Supporting English Language Learners Through STEM Programs

Among students across the country, the population of English language learners (ELL) is growing. In fact, according to a report published by the U.S. Department of Education, ELL enrollment in K-12 schools has increased by more than 1 million students since 2000, bringing the total to around 4.9 million ELL students within the U.S. public school system.

At the same time, there is a growing need to both fill and diversify roles in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields nationwide. A report published by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine finds that the obstacles to ELL students participating in both STEM subjects and eventual careers has nothing to do with a lack of ability or interest, but rather with the incorrect assumption that ELL students must possess a certain degree of English proficiency before they can begin learning the skills required for these subjects.

“While there is no language without content, there is some content that is less dependent on language,” the report says. “STEM subjects include alternative routes to acquiring knowledge—experimentation, demonstration of phenomena, and demonstration of practices—through which students can gain a sense of STEM content without resorting mainly to language to access meaning.”

Embracing Hands-On STEM Learning

Informed by over 30 years of developing STEM curricula, the National Inventors Hall of Fame^® (NIHF) agrees with the report’s findings and believes that, in fact, the most engaging and effective STEM learning comes in the form of hands-on activities that allow children to embrace their natural curiosity.

Additionally, because all our education programs are developed using lessons and stories from our diverse NIHF Inductees, children who participate in our programs have the opportunity to see world-famous inventors as relatable STEM role models.

Florida’s Pinellas County School District offers just one example of how a hands-on program can help ELL students build confidence in exploring STEM. Here, school officials partnered with NIHF to provide a summer STEM learning experience for their ELL students. In an interview with NIHF, Natasha Karac, English learners services director, explained that the program created a supportive environment for everyone involved.

“One of the pieces of feedback from one of the [ELL] students that we received was that he finally felt he was in an environment where he felt safe to state his opinions and, in turn, to have his opinions or thoughts or critical and creative-thinking skills validated from the teacher,” Karac said.

Thanks to the comprehensive nature of NIHF’s summer curricula, Karac was able to work with her colleague, Coral Marsh, supervisor of gifted and talented education at Pinellas, to implement a program that served both the district’s ELL and gifted student populations.

“You don’t need a separate camp for gifted kids and talented kids and English learners and so on,” Marsh said in an interview with NIHF. “It is a comprehensive enough program curriculum that naturally differentiates, and so it serves the needs of a lot of different kinds of kids in one package.”

Are you looking for an ELL solution for your students?

Is your district looking for engaging ELL programming that can be customized to fit your school’s unique needs? We invite you to visit our website to learn more!