Challenges

English language learners face many challenges. The biggest challenges ELL students face include:

• Instructional needs being met due to cultural and linguistic diversity. Even though all students share the need to build proficiency, “they differ from each other in their country of origin, language and cultural backgrounds, socioeconomic status, family histories, length of time in the United States, mobility, level of education prior to immigrating to the United States, level of parent education, and educational goals” (22).
• Living in high- poverty areas can include inadequate employment opportunities, health and social services, as well as crime. These schools sometimes tend to emphasize on basic teaching skills instead of higher- order thinking, and have limited technology.
• Need to work towards English proficiency for both social and academic purposes. Teachers need to focus on connecting to prior knowledge, and if teachers don’t have an understanding of their students’ backgrounds, it can make it a challenge for ELL’s to understand the content.

There are many challenges ELL students face in the classroom. I believe a part of the challenges these students face is a teacher’s lack of awareness for these students’ needs.