Who Are Emergent Bilinguals? Rethinking How We Refer to English Learners

Educators and district leaders commonly use the terms “EL” or “ELL” when describing English (Language) Learners in the United States. While this terminology is widely accepted and understood, it fails to highlight one of the most important characteristics of students learning English in schools: They are becoming increasingly bilingual. In fact, some students who speak a language other than English at home already speak two or three different languages by the time they learn English in school. 

Collectively, Emergent Bilinguals in U.S. schools:

• Number 5.3 million students

• Make up 10.6% of public school students 

• Are about 78% Latino and native speakers of Spanish

• Encompass a diverse group representing various languages, cultures, ethnicities, and nationalities

Why Does the Label ‘Emergent Bilingual’ Matter?

As the number of multilingual students continues to increase nationwide, school leaders must embrace strategies to ensure better academic outcomes for every learner. The language we use matters. Terms like “English Language Learners” emphasize what students don’t know, as opposed to what they do know. On the other hand, the phrase “Emergent Bilinguals” celebrates the asset of bilingualism these students bring to their schools and our society. 

Research shows students who can speak more than one language demonstrate advantages in language awareness, communication skills, memory, decision-making, and analytical skills. When students observe multilingual classmates switching between languages, it helps them better understand the similarities between languages, which can also improve their reading and writing skills.

In addition to being bilingual, Emergent Bilinguals are multicultural. By using language, literacy approaches, and tools that honor their culture and life experiences, educators can help Emergent Bilinguals accelerate English language and literacy acquisition.

The Science of Reading Supports Emergent Bilinguals

The science of reading, the gold-standard body of research that offers insight into how the brain learns to read, has not always been associated with language and literacy education for multilingual students. In recent years, pre-eminent organizations in the literacy space, like The Reading League and the National Committee for Effective Literacy, have begun bridging the divide between this research and the implications for instruction for Emergent Bilingual students. 

Explicit literacy instruction, like Structured Literacy, is helpful for Emergent Bilingual students. Providing lessons in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension supports the language acquisition process for all. 

What Are the Literacy Instructional Needs of Emergent Bilinguals?

Dr. Liz Brooke’s white paper, “Understanding the Unique Instructional Needs of Emergent Bilinguals,” discusses how to support literacy development for students learning English. It highlights six general instructional strategies:

• Provide explicit and intensive instruction in phonological awareness and phonics to develop decoding skills

• Offer speaking practice and vocabulary opportunities to Emergent Bilingual students

• Use narrative and expository texts to practice comprehension strategies 

• Expose students to print and new vocabulary regularly to increase reading fluency 

• Structure independent reading with purposeful content

• Give opportunities for academic discussion to develop verbal English skills 

Best practices like these are a way to promote equitable literacy instruction for all students, and because Emergent Bilinguals are a diverse group with unique instructional needs, instructional support and scaffolding should be personalized and adaptive.

Emergent Bilinguals: 3 Learner Profiles

Emergent Bilinguals come to the classroom with varying degrees of proficiency in their native language and English, and the following subgroups are by no means comprehensive. However, they do highlight three common categories for Emergent Bilinguals that call for targeted instructional strategies and resources to support literacy in English.

How can educators support Emergent Bilinguals based on their level of oral language proficiency and literacy foundation? Let’s take a closer look at examples of each learner profile: Rodrigo, Zhang, and Mariam. It’s important to note that, in each case, students’ progress in English can be bolstered at home by opportunities to build their oral language and literacy skills in their native language. 

1. Rodrigo
   Background: Rodrigo and his family came to the United States from Guatemala when he was 6 years old. His parents speak Spanish at home, and he does not regularly hear English spoken in his community. His parents completed some primary school in their home country but cannot read in their native Spanish. He is now in second grade, and while he can speak and understand Spanish effectively, he has not yet developed foundational literacy skills in English or Spanish. 
   Support for Rodrigo: Rodrigo would benefit from explicit instruction in phonics and phonemic awareness to build foundational literacy skills. Educators should provide a personalized, systematic approach to reading instruction that combines scaffolding and direct instruction while offering opportunities to build background knowledge. Rodrigo can then build on his solid foundation in oral language and learn to decode and comprehend texts. 
   
   

2. Zhang
   Background: Zhang was born in the United States and is entering kindergarten this year. His parents are learning English and only speak Mandarin at home. They were both educators in China and exposed him to various texts from a young age. During the past year, Zhang has become more comfortable reading in Mandarin. He can also understand English since he attended an English preschool and made friends with English-speaking children. He is not yet able to read or write in English and struggles with oral language in both English and Mandarin.
   
   Support for Zhang: Zhang would benefit from targeted instruction and support that allows him to develop phonological awareness and phonics skills that are integrated with oral language development. Educators could leverage picture-based activities to build concrete and abstract academic vocabulary and expose Zhang to oral and written language. 
   
   Zhang could also benefit from increased opportunities to participate in dialogue with his peers using language frames. These tools, also called sentence frames, provide scaffolding and support for forming oral and written sentences. 
   
   For example, imagine students are asked to discuss the central problem within a story. A full-sentence response would be: The problem is that the house is too small; a response with language frames would be: The problem is that the ______ is too ______. With the help of language frames, Zhang can then build a simple sentence using nouns, adjectives, and context from the story.
   
   

3. Mariam
   Background: Mariam was born in Mali and spoke French at home and school. When she turned 12, she moved to the U.S. with her parents and was enrolled in the seventh grade. She can read, write, and speak fluently in French, and can understand some Arabic. However, she is not able to read, write, or speak in English. She is now struggling to read on grade level and comprehend content in other subject areas, such as math and social studies.
   
   Support for Mariam: Because of Mariam’s literacy and language foundation in her native language, she may quickly be able to decode in English. She will benefit from instruction that allows her to understand what she’s reading and to unpack relevant vocabulary words.
   
   For Mariam to catch up to her peers and feel confident reading and understanding academic content in English, she will require a combination of targeted instruction and assessment in word recognition, academic language, grammar, and comprehension. To start, she could benefit from direct instruction to help with visualizing, monitoring for meaning, and short phrases and sentences associated with vocabulary from her content-area classes.  

Emergent Bilingual Students Are an Asset to Any Classroom

Like their native English-speaking peers, Emergent Bilinguals represent a diverse population of students who require differentiation and scaffolding. They come from diverse language and literacy backgrounds and benefit from opportunities to build background knowledge and receive targeted instruction. It is also vital these students continue to build on the foundation they have developed in their native language.

Generally, best practices to support Emergent Bilinguals reflect best practices in building an equitable learning environment. All students benefit from an instructional approach that involves opportunities to build background knowledge, integrate academic language, communicate orally with peers, and interact with a variety of texts. With the appropriate instructional support, Emergent Bilinguals like Rodrigo, Zhang, and Mariam can become successful readers of English and confident learners in all subject areas.