Misidentification of English Language Learners

Abstract

This capstone project is designed to teach teachers about mislabeling. Mislabeling is when students are underrepresented in special education or overrepresented in special education. Mislabeling is caused by poor assessments, poor collaboration, and lack of background knowledge on language acquisition. When ELL are misidentified, they are being placed in the wrong instructional setting. Creating a cycle where they are falling behind monolingual peers and ELLs are unable catch up to monolingual students due to these misplacements. This project aims to discuss some literature on common studies showing ELLs, bilinguals, culturally linguistically diverse, and students of color all being misidentified. Some solutions presented in this literature are improving collaboration among teachers and ELL professionals. Increasing available resources for teachers and knowledge on language acquisition. Utilizing professional developments to teach teachers on implicit bias, culturally diverse teaching, and strategies to improve daily instruction.