Jessica Stadler, Mary O’Sullivan, Grace DiGiacomo, Grace Dabulas

Title History and Politics of ELL

Subject Area(s) History
Grade Level College level
Summary of the Lesson Students will identify key elements
that had impacted the ELL movement
through an article, PowerPoint, and
group work.
Standards: (as applicable) N/A

International Standards
National Standards
Professional Organization Standards
PA Academic Standards
PA Core Standards

Essential Questions What events in history have influenced

ELL education today?

How did the court cases lead to an

advancement in ELL for the future?

Objectives  Students will be able to describe

the creation and details of
TESOL and its importance in the
concept map.
 Students will be able to explain
the importance of the Bilingual
Education Act through
comprehension questions and
the concept map.
 Students will be able to identify
the different court cases
involved during the start of the
ELL era by creating a concept
map.
Vocabulary:  Pedagogy

Estimated Time
Materials Required
Procedure
Each professor may choose to align
this section to his/her content areas.
This section will include anticipated
areas of differentiated instruction.
 Fourteenth Amendment
 Civil Rights Act of 1964
 Bilingual
45 mins.
 Article with comprehension
questions
 Easel paper
 Markers
 Notes reference sheet
BEFORE:
The students will be given an article
that gives an overview of the history of
ELL along with comprehension
questions. The students will complete
this individually and then we will go
over the answers and discuss as a
class. We will give a brief description
of each key point that we will be
learning about.
DURING:
We will discuss the content in our
slides and ask the students questions
after every few slides to check their
understanding.
AFTER:
The students will be divided into
groups and each group will be given
one key point that we discussed. We
will also hand out a notes sheet for
them to reference. The students will
be instructed to create a concept map
of their key point with supporting
details that will add to their
understanding. After, the two classes
will come together and will be paired
with the group that had the same
 concept as them and the groups will
discuss what they learned and add
anything they might have missed.
Formative Assessment The students will complete article
comprehension questions at the
beginning of class to gain some
understanding of the content. We will
go over the answers to the questions
as a class. There are questions on
some slides during the PowerPoint to
have students discuss what they have
learned up to that point and then will
share. After the lesson, students will
demonstrate what they learned by
creating a concept map in groups then
collaborating with another group to fill
in any other missing pieces.
Student Resources Attached

Accommodations Adaptations and accommodations

Assessment Through the partner questions on the
slides and the concept map, the
students will give details of each key
point and what they have learned.
Vocabulary:

 Pedagogy - the method and practice of teaching, especially as an academic

subject or theoretical concept.
 Fourteenth Amendment - No State shall make or enforce any law which
shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;
nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

 Civil Rights Act of 1964 – prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color,
religion, sex or national origin.
 Bilingual – a person speaking two languages fluently.

Handouts:

Article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/820039?seq=3#metadata_info_tab_contents

Notes sheet:
Provisions of the Bilingual Education Act

The Bilingual Education Act provided funds in the form of competitive grants directly to school
districts. These grants were to be used by the districts for: (1) resources for educational
programs, (2) training for teachers and teacher aides, (3) development and dissemination of
materials, and (4) parent involvement projects. The Act did not explicitly require bilingual
instruction or the use of the students' native language for educational purposes, but encouraged
innovative programs designed to teach the students English. The Act also placed priority on low
income families; non-English-speaking students from families with moderate income levels were
not included. The Act offered few guidelines for the instruction of LESA students, and school
districts were left on their own to create innovative programs. Also, when school districts created
bilingual education programs, they risked violating desegregation laws by separating these
students into special classes. To further complicate matters, some states had English-only laws
which were violated when bilingual education programs were introduced

1966, TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages)

A professional organization, was established in response to the increased demand for ESL
materials and methodologies due to the influx of immigrants, refugees, and international students
to the United States.

1974, Lau vs. Nichols case

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Lau and 1,789 other Chinese students in San Francisco were
being denied access to equal educational opportunities because they could not sufficiently
understand the language of instruction. The Lau case set the expectation that school systems
must adopt some kind of comprehensive strategy that addressed the needs of non-English
speaking students, though the Court refused to mandate any particular model.

1974, the Chacón-Moscone Bilingual-Bicultural Education Act

California Assembly Bill 1329 (1976) also known as the Chacon-Moscone Bilingual Bicultural
Education Act, which essentially replaced AB 2284, was the first state legislative act that
mandated school districts to provide language minority students with equal educational
opportunities despite their limited proficiency in English which established the legal framework
for a mandatory bilingual education program (Jepson & De Alth, 2005). This act was a response
to the Lau v. Nichols 1974 Supreme Court decision Unlike the federal legislation, which left
decision making regarding program type for ELLs to localities, AB 1329 explicitly proclaimed
bilingual education as a right of English language learners (Hakuta, 2007), trying to make a
direct link between funding and instructional program type for students learning English as a
second language. More specifically, it established transitional bilingual education programs to
meet the needs of ELL students