Social Studies Learning for ELL Students

Social Studies is a complex subject dominated by facts, instructions, and analysis of various aspects of life, such as geography. Learning social studies is challenging for most students and requires a high level of concentration and understanding. Being a common subject in high school, most students have to endure the lessons, assignments, and of course, the tests. Although learning social studies is challenging for most students, Native American students may have it easy compared to their English Language Learners, whom English is not their first language. The number of ELL students in the US is on the rise. Policies have been enacted to monitor their performance in school. One major policy enacted is using language proficiency tests to evaluate the progress of the students. This has increased the attention paid to the performance of ELL students in school. With most teachers being Native Americans, it is hard to cope with delivering content that is properly understood by the ELL students. According to various studies and research, the instructions provided by teachers and instructors rarely provide the ELL students with schooling language, which is crucial for understanding the content provided. This, coupled with the nature of social studies, makes it even harder for the ELL students to decipher and understand the content in the subject (Zhang, 2017) . Research and studies have identified that teachers usually have more than 50% of ELL students in their classes. It has also shown that most teachers lack the preparedness that is required to coach ELL students. Because of this, most researchers have tried to suggest methods that teachers could use to teach ELL students. The study "Instructions for English Language Learners in the Social Studies Classroom: A Meta-synthesis" by Paul Yoder, Amanda Kibler, and Stephanie Van Hover, reviews the literature available regarding the ELL students in social studies classes using Meta-synthesis. Although this research provides an overview and detailed analysis of the benefits of using culturally and linguistically responsive instructions to social studies learners, its dependence on previous studies may result in inaccuracy and generalizing of the findings.

Yoder, Kibler, & Hover (2016) used Meta-synthesis of present literature to review the existing literature regarding English Language Learners in learning social studies. The researchers used 15 studies as the source of their literature and analysis. The 15 studies were thoroughly evaluated to ensure that they meet the criteria and the methodology of the study. The researchers used the Language Content Task framework to do the analysis and the coding of the findings. From the study, the researchers made three conclusions. First, there is a need for teachers to provide instructions, which are culturally and linguistically responsive to the ELL students. This will promote a more and faster understanding of the students, which will make social studies learning much easier (Cruz & Thornton, 2009) . Second, the social studies teachers, whether in service or preservice, should be trained to enable them to have better preparation for their for the ELL classes. Preparedness will increase the chances of delivering understandable content to the students. And finally, the benefits of carrying more studies regarding ELL students and social studies classes. Further research would increase the knowledge regarding ELL students in social studies classes. An increase in the knowledge will result to the innovation of better methods to enhance content delivery, understanding of social studies by the ELL learners, and bridging the gap that exists between an ENL teacher and the ELL students through increasing the preparedness of the teacher towards teaching the ELL students (Yoder, Kibler, & Hover, 2016) . These findings and future research will serve as a source of knowledge to policymakers, teachers, and other stakeholders in schools as the number of ELL students taking social studies increases.

Although the research was based on previous studies, the analysis by the researchers was commendable. From choosing the work from which they based their research to analysis and finally the conclusion. The method used to collect the information used for this research was qualitative. The researcher thoroughly analyzed the already handled literature in the form of dissertations, research, and studies were done by scholars from all over the world regarding ELL learners in social studies classes and what would be done to improve their understanding of the subject easier. Using these sources increased the credibility of the information while also increasing the accuracy of the results and the recommendations. In addition, using as many as 15 articles enabled the researchers to obtain a large sample of data from random locations, well designed and implemented research, and proper methods of data analysis. This played a huge part in reducing bias in the research leading to more credible and reliable results. If the research was based on a single or two studies, the results would be more biased, have high generalizability, resulting in less reliable results, which would negatively affect the recommendations from the research. 

Although the research was well designed and implemented, which made it a success, there are some concerns regarding the method of data collection used. The research was based on the meta-synthesis of literature previously carried out by other researchers. Although the research and studies used are peer-reviewed, errors, and inconsistencies of data from these studies may greatly affect the outcome of the present study. In addition, the researchers never evaluated the credibility of the previous research and whether the information had been updated or not. Some of the literature and sources for this research dates back in the 20th century (1996). Although some information, such as facts never change, the research carried out in that period would probably bring different results if carried out now. In addition to this, the results of this research are limited by the few articles they obtained matching their desired criterion and went ahead to analyze. This phenomenon may have minimized the generalizability of the results, where only fifteen studies summarize the learning experiences of millions of ELL students in the US. Further challenges were brought by the inconsistencies in the definition of the ELL students, which is essential in this research to identify the students. The Meta-synthesis method used in this research, particularly in coding the components during the analysis, may have exacerbated the results obtained hence reducing the accuracy in the research. The researchers were, however, transparent enough and went ahead to identify the limitations in their study. This serves well to prepare the readers of the possible causes of some inconsistencies in the research.

In conclusion, this research was used to analyze the existing research regarding content delivery and learning of social studies by English language learners. The researchers based their research on previous research on this field and obtained fifteen articles that matched their criteria. The information in these articles was analyzed using meta-synthesis. From the study, the researchers provided three recommendations that can boost social studies learning for ELL students. They suggested that teachers should use linguistically and culturally understandable language by the students, teachers and other educators should receive training in order to increase their preparedness in when teaching and instruction ELL students, and finally, more research should be carried out on this topic to increase the knowledge regarding this discipline and come up with new and better ways to promote social studies learning for ELL students. The research was properly executed but was faced by certain challenges, such as limited research on the topic, which leads to the generalizability of the outcomes and exacerbated findings due to the use of the Meta-synthesis method to analyze the information. The government should invest more in research to identify better techniques that would improve social studies learning for ELL students.

References

Cruz, C. B., & Thornton, J. S. (2009). Making Social Studies Meaningful for ELL Students: Content and Pedagogy in Mainstream Secondary School Classrooms. Social Education, 73 (6), 271-274.

Yoder, P., Kibler, A., & Hover, S. (2016). Instruction for English Language Learners in the Social Studies Classroom: A Meta-synthesis. Social Studies Research and Practice , 20-39.

Zhang, Y. (2017). Supporting English Language Learners in Social Studies: Language-focused Strategies. The Social Studies, 108 (5), 204-209.