ABSTRACT

María is seven years old and is a well-adjusted girl in second grade. She was born in  Colombia, but came to the United States when she was four. Spanish is the medium of  communication at home. When she entered kindergarten, she knew only a smattering  of English. By grade 2 she had developed good basic  interpersonal communication  skills (BICS). These are the language skills needed to get by in social situations. María  sounded proficient in English; she had the day-to-day communication skills to interact  socially with other people on the playground, in the lunchroom, and on the school bus.  Of course, all these situations are very much context-embedded and not cognitively  demanding. In the classroom, however, María had problems with her cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP). This included speaking, reading, and writing about  subject-area content material. It was obvious to her teacher that Maria needed extra  time and support to become proficient in academic areas but, because she had come  to the United States as a four-year-old and had already been three years in the school,  she was not eligible for direct ESOL support. Collier and Thomas (1997) have shown  that,  if  young ELLs have no prior  schooling or  have no  support  in  native  language  development, it may take seven to ten years for them to catch up to their peers.