Time to Proficiency in Young English Learners and Factors That Affect Progress
Open accessAbstract
We investigated the time it takes 54,146 English learners (ELs) to attain English proficiency as they progressed from age 5 to 11 on average (Kindergarten through fifth grade in the United States). We also examine to what extent the time‐to‐proficiency estimate is affected by child‐internal and child‐external factors, including primary disability status, primary home language, home English use, instructional programming, and retention status. We used discrete‐time survival analysis to analyze the children's English growth. Survival analysis often concerns time from treatment until death: Here, “survival” is the time from EL‐program entry until “proficiency,” indicated via standardized testing. Half of the students attained proficiency in 5 years. Literacy skills (reading and writing) in general developed at slower rates than oral language skills (speaking and listening), with writing being ELs' biggest barrier to proficiency. While time to proficiency was significantly related to primary disability status, primary home language, and retention status, exposing ELs to their home language at home or at school does not have a substantial effect on their rates of English acquisition. The results are discussed for their research and practical implications.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Cites
Applied Longitudinal Data Analysis: Modeling Change and Event Occurrence
Singer, J. D., & Willett, J. B. (2003) · doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195152968.001.0001 · Cited by 10,647 · see citing works
Linguistic Interdependence and the Educational Development of Bilingual Children
Cummins, J. (1979) · Review of Educational Research · doi:10.2307/1169960 · Cited by 3,318 · see citing works
Undoing Appropriateness: Raciolinguistic Ideologies and Language Diversity in Education.
Flores, N., & Rosa, J. (2015) · Harvard Educational Review · doi:10.17763/0017-8055.85.2.149 · Cited by 2,829 · see citing works
Linguistic Distance: A Quantitative Measure of the Distance Between English and Other Languages
Chiswick, B. R., & Miller, P. W. (2005) · Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development · doi:10.1080/14790710508668395 · Cited by 366 · see citing works
The Educational Effectiveness of Bilingual Education
Rossell, C. H., & Baker, K. H. (1996) · Research in the Teaching of English · doi:10.58680/rte199615328 · Cited by 307 · see citing works
Social factors in childhood bilingualism in the United States
Pearson, B. Z. (2007) · Applied Psycholinguistics · doi:10.1017/s014271640707021x · Cited by 305 · see citing works
Umansky, I. M., & Reardon, S. F. (2014) · American Educational Research Journal · doi:10.3102/0002831214545110 · Cited by 280 · see citing works
Allen, C. S., Chen, Q., Willson, V. L., & Hughes, J. N. (2009) · Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis · doi:10.3102/0162373709352239 · Cited by 257 · see citing works
English Language Learners Who Struggle With Reading
Klingner, J. K., Artiles, A. J., & Barletta, L. M. (2006) · Journal of Learning Disabilities · doi:10.1177/00222194060390020101 · Cited by 252 · see citing works
Language-Minority Learners in Special Education: Rates and Predictors of Identification for Services
Samson, J. F., & Lesaux, N. K. (2009) · Journal of Learning Disabilities · doi:10.1177/0022219408326221 · Cited by 224 · see citing works
What We Know About Second Language Acquisition
Dixon, L. Q., Zhao, J., Shin, J.-Y., Wu, S. F., Su, J.-H., Burgess-Brigham, R., Gezer, M. Ü., & Snow, C. E. (2012) · Review of Educational Research · doi:10.3102/0034654311433587 · Cited by 205 · see citing works
Duursma, E., Contreras, S. R., Szuber, A., et al. (2007) · Applied Psycholinguistics · doi:10.1017/s0142716407070099 · Cited by 204 · see citing works
Saunders, W. M., & Marcelletti, D. (2012) · Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis · doi:10.3102/0162373712461849 · Cited by 100 · see citing works
Surrain, S. (2018) · International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism · doi:10.1080/13670050.2018.1546666 · Cited by 96 · see citing works
English Learners’ Time to Reclassification
Thompson, K. D. (2015) · Educational Policy · doi:10.1177/0895904815598394 · Cited by 88 · see citing works
PREDICTING LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY IN BILINGUAL CHILDREN
CAT, C. D. (2019) · Studies in Second Language Acquisition · doi:10.1017/s0272263119000597 · Cited by 71 · see citing works
Slama, R. B. (2014) · American Educational Research Journal · doi:10.3102/0002831214528277 · Cited by 62 · see citing works
Research and Policy Considerations for English Learner Equity
Cimpian, J. R., Thompson, K. D., & Umansky, I. M. (2016) · Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1177/2372732215623553 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
Writing in young bilingual children: Review of research
Williams, C., & Falhaber, E. L. (2018) · Journal of Second Language Writing · doi:10.1016/j.jslw.2018.10.012 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
Umansky, I. M., Callahan, R. M., & Lee, J. C. (2020) · American Journal of Education · doi:10.1086/708250 · Cited by 36 · see citing works
Indiana Emergent Bilingual Student Time to Reclassification
Burke, A. M., Morita‐Mullaney, T., & Singh, M. (2016) · American Educational Research Journal · doi:10.3102/0002831216667481 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Figlio, D., & Özek, U. (2020) · Journal of Public Economics · doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104184 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
Hamman‐Ortiz, L., & Palmer, D. K. (2020) · International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism · doi:10.1080/13670050.2020.1819096 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Does Bilingual Education Interfere with English-Language Acquisition?*
Conger, D. (2010) · Social Science Quarterly · doi:10.1111/j.1540-6237.2010.00751.x · Cited by 18 · see citing works
Long-term English Learners: Untangling Language Acquisition and Learning Disabilities
Rhinehart, L. V., Bailey, A. L., & Haager, D. (2022) · Contemporary School Psychology · doi:10.1007/s40688-022-00420-w · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Kim, H., Barron, C., Sinclair, J., et al. (2020) · Language Testing · doi:10.1177/0265532220930348 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Winke, P. M., & Zhang, X. (2018) · TESOL Quarterly · doi:10.1002/tesq.481 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Self-citationArtigliere, M. (2019) · Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language--TESL-EJ · Cited by 7 · see citing works
(Re)Framing Difficulty: ELLs and Literacy Instruction
Conrad, D. (2022) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-981-19-3532-9_5 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 6
- Conger D., 2008, Time to English proficiency for English language learners in New York City and Miami‐Dade County, IESP Policy Brief, 1, 1
- Cook G., 2012, National evaluation of title III implementation supplemental report—Exploring approaches to setting English language proficiency performance criteria and monitoring English learner progress
- Hendrickson C.(2023 March 24).Michigan 3rd grade reading law no longer requires students to be held back.The Detroit Free Press.https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2023/03/24/third‐grade‐reading‐law‐michigan‐retention‐requirement‐held‐back/69991497007/
- Kieffer M. J., 2016, Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance
- National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2017, Promoting the educational success of children and youth learning English: Promising futures
- Zehler A. M., 2003, Descriptive study of services to LEP students and LEP students with disabilities (Contract No. ED‐00‐CO‐0089) Policy report: Summary of findings related to LEP and SPED‐LEP students
Cited by
Still being checked.
- Authors
- Zhang, X., & Winke, P.
- Affiliations
- MetaMetrics (United States) (US)
- Michigan State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Winke, Paula
- Venue
- TESOL Quarterly
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2024-06-24
- Volume
- 59
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 695-729
- ISSN
- 0039-8322 (ISSN-L)
- 1545-7249
- OpenAlex
- W4399971006
- Semantic Scholar
- 18c49dc11cb4eee9ebe647e9994845ba450d779e
- Cited by
- 3
- References
- 29
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 1
- FWCI
- 4.95
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- TESOL Quarterly (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning
- Social Sciences › Linguistics and Language › Multilingual Education and Policy
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Second Language Learning and Teaching
- Keywords
- English language learners, English proficiency, language acquisition, primary disability, home language, literacy development, writing skills, speaking skills, student retention, instructional programming, early childhood education, standardized testing
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
