, he understood that con-
ceptual discussions are likely to require all the
linguistic resources a student can muster.
Regardless of the language Mr. O’Brien’s
students used to discuss the content, the small
groups were on task (I could tell, since I am flu-
ent in Spanish). The pace of the lesson was brisk,
but not too fast. I was extremely thankful—for
my own understanding—that at one point Mr.
O’Brien modeled for the students by drawing the
neutrons and protons on the overhead (remind-
ing them that their drawings were two dimen-
sional, not three dimensional). He understood
the importance of showing the representation of
the concepts to the class.
After that, he instructed the students to find
the “group and period for sodium,” and to identify
the coordinates on their “periodic table,” making
it clear they were to add them to their drawing.
He then circled the room, monitoring students’
productivity and assessing their understanding.
When Mr. O’Brien spotted a student who looked
lost, he leaned toward the student and—with a
great deal of patience, using fewer words in a sen-
tence, and at a slower pace—brought the student
up to speed. Soon after, a whole-class discussion
ensued on the atomic mass of sodium (counting
the circles they had drawn—the 11 protons and
12 neutrons in the middle).
As I left the classroom, one student was ex-
plaining to the rest of the class, in heavily accent-
ed English, that there were “11 electrons on the
outside—for balance.” The message that seemed
to permeate this room was that Mr. O’Brien’s
science class was meaningful to the students and
was all about learning—not just passing time.
Snapshot: A sixth-grade reading class
in which language and reading compre-
hension is scaffolded
About 70% of the 23 students in Ms. Aguilar’s
(pseudonym) English reading class had been
Voices from the Middle, Volume 20 Number 4, May 2013
g28-33-May2013_VM.indd 31
page
reclassified during that academic year. Their 31
individual desks were arranged in rows of two
adjacent desks. The bell work (a task students
complete immediately upon arrival to the class-
room) was already projected on a large screen as
students sat down. Each one of the sixth graders
in this school had received
a laptop (as part of a school Rather than assuming that
initiative), and students
communicating in Spanish
immediately opened those
laptops to begin work. Ms. meant students were off
Aguilar reminded students
task, he understood that
that they were not to waste
time. conceptual discussions are
In order to prepare
likely to require all the lin-
students for some of the
vocabulary they were about guistic resources a student
to encounter in the nonfic-
can muster.
tion, first-person text (pub-
lished in the 1940s), she
had students speculate on the meaning of certain
phrases (e.g., “she gave her word”), as well as vo-
cabulary words, such as “retrieve.” For example,
employing Total Physical Response (TPR), she
asked one of the students if he could retrieve the
hand lotion from her desk. When the student
brought the hand lotion to her, she thanked him,
and then asked the class, “What is retrieve?” They
all responded, “to get!!!”
Students were told to “post” their bell work
(on Moodle)—even if they were not sure. Ms.
Aguilar also reminded students to stay on task:
“What is the one topic you can talk about?” Most
of the students responded in unison “bell work!”
While she took attendance, students either
worked individually or discussed the bell work
with a classmate. After a few minutes, Ms. Agui-
lar briefly went over the terms as a whole class.
After that, she began setting up the context for
the text they were about to read—in sections. She
told her students that they were about to read a
first-person account of a city boy who goes to a
Boy Scout retreat in the woods for the first time.
Ms. Aguilar explained that the text was written
about 40 years ago, and that the author must have
been a child around the time in which their “Ta-
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 Rubinstein-Ávila | Scaffolding Content and Language Demands for “Reclassified” Students
page
32 ta’s and Nana’s” [grandmas and granddads] were
kids—“just to give you a reference.” One student
remarked that his Nana was not yet 40.
Before continuing, Ms. Aguilar demanded
students’ full attention: “All eyes on me!” Once
she had the attention
The two teachers . . . under- of all the students,
she first read the les-
stood that talk shapes our
son objective out loud
own thinking, exposes us to (handwritten on the
dry-erase board), and
the point of view of others
then had the students
(often enriching our own), read it together in uni-
son: “I will be able to
and provides opportunities to
represent a text visu-
create shared meaning. ally and provide an
appropriate caption.”
Wisely, however, Ms.
Aguilar did not take for granted that her students
understood what they had just heard/read or re-
peated. “What are we doing today?” she asked.
One student responded: “Drawing!” Ms. Agui-
lar: “What are we drawing, Ruby”? Ruby did not
respond. Ms. Aguilar: “Who wants to help her?”
Gabe: “An appropriate caption!” After thank-
ing him, Ms. Aguilar addressed the entire class:
“What does that mean?” What followed was a
short discussion that clarified which captions
would be relevant.
Blank sheets of paper were distributed; stu-
dents folded the sheet several times until it yield-
ed eight squares. Before redirecting her students
to the text (projected on the large screen and on
students’ laptops), Ms. Aguilar set the context for
the text: “What do you see when you leave the
school?” Students responded: “mountains, some
trees, dirt.” Ms. Aguilar: “How would you feel if
you had never seen those things before, and then
went hiking for the first time?”
After reading a couple of paragraphs out
loud, Ms. Aguilar engaged students in a brief
discussion about relevance. Ms. Aguilar: “What
would be relevant to draw for the paragraphs we
just read?” Student: “The one tree in his [the au-
thor’s] neighborhood and the tall buildings be-
hind it.” Ms. Aguilar (addressing the whole class):
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“Would drawing the stadium be relevant?” Stu-
dents: “No!” Ms. Aguilar reminded the students
about the time limit for drawing their first square
and adding a caption—in their own words. One
student wrote the following sentence as his cap-
tion: “There’s where the buildings that he was
talking about [sic].” The next step was to read
their captions to the closest classmate and then
discuss and revise as needed before moving on to
read the next section of the text.
How can Vygotsky’s Zone of
Proximal Development (ZPD)
scaffold the content and language
demands in the classroom?
The two teachers I observed integrated many of
the instructional strategies I teach in a course de-
signed to maximize ELLs’ academic engagement
across content areas (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short,
2010). Since practice follows theory, these teach-
ers applied Vygotsky’s ZPD (1978, 1985) con-
cept to their teaching. They helped their students
achieve comprehension levels that may have been
slightly over their reach by scaffolding the con-
tent—employing several instructional strategies
simultaneously to maximize comprehensive input
of the content they were teaching. While I ob-
served them, I made a list of the various instruc-
tional strategies they used: 1) “wait-time” (which
I teach, but often fail to do myself)—where the
teacher waits for a few more seconds than usual
to allow language learners more processing time;
2) “think-pair-share”; 3) graphic organizers, pic-
tures, and drawings (realia/representations); 4)
synonyms for tier-three words (words that are
found infrequently even in text—mostly within
particular disciplines), and 5) Total Physical Re-
sponse (TPR). All of these instructional strate-
gies can be found in Echevarria,Vogt, and Short’s
work (2010).
Together, the two teachers integrated small-
group work and structured talk into their teach-
ing of content, indicating that they understood
that talk shapes our own thinking, exposes us to
the point of view of others (often enriching our
own), and provides opportunities to create shared
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 Rubinstein-Ávila | Scaffolding Content and Language Demands for “Reclassified” Students
page

meaning (Gilles, 2010). These teachers also un-
derstood the need to provide their students with
the opportunity to use academic language au-
thentically (Echevarria & Graves, 2011; Frey &
Fisher, 2011; Rubinstein-Ávila, 2006).
Using the overhead projector to model, mak-
ing the lesson objective explicit, reading passages
of the text out loud to students (modeling English
pronunciation, cadence, and pace), and eliciting
responses and explanations from them were ef-
fective instructional strategies used to contribute
to learning within the zone (ZPD). Moreover,
these teachers were not intimidated by hearing
Spanish in the classrooms, realizing that prob-
lem solving may require students to use their
dominant language. Finally, the aim of these two
teachers was not to simply deliver content; they
were in tune with their class as a whole, attentive
to the needs of students who seemed to require
additional scaffolding to access the content and
succeed academically.
References
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Arizona’s Structured English Immersion policy
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Faltis (Eds.), Implementing educational language
policy in Arizona (pp. 59–85). Bristol, England:
Multilingual Matters.
Combs, M. C., Evans, C., Fletcher, T., Parra, E., & 33
Jiménez, A. (2005). Bilingualism for the children:
Implementing a dual language program in an
English only state. Educational Policy, 19, 701–
728.
Echevarria, J., & Graves, A. (2011). Sheltered content
instruction: Teaching English language learners with
diverse abilities. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Echavarria, J., Vogt, M., & Short, D. J. (2010). Making
content comprehensible for secondary English learn-
ers: The SIOP model. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Frey, N., & Fisher, D. (2011). Structuring the talk:
Ensuring academic conversations matter. The
Clearing House, 84, 15–20.
Gandara, P., & Hopkins, M. (Eds). (2010). Forbidden
language: English learners and restrictive language
policies. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Gilles, C. (2010). Making the most of talk. Voices from
the Middle, 18(2), 9–15.
Leckie, A. G., Kaplan, S. E., & Rubinstein-Ávila, E.
(2012). The need for speed: A critical discourse
analysis of the reclassification of English language
learners in Arizona. Language Policy,.11. doi:
10.1007/s10993-012-9242-y
Rubinstein-Ávila, E. (2006). Connecting with Latino
learners. Educational Leadership, 63(5), 38–43.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development
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bridge, MA: M.I.T. Press.

Eliane Rubinstein-Ávila is an associate professor in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and

Sociocultural Studies (program in Language, Reading, and Culture)—College of Education, Univer-
sity of Arizona. She can be reached at rubinste@email.arizona.edu.

Voices from the Middle, Volume 20 Number 4, May 2013

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without
permission.