About CREATE
A New Research Center for Middle School English Language Learners!
The Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners (CREATE) is a national research and development center funded by the National Center for Education Research, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. CREATE focuses on the learning and teaching of English language learners (ELLs) in the middle grades and is a partnership of several researchers:
- David J. Francis, Coleen D. Carlson, Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics, University of Houston
- Diane August, Deborah Short, Center for Applied Linguistics
- Sharon Vaughn, Sylvia Linan-Thompson, Vaughn Gross Center, University of Texas at Austin
- Catherine Snow, Harvard University
- Jana Echevarria, California State University at Long Beach
- Elfrieda Hiebert, University of California at Berkeley
The following researchers serve on CREATE's Advisory Board: Carol Sue Englert, Doug Fisher, Larry Hedges, Elizabeth Moje, A.M. Palinscar, and Aída Walqui.
Meeting an Educational Challenge
CREATE's focused program of research is designed to address the critical challenge of improving educational outcomes for English language learners by
- enhancing the empirical research base for readers in Grades 4–8;
- using both narrative and expository text to develop and test effective interventions that promote content knowledge and language and literacy development;
- investigating the features of instruction and text modifications that facilitate learning for ELLs (e.g., traditional instruction v. ESL-enhanced instruction, teacher guided instruction v. group work, traditional text v. modified text);
- designing, testing, and delivering professional development that ensures teachers implement effective classroom practices to help ELLs achieve high standards; and
- disseminating information on effective practices to a broad audience using a variety of methods.
A Focused Program of Research
CREATE is developing research-based interventions, testing them in tightly controlled experiments and randomized field trials with classroom teachers, combining them into a comprehensive package whose effectiveness will also be tested in randomized experiments, and disseminating findings from these and other relevant studies with ELLs. We are also developing and disseminating state-of-the-art professional development for teachers and administrators. The Center's research focuses on the specific instructional practices that are proven effective in improving oral English proficiency, English literacy, and student achievement in the content areas. Projects explore text modifications and grouping arrangements that enhance outcomes for middle-grade ELLs. They use social studies and science content. More specifically, the projects
- develop and test teacher-guided methods and peer collaborative group work to enhance oral language and literacy development as well as content knowledge;
- compare the efficacy of enhanced versions of teacher-guided instruction and collaborative group work versus traditional methods of instruction;
- test the efficacy of modified social studies narrative and expository text in improving children’s knowledge, understanding, and ability to learn social studies content; and
- test and refine a model of professional development for teachers that is geared to improving the content knowledge of ELLs in middle school classrooms.
About the Projects
Project QuEST (Quality English and Science Teaching)
Principal Investigator:
Diane August, Ph.D., Center for Applied Linguistics
The overarching goal of this study is to improve the language and literacy instruction of ELLs and their monolingual English-speaking peers while building their knowledge of key science concepts at the sixth grade level. The intervention tests traditional effective practices against variations of these practices that have been ESL-enhanced to make them potentially more effective for use with ELLs. More specifically, we will test an ESL-enhanced version of the district’s sixth grade science curriculum versus the standard version of the district’s science curriculum. The school district’s sixth grade science curriculum consists of the Prentice Hall science program, which is aligned with the Texas state standards, TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills). Read more about this study.
Adaptations of Peer-Assisted Learning for English Language Learners:
Application to Middle-School Social Studies Classes
Principal Investigators:
Sylvia Linan-Thompson, Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin
Sharon Vaughn, Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin
This project addresses the critical need to provide effective instruction for ELLs in social studies classes in seventh grade. The study is designed to examine the efficacy of social studies instruction that is enhanced with specific instructional and learning strategies, supplemental materials (for example, video), and purposeful pairing of students. The goal is to enhance knowledge acquisition and vocabulary/concept learning through systematic practices associated with improved outcomes for ELLs in middle school content classes. For more about this project, visit http://www.texasreading.org/utcrla/research/ellcenter.asp.
The Impact of the SIOP Model on Middle School Science and Language Learning
Principal Investigators:
Deborah Short, Ph.D., Center for Applied Linguistics
Jana Echevarria, Ph.D. California State University at Long Beach
This 5-year study investigates the impact of the SIOP (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol) Model on student academic achievement in science, a subject area with high language demands. The SIOP Model is a research-based approach that integrates grade-level content with academic English language development. In the first year of the study, we developed and pilot-tested SIOP Model lesson plans for middle school science curriculum units and related science language assessments. The results of this pilot study are being used in the subsequent years as the research is scaled up to multiple sites across the U.S. in a series of controlled, randomized studies. To do this, we are training science teachers at the treatment sites in the SIOP Model and comparing their instruction to that of teachers in control groups. We are testing student performance on the science language assessments and other district science tests and comparing the results to those of control students.
For the current year of the study, West Coast schools are participating in the study as treatment or control sites. Treatment teachers are receiving SIOP training, SIOP science units, and coaching. In the coming year, schools on the East Coast will participate as Treatment 1, Treatment 2, or control sites. Treatment 1 teachers will receive SIOP training plus SIOP science units, and Treatment 2 teachers will receive only SIOP training. We expect that the students of teachers trained in the SIOP Model will outperform students of teachers not trained in the model on measures of science content and scientific language. In addition, teachers who receive training in the model plus project-developed SIOP science curriculum units will implement the model to a higher degree than teachers who receive training alone, and the students of teachers with training plus SIOP science lessons will perform better than students of teachers with training alone.
Read more about this study.
Adapting Texts to English Language Learners’ Needs
Principal Investigator:
Catherine Snow, Ph.D., Harvard University
A major obstacle to success in reading comprehension for ELLs in the middle grades is their unfamiliarity with the vocabulary they encounter in their content area textbooks. Content area teachers report that they focus on teaching vocabulary, but closer analysis reveals that the words taught in content area classrooms are disciplinary words—photosynthesis and nutrition in science classes, legislative and battalion in social studies. Unfortunately the academic words used across disciplines—often to define the disciplinary words—are not dealt with by any of the content area teachers and thus are missed altogether. These words—such as process, compare, interpret, distinguish, and so on—are crucial to comprehension across content areas. ELLs (and native English speakers from low-language environments) are extremely unlikely to know these words and must be taught them in the classroom in order to learn them. Word Generation is a vocabulary support program designed to be used in middle schools across all content areas: It uses engaging paragraphs to present these all-purpose academic words as well as activities to help students learn them. It is being developed with support from the Strategic Education Research Partnership and formatively evaluated in Boston Public Middle Schools; the CREATE component of the project is developing alternative, simpler forms of the paragraphs to make them more accessible to ELLs. The ELL-accessible paragraphs will provide a basis for a modified, ELL-focused version of Word Generation.
