Effective Strategies for Improving Writing Skills of Elementary English Language Learners

Statement of the Research Problem 

In the United States, teaching English as a second language has always been a part of our 

educational undertakings. In the colonial times, there was a conglomeration of nationalities and 

languages: English, Scottish, French, German, Dutch, Swedish, Irish, Hungarian, Polish, 

Russian, and Native American (Cavanaugh, 1996). Because of the vast diversity, there was a 

tremendous need for a sense of unity. In the mid 1600’s, the Dutch and Swedes started their own 

schools, but over time they assimilated by the people around them who were mostly English 

speakers. The colonists, with the exception of the Germans in Pennsylvania, decided English 

would be their prominent language. Following the American Revolution, the pressure was on for 

all citizens to learn the English language via common schools. By the 1800’s, thousands of 

immigrants were pouring into the United States, most of which were poor and illiterate. This 

increase in immigration led to consideration for mandatory public education. Yet the issue arose, 

once again, that Germans were a large majority of the population and there was a great debate 

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regarding which language would be taught and some were left undecided until after World War 

I. It was then that the final decision was made for English to be the common language. By the 

1900’s, public schools were not equipped to handle the number of students being taught, 

especially given their various languages. All children were held to the same standard (taught 

homogeneously) and this caused great frustration, which led to massive levels of dropouts, 

causing a rise in crime. This was a dangerous problem, so theorists began to try and transform 

the way we approached educating ESL students. In the 1950’s, a report was made by UNESCO 

that students should be taught as much as they can in their primary language. In the seventies, a 

Supreme Court judge ruled that children were not getting an equal education due to the Chinese 

language barrier in San Francisco, California. Therefore, sociologists began arguing that there 

needed to be some sort of multicultural or bilingual approach to teaching English. Historically, 

there have been numerous ways in which we have taught English learners, however, recent 

studies show there has to be a change in the way we teach writing (Cavanaugh, 1996).  

According to the National Center for Education, the number of school age children who 

speak a language other than English grew from 4.7 to 11.2 million between 1980 and 2009 

(NCES, 2011). As of 1990, fourteen percent of the U.S. school age population lived in homes 

where English was not the primary spoken language and this percentage has grown tremendously 

in the last two and a half decades. Demographers predict that in twenty years, the ratio of English 

learners in the student population could be one in four. While research regarding how to teach 

English language learners is prevalent today, in as late as the mid-seventies, it was quite scarce. 

In fact, there was a deficiency of research regarding specific successful approaches for 

mainstream teachers teaching second language learners (Fitzgerald, 1995). As this population 

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increases, the need for educational research becomes more prevalent in order to reach these 

learners academically especially in the area of writing.  

Given these statistics, it is paramount for mainstream educators to be knowledgeable 

regarding the education of English learners. One obstacle standing in the way of the success of 

ESL students is writing. Writing is a fundamental component of language. When a child writes, 

thoughts and knowledge are blended together creating a unique meaning (Jones, Reutzel,  & 

Fargo, 2010). Consequently, students identify the skill of writing, as more difficult than listening 

and reading (Berman & Cheng, 2010). Furthermore, writing is the skill that most students are 

least proficient in when acquiring a new language (Nesamalar, Saratha & Teh, 2001). Even the 

most advanced students in the ESOL program score lower in writing than in any other domain on 

the ACCESS test. Even when students exit the ESOL program and become monitored students, 

mainstream teachers often show great concern, frequently seeking methods to improve the 

writing skills of monitored students.  

There are numerous reasons for writing to be the last acquired domain of learning 

English, one being that a more detailed and analyzed knowledge of a language is needed to write 

it than to understand it (Bialystok & Bryan, 1985). Additionally, ESL students do not come to 

school with the same background knowledge as native English speakers; therefore, it is more 

difficult for them to write with meaning. Their vocabulary is often limited, and while they can 

communicate orally and be understood through gestures and so forth, writing proves to be 

frustrating for them as they attempt to express their ideas without the luxury of using their hands. 

Additional work time is also a necessity for students who are processing two or more languages 

and, all too often, they are not given such opportunities. Furthermore, because of how difficult it 

is for ESL students to write as well as their native English speaking peers, teachers’ responses 

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tend to be negative which can result in them being too familiar with the expectation to fail 

(Kasper & Petrello, 1998).  Fu-Lan (2006) believes this expectation of failure, causes anxiety in 

writing which can happen due to two scenarios: first, when students are asked to write about a 

specific topic and second, when students think of writing as a translating activity. Similarly, 

Elias, Akmaliah, and Mahyuddin (2005) stated that anxiety and frustration in writing may be 

caused by unnecessary focus on errors in spelling and grammar, instead of content. All of these 

factors contribute to the ongoing problem of writing successfully as an ESL student. 

As previously stated, writing is the most difficult area of academics for ESL students, 

which is evident in their ACCESS scores and their classroom performances. Living in a text 

oriented society, all students need to be proficient writers, but achieving this goal is particularly 

daunting students who are learning English as their second language.  Due to this universal area 

of weakness for ESL students, this research project has been designed to discover and implement 

effective strategies that will improve the writing skills of ESL students.