Ecobehavioral Analysis of Instruction for At-Risk Language-Minority Students

In this article we describe an application of ecobehavioral analysis to the evaluation of instructional settings for language-minority students. We introduce the concept of ecobehavioral analysis and describe the Ecobehavioral System for the Contextual Recording of Interactional Bilingual Environments (ESCRIBE). ESCRIBE evaluates the instructional effectiveness of educational and second language acquisition programs serving language-minority learners in regular and special settings. We studied 2 instructional environments (regular and English-as-a-Second-Language classrooms) to determine the opportunities afforded to 24 at-risk language-minority students to acquire and negotiate a second language and academic content meaning. Results demonstrated that instructional environments and teacher variables within a setting have a profound effect on students' academic behaviors and language usage. In general, we found a pattern of minimal teacher attention to language development, low student academic engagement in instructional activities, and a teacher emphasis on lecture and a whole-class format. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of ecobehavioral analysis for the study of inclusion and accountability in the education of language-minority students.