FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                      May 16, 2005

RANDALL ARTICLE PRINTED IN EDUCATORS JOURNAL

            Kristal Randall, instructor in education at Northwestern Oklahoma State University, has an article published in the Spring 2005 edition of the Oklahoma Association of Teacher Educators Journal.

            Titled “Step Up to the Plate for ESL/ELL Learners: A Needs Assessment for Northwest Oklahoma,” the article explores the need for additional training for teachers to enable them to adequately teach students for whom English is a second language.

            “Each of the last three to four years, the population of English Language Learners (ELL) in Enid Public Schools has doubled and has made a huge jump in Hennessey, Ringwood and throughout the Oklahoma Panhandle,” Randall said. “I was interested in seeing what types of services were available to these students and their families.”

            To find the answers, Randall did a needs assessment of the schools in northwest Oklahoma, southwest Kansas and part of the Texas Panhandle—Northwestern’s traditional area of service.

            “What I found was staggering,” she said. “There are huge numbers of ELL students and huge gaps in teacher training to deal with their special needs. With ‘No Child Left Behind,’ these children are expected to take their grade level tests within three years of entering the schools, but teachers need resources to teach content information while they are teaching the English language.”.”

            Randall explained that except for very young children, it takes about eight years to become fluent in academic English and about three years to become fluent in conversational English.

            Randall’s conclusion is that it is vital for teachers to have increased specialized training and that now is the time for the development of innovative, pioneering programs to help students and educators.

            She explained that Oklahoma has not had a degree program in ELL, but a competency examination for certification has been field-tested and should be in place this fall, opening the way for such programs.

            Types of ELL training would include a basic understanding of linguistics to see how languages differ, teaching techniques and assessment techniques.

            “The Education Division is in the process of setting up a workshop on Sheltered Instruction for ELLs,” Randall said, “but teachers all across our area need more and more information.”

-NW-

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