A reflective ESL teacher will look at teaching English as a second language from several perspectives in order to draw conclusions which better help students with limited English proficiency. A reflective ESL teacher will consider the technical, practical, and critical concerns surrounding the topic of ESL. This "three-sided" approach offers an objective view of the topic of ESL, a topic which too many times has become a political football.
After much debate, often to the detriment of students, educators and administrators are still debating the best way to teach those students whose native language is other than English. An article in the Society section of Newsweek, "Classrooms of Babel," asks the following questions regarding ESL: "How much?," and "What kind?" (1991, p. 56). ESL teachers know that their students need ESL instruction, but educators and, more predominantly, those who administer funding, have grappled with the best way to approach second language instruction.
As the above Newsweek article indicates, "Since a 1974 Supreme Court decision, immigrant children have had the right to special help in public schools" (1991, p. 56). Many educators have "responded by expanding the bilingual-education programs they've been using for the past two decades" (Newsweek, 1991, p. 56). Traditionally, the teaching profession has relied upon a critical body of research that has indicated the need for children to learn the basics in their native language before gradually being weaned from ESL.
The following excerpt from the same Newsweek article in 1991 gave the public a good summary of the state of ESL in terms of current pedagogy:
In [traditional] ESL classes, students are taught classes like social studies, science, and math in their native language on the theory that children must develop a firm foundation in their mother tongue before they can learn academic subjects in a new language. Proponents say that even ...