Summary

According to Garrets article, having the

expectation that all immigrant students who
enter US schools will be proficient in English
Content area/
in unrealistic. Unfortunately many
Grade level:
immigrant students face various challenges
All subjects
and one of the most common is student
K-12
becoming highly frustrated, because they are
unable to learn due to their language
barrier. This leads many immigrant students
to have high anxiety levels because of the
unreasonable expectations they are forced to meet, which leads to
higher dropout rates among them.It is important for schools to
understand immigrant students before they can meet their needs; they
must understand their frustrations and problems they face when they
enter a school system in a foreign country. Before students can meet the
expectations we require from them, students must gain English
proficiency. This article discusses struggles faced by immigrant
students and offers some strategies that have enhanced the educational
performance of ELLs.

Meeting the Needs of Immigrant Students

with Limited English Ability
Did you know?

Strategies &
Recommendations
1.

2.

3.

4.

Welcome Feeling: Teachers must be open, warm,

approachable, and appreciative of the difference of
diverse children.
Early intervention: Providing early intervention
strategies for struggling students should be intense
enough to quickly bring students to a level at
which they can benefit from classroom instruction.
Content-based instruction: Allow students to learn
the content through language. Students practice
various language skills in a highly integrated,
communicative fashion, while learning content
such as social studies, science and math. This
instruction involves teaching basic social and
interpersonal communication skills.
Task-based instruction: Students complete
communicative tasks in English with an
integrated-skills instruction approach. One
example of this is having students work
collaboratively to write, edit a class newspaper or
even develop a commercial for television.

Often times

educators
attribute lack of
English
proficiency with a
lack of intellectual ability.
Studies have shown numerous

immigrant students to be
persistent and often some of the
most hard working.
Studies have shown that students

whose parents are immigrants,

do better in school on average
than students whose families
have been in the US a generation
or longer.
Garrett, J. E., & Holcomb, S.
(2005). Meeting the needs of
immigrant students with
limited English ability.
INTERNATIONAL EDUCATIONKNOXVILLE-, 35(1), 49.