What in the world are SLIFE?

A few years ago I was having a conversation with the principal of the outreach school where I was the Learning Support Teacher. We were expressing our frustrations with the lack of a coding or funding category for so many of the students who were our biggest concerns. These students did not seem to have learning disabilities or cognitive challenges, but were simply kids with irregular educational histories. I joked that Alberta Education needed a new "crappy educational history" code. I also made the comment that "someone ought to do some research in this area." 

At the time, I was in the first year of my Masters in Education program.  I was enrolled in a research methods class and had to come up with a fake research proposal topic so that I could do an assignment simulating the process of putting together a research proposal.  I may have commented that I ought to use this topic for my project.

In any case, a few weeks later I got a call from the associate superintendent saying that he had heard that I was "doing my Masters on students with limited formal education" and wanting to meet to discuss it.  In short, my "fake" research proposal became a real-life project and somewhat of a passion.   I will be posting about it here from time to time, but today I just wanted to give a little introduction to the topic.

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The term SLIFE (Students with Limited and/or Interrupted Formal Education) was developed and popularized by Andrea DeCapua along with her co-author Helaine Marshall.  Students who fit this description are often categorized as English Language Learners (ELLs).   DeCapua and Marshall, however, assert that the term the term SLIFE more accurately describes a specific subset of ELLs, who have missed large amounts of formal schooling and/or have ongoing interruptions to their education.  These students typically also need to:

• develop basic literacy skills, 
• learn basic and grade level subject area concepts, 
• develop academic ways of thinking, and 
• adapt to cultural differences in learning and teaching.  

Unfortunately, many of these needs go unmet and these students are at a very high risk for dropping out of school and/or attaining very low levels of literacy as adults.  The research into this population is very limited, but the studies that have been published indicate that “the strongest predictor of L2 student achievement is amount of formal L1 schooling” (Thomas & Collier, 2002) and that “recent arrivals who had interrupted education abroad were 6 percent of all foreign-born teens, but because of their inordinately high dropout rate, they constituted 38 percent of all foreign-born school dropouts” (Fry, 2005).  

For SLIFE to be successful, educators must find ways to help them to learn academic thinking as well as content knowledge, and to to navigate our education system as well as improve their oral language and literacy skills . This process begins by recognizing SLIFE within our schools and developing a deeper understanding of their unique educational needs.

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According to DeCapua and Marshall, one of the biggest challenges in in the education of SLIFE is the mismatch between the goals and expectations of the students and the teachers. Teachers in our Western education system generally assume that:
  1. the goals of K-12 instruction are:
       a) to produce an independent learner
       b) to prepare that learner for life after schooling
  2. and that the learner brings along:
       a) an urge to compete and excel as an individual
       b) age-appropriate preparation for:
          (i) literacy development
          (ii) academic tasks

This is very different from the educational assumptions of most SLIFE who often come from cultural backgrounds where the preference is for:

• oral communication and  information sharing
•  pragmatic learning with immediate relevance
• working together and sharing responsibility

In order to create effective educational opportunities for SLIFE students, therefore, DeCapua and Marshall propose adoption of a Mutually Adaptive Learning Paradigm (MALP).  They have laid out that pedagogical approach in a number of books, articles, and presentations, including their most recent book, Making the Transition to Classroom Success: Culturally Responsive Teaching for Struggling Language Learners.  This approach requires both the teacher and the learner to adapt and stretch beyond the knowledge and behaviors which are most familiar and comfortable to them.  They argue that doing so will enable SLIFE to experience far greater success in our school systems and will better prepare them for the challenges of life in Western society.

(DeCapua & Marshall, 2010, 2011, 2013; Marshall 1998)

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Beyond the work of DeCapua and Marshall, information on the education of SLIFE is sparse.   There are a few educational jurisdictions, including New York State and the Province of Ontario, which have tried to address the challenges of students with irregular educational histories.  They have produced documents which summarize key strategies believed to be effective with this population.  Sometimes those strategies can also be found within the more extensive literature on ELLs, newcomers, refugees, and adolescent and adult readers.  Other useful ideas can be drawn from the literature on differentiation and accommodation of student differences.  In addition, teachers of SLIFE may need to become acquainted with strategies for assessing and teaching early literacy skills since many SLIFE lack those foundational skills.

In Alberta, there is no funded category for SLIFE, although limitations in educational experience are mentioned in documents describing ELLs and refugees.  In Southern Alberta there are large numbers of SLIFE that consist mainly of Low German speaking Mennonites. This population are not refugees but many are immigrants from Mexico and Central America whose education has been limited by cultural, religious, and economic factors.  It is often difficult to meet their needs under the ELL structures alone, but the SLIFE strategies being used in large urban centers are sometimes impractical in the rural setting.   

The Horizon School Division recognized that there was a need for greater study of this problem and made it part of their AISI research project for 2012-2013.  I was given some release time to be the lead researcher for the project, and I did a literature review and made a few presentations to Horizon teachers.  When the provincial government cut AISI funding in the spring of 2013, a number of Horizon teachers expressed interest in continuing our work in some form.  This fall we formed a community of practice using a blended format of online and face-to-face methods to discuss our ideas and experiences.  I have been fortunate to able to use my work with the community of practice as my leadership internship project for my Masters program.  

I know that we will be sharing the findings of our inquiry at some point in the future, but we are not yet at that point.  In the meantime, just wanted to mention the project briefly here on this blog because I thought that it might be of interest to others and show a different kind of "difference" that plays a major role in education.  If you have ideas, questions, or suggestions for me, feel free to leave me a comment in the box below.

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References:

Alberta Education (2012). Programming information: Organizing for instruction. In: Supporting English Language Learners. Edmonton, AB: Alberta Learning. Retrieved from: http://www.learnalberta.ca/content/eslapb/organizing_for_instruction.html

Alberta Education (2013, March 7). Funding manual for school authorities: 2013/2014 school year. Edmonton, AB: Alberta Learning. Retrieved from: http://education.alberta.ca/media/6858000/20132014fundingmanual.pdf

DeCapua, A. & Marshall. H. W. (2013). Making the transition to classroom success: Culturally responsive teaching for struggling language learners. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

DeCapua, A. & Marshall. H. W. (2011). Breaking new ground: Teaching English learners with limited or interrupted formal education in US secondary schools. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

DeCapua, A., & Marshall, H., (2010). Serving ELLs with limited or interrupted education: Intervention that works. TESOL Journal 1(1), 49-70.

DeCapua, Smathers & Tang, University of Michigan Press, (2009). Meeting the needs of students with limited or interrupted schooling. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

DeCapua, A., Smathers, W., & Tang, L. F. (2007). Schooling, interrupted. Educational Leadership, 64, (6), 40-46.

Fry, R. (2005). The higher drop-out rate of foreign-born teens: The role of schooling abroad. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center.

Marshall, H. W. (1998). A mutually adaptive learning paradigm (MALP) for Hmong students. Cultural Circles, 3, 134-141.

New York State Education Department (2011). Guidelines for Educating Limited English Proficient Students with Limited Formal Education. Albany, New York: State Education Department

Ontario Department of Education (2008). Supporting English Language Learners with Limited Prior Schooling: A Practical Guide for Ontario educators. Toronto, Ontario.

Thomas, W.P., & Collier, V.P. (1997). School effectiveness for language minority students. National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition (NCELA) Resource Collection Series, No. 9.Limited schooling (n.d.). In Teaching refugees with limited schooling. Retrieved from: http://www.teachingrefugees.com/