Achievement Gap for ELLs- Part 1

The term achievement gap refers to any significant and persistent disparity in academic performance or educational attainment between different groups of students, such as white students and minorities. Some of the achievement gaps are standardized tests between white and Asian-American students and African American and Hispanic students. Another newly acknowledged achievement gap is between American student's test scores compared to international student's scores. (http://edglossary.org/achievement-gap/) 

What is causing the "achievement gap"?

The United States is going through a demographic shift due the ethnic and racial composition of our society changing. During the past 20 years, the proportion of Hispanic students doubled from 11 to 22%. The number of students kindergarten through twelfth grade that speak another language has tripled between 1979 and 2008.

ELL children may be at risk for low academic achievement not only due to language difficulties, but also because of various family circumstances. Some of the problems ELLs face are being in poverty and their parents having low education levels. This is a never ending cycle if we do not start education our ELLs and reducing this achievement gap. There are many factors that influence second language acquisition and those are: personality characteristics, immigrant status, SES, how developed their first language is (L1), and how different their L1 and L2 are. 

There are also many factors that affect SLA that are completely out of the students control such as, low quality schools, ineffective teaching, poor school facilities, student overcrowding, inferior resources and programs, and lower achieving or inexperienced teachers. There are so many factors that influence how our ELL and students in general can perform academically, demonstrating the need for active effort in remedying some of these problems.

Jackson, J. K., & Ash, G. (2012). Science achievement for all: Improving science performance and closing achievement gaps. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 23(7), 723-744.