ad ee i a a anna as on a Linguistic Diversity in U.S. Classrooms people express their cultural values and the lens through which they view the jworld, It should come as no surprise, then, that the language practices that children bring to school also invariably affect how and what they learn. Yet in mul- ticultural education, native language issues are frequently overlooked or downplayed. This situation is apparent in, for instance, the lack of terms L=* is intimately linked to culture. It is a primary means by which “Beitg Latina, it's good cause a lt of people tell meit’s a good concerning linguistic diversity advantage for me to know two languages. | like that.” 210 in the field. Terms that describe discrimination based on race, gender, and class are part of ur general vocabulary (racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, anti-Semitism, classism), but until a couple of decades ago, no such term existed for language discrimination, although this does not mean that language discrimination did not exist. Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, by coining the term linguicism to refer to discrimination based specifically on language, helped to make the issue more visible.! This chapter explores the influence that language differences may have on stu- dent learning. How teachers and schools view language differences; whether and how they use these differences as a resource in the classroom; and different approaches to teaching language-minority students, that is, those whose first lan- ‘guage is not English, are all addressed in the discussion that follows. Alicia Montejo, interviewee Definitions and Demographics ‘There are numerous terms to identify students who speak a language other than English as their native language. The term currently in vogue is English Language Leamers (ELLs). This term has become popular as a substitute for the more contentious bilingual (more on the controversies surrounding bilingual education later in the chap- ter), although bilingual itself was a misnomer because most students to whom this,a i nan aa aa 7 iman aan Buagene Cannor Shh, "Wer Leveue, dls, Pembroke community ide Macrae, St pratt Sting 200, label was applied were not really bilingual but rather monolingual in their native lan- guage, or becoming bilingual in their native language and English. Some students are ‘maltilinguat when they arrive toschool, but they have not yet added English to their multiple fluencies, The terms ELL or ESL (English as a second language), on the other hand, focus only on students’ need to acquire English rather than on the fact that they already possess lan- ‘guage, although it may not be English. ‘A decade or two ago, the most common term was limited English proficient (LEP), an unfortunate acronym to which many people objected; it has now been largely abandoned, although it is still in use in some federal government documents. Another term used for this population is language minority students, which reflects the fact that they speak a minority language in the United States. Although no term is completely accurate or appropriate, in this text we have chosen to use either English language learners (or ELLs) or language minority students to refer to students who are learning English as a second or additional language. Who are the ELLs to whom we refer in this chapter? In the United States, the population of those who speak a language other than English as their native lan guage has increased dramatically in the past several decades. In 2010, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that the number of people age 5 and older who spoke a language other than English at home had increased by 140 percent in the previous 30 years, currently reaching 20 percent of the entire population, while the nation’s overall au212 PARTI Developing a Conceptual Framework for Multicultural Education population grew only by 34 percent? The number and variety of languages spoken in the nation is over 380—from Urdu to Punjabi to Yup'ik—although by fa the largest ‘number (about 60 percent) speak Spanish. Table 6.1 enumerates the most widely spoken languages in the nation. ‘TABLE 6.1. Detailed Languages Spoken at Home and Ability to Speak English for the Population 5 Years and Over forthe United States Release Date: April 2010 ‘Spoke English Number Margin {ess than Margin of speakers of Error’ “Very Well" of Error* Population 5 years and over 260,564,877 7,708 24,252,429 67,280 ‘Spoke only English at home 225,488,799 83,368, ~ CS ‘Spoke a language other than 5576078 «81,124. 24252,429 «67,280 English at home ‘spoke a language other than 55078078 81,124 24,252,420 67,280 English at home ‘Spanish and Spanish Creole 34,183,747 52,633 16,120,772 54,213 Spanish 34;109,622 82,636, 16120,749 84,210 Latino 125 98 23 38 Other Indo-European 1047377 49,801 3405878 28,898, Languages French tasqee 14,749 202,422 542 French 304,758 14.89 284,800 5734 Patois 28,475 2.268, 4.095 82 { Gajun 25,583 41550 2778 463 French Creole 621,135 13,313 273,888 7,401 } ttalian 207.010 = 10,810 231,738 5,287 i Portuguese e7ass4 = 11,600 29,809 7,246 j Portuguese 676963 11,509 289,771 7251 i Papia Mentae 1371 73 ‘128 109 d German 4120670 «12,812 196,957 4413 # German. 1,119,963 12,808 196,929 4tit | Luxembourgian 707 237 28 37 1 Yidish 162511 5616 50,957 2997 i Other West Germanic Languages 260,600 7,680 e711 3.558 i Penneyivania Dutch 117547 540 93,494 2.984 i Dutch 192/191 4.208 22,358 4715 1 ‘irkaans 18.943, ‘953 1781 ‘388 : Frisian ‘19 ‘324 73 60 Scandinavian Languages 132958 3,989 sas 4984 j Swedish 38713 2979 eee 356 Danish 29728 21126 4.025 eat Norwegian aut97 22287 5781 655 Ieelandte 5170 ‘49 798 476 Faroese 148, 100 28 47