Because America is such a diverse country, public schools are faced with the challenge of providing students from all over the world with a quality education. As Chen points out “public schools have embraced the linguistic challenge presented by immigrant students” (¶1). Then, No Child Left Behind law was approved, and it required every public school should have an English Secondary Language (ESL) program that will provide the “academic support” for English Language Learners (ELLs). ELL parents are happy that their children are getting education help from the school, but it has raised the question of how successful are the ESL programs? Do ESL programs provide enough “academic support” to all ELL students? Do ESL programs have enough tools to help students learn English? Some ELL parents complain that ESL programs do not help their child learn English. A successful ESL program is not based solely on the test scores, but also the ability to connect parents, teachers, and students together to strengthen tools that will help ELL students to learn a new language in reading, writing, and speaking.
Every year, the number of immigrants in the U.S. has grown “significantly.” Chen predicts that by the year of 2020, public schools will have at least 50 percent of students that are non-English speakers (¶5). This shows that it is important that public schools have a successful ESL program. The purpose of ESL programs is “to enhance” ESL students learning, to help students’ “emotional well-being”, and to accelerate students’ ability to learn the new language. According to Chen, some district schools have failed to support ESL students’ learning. For example, Chen stated that “...[some] school districts [have been] accused of not meeting t...
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...pply for scholarships just like their classmates. ESL programs can be successful with strong parental support and excellent academic support for ESL students.
Works Cited
Chen, Grace. "Inclusion or Exclusion? The ESL Education Debate - Public School Review." Public School Review - Profiles of USA Public Schools. 07 Apr. 2009. Web. 01 Feb. 2011.
---. "Immigrant Students and Public Schools: A Fluent Fit - Public School Review." Public School Review - Profiles of USA Public Schools. 15 Apr. 2010. Web. 01 Feb. 2011.
Lueck, Cynthlae. "ELL Parents' Perceptions Matter." Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin 77.1 (2010): 9-16. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 31 Jan. 2011.
Roessingh, Hetty. "The Teacher Is the Key: Building Trust in ESL High School Programs." Canadian Modern Language Review 62.4 (2006): 563-590. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 31 Jan. 2011.
Recently immigrated parents often learn English from their children. Over 70% of Hispanic Americans in California are English Language Learners (ELL) and are given the resour...
The purpose of this study is to figure out which ways experienced teachers work best with culturally and linguistically diverse students. This study illustrates which strategies experienced teachers have found to work best. The diversity in school in the United States has increased each year. This means that there are an increasing amount of students who are learning English, English language learners (ELLs). This article comes from the perspective that each child should be taught to their specific needs. All students deserve a fair chance to learn. Fair means that every student is treated differently, not equally. Every student learns differently. In order to give every student a fair chance at learning, you must teach them according to their needs. An experienced teacher, Tiffany, describes her experiences working with culturally and linguistically diverse students. This study watches her methods and discusses what works based on data analysis of the success of her students.
Due to the rise in immigration and the demographics of classrooms in America are changing. As a result, English Language Learners are becoming more common in schools. English Language Learners make up one of the largest demographics in the American Classroom (Flynn & Hill, 2005). These students have been observed to have a major achievement gap because many of these students are placed in mainstream classrooms with basic literacy skills. Many English Language Learners are born in the United States (Goldenberg, 2008). These students have only attended the school system in America. However, the achievement levels are nowhere near the level of their peers. According to Calderon, Slavin, and Sanchez (2011) “these students, who have been in U.S. schools since kindergarten, are still classified as limited English proficient when they reach middle or high school— suggesting strongly that preschool and elementary programs are not adequately addressing the needs of English learners.” The achievement gap between English Language Learners and native English speaking students is extremely high. English Language Learners tests scores are low. According to the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress, “fourth grade ELLs scored 36 points lower than their peers on the reading section of the test and 25 points below their peers in math. The results in eighth grade were worse with a difference of 42 points in reading and 37 points in math” (Goldenberg, 2008). The gap between ELLs and non-ELLs are three to eighteen points larger then students from low-income households.
Secondary education is a highly debated subject. Many critics of secondary education say that inner-city high schools and students are not receiving the same attention as students from non inner-city high schools. Two of the biggest concerns are the lack of school funding that inner-city high schools are receive and the low success rate in sending inner-city high schools graduates to college. Critics say that while inner-city high schools struggle to pay its teachers and educate its student’s non inner-city high schools don’t have to deal with the lack of school funding. Also students from non inner-city high school are not being given the opportunity to attend colleges once the students graduate. But opponents of these critics blame an entirely different issue; and that is illegal immigrant students over crowding and attending high school at the expense of taxpayers. It cost millions of dollars a year for illegal immigrant students to attend high school and this is the main reason why schools are experiencing budget problems. Teaching illegal immigrant students creates a difficult learning environment and that is why students in inner-city high schools are not moving on to a higher education. This paper will explore the controversy and issues of secondary education; it will expose the hidden truths and prove that illegal immigrants are taking a toll on the education system.
Short, D., & Echevarria, J. (2004). Teacher Skills to Support English Language Learners. Educational Leadership, 62(4), 8-13. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.
...odel minority stereotype contributed to Keltner and Lily struggle with schooling by heightening parental “education fever” and increase academic as well as emotional burdens on Keltner and Lily who were already struggling with learning. Lily and Keltner stories suggest that each family or child should be understood in their specific learning contexts. Educators need to understand an individual child’s lived experiences and addresshis/her psychological and educational needs so that they can achieve his/her own success. Schools and policy maker can help educator to do so by developing appropriate curriculum that is oriented to ESL students, rather than using mainstream curriculum that does not fit the needs of ESL learners. Training teachers to implement classroom strategies that aim to understand students’ individual needs and foster students’ school home connection.
The number of English language learning (ELL) students in the U.S. has grown dramatically in the last decade. According to a 1991 national study, there are over 2,300,000 students in grades K through 12 who are English language learners (August & Hakuta, 1997). This number has grown by over 1,000,000 since 1984. The majority of these students are Spanish-speakers (73%), followed by Vietnamese-speakers (3.9%). Because the overwhelming proportions of ELL students are Spanish speakers, the issue of bilingual education is largely a Latino one. No other language group makes up more than 4% of limited English proficient students. What complicates the issue of education for language minority students is their low socioeconomic status. 80% of ELL students are poor, and most attend schools where the majority of students also live in poverty and are English language learners. There is some difference in the level of poverty among language groups. Here, again, Latinos are disproportionately represented: 57% of Spanish-speaking families earn less than $20,000 compared to, for example, only 35% of families where Asian/Pacific Island languages are spoken (McArthur, 1993). Poverty has many implications for educational achievement, for example, parents' educational attainment mirror income levels, and parents' educational achievement is highly linked to that of their children's.
In the United States, there has been an increase in in the number of children from Spanish speaking backgrounds. The English Language Learners, commonly known as ELL’s, are being placed in Special Education without being properly tested for a learning disability. However there are a large number of ELL’s with learning disabilities in elementary grades that truly have a learning disability and are over looked. Many school districts have problems placing ELL’s. As a result these students end up in special education whether they have a learning disability or language impairment. Teachers are also indecisive when dealing with ELL’s. Most teachers recommend that ELL’s be placed in special education from day one. It is not because the child has a learning disability, it’s because most teachers are not properly trained to interact with ELL’s. Teachers also find it difficult, due to lack of training, having ELL’s with learning disabilities in their classrooms. More teachers would find their selves comfortable if they had training in dealing with ELL’s and ELL’s with learning disabilities. This paper discusses the issues and the concerns teachers have in dealing with ELLs and ELLs with disabilities, the challenges of identifying individuals with learning disabilities, and what type of assessments classify English Language Learners as having a learning disability.
United States. ERIC Development Team. Latino High School Leaving: Some Practical Solutions. By Harriett D Romo. Charleston: ERIC, 1998. Print.
Monzó and Rueda (2009) conducted a study examining the concept of passing for English proficient in Latino immigrant children. They studied a group of Latino English language learners (ELLs) in and outside of school. They not only observed these students but also interviewed them as well. Within these interviews students opened up about their feelings about their first language, English, and their place in American society. Monzó and Rueda (2009) then found within their data the most common forms of passing for English proficient that these students used.
The Academic English Mastery Program (AEMP) is a groundbreaking approach to ensuring the language and literacy acquisition of speakers of non-standard varieties in parts of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Headed by former speech pathologist Dr. Noma LeMoine, AEMP is a response to an article entitled, “The Children Can No Longer Wait: An Action Plan to End Low Achievement and Establish Educational Excellence,” which outlines the difficulties of nonstandard English speakers and the failure of the school district to successfully address these deficiencies (LeMoine, 1999, p. 4). The program began in 1990 with nineteen elementary schools and was originally called the Language Development Program for African American Students, thus designed for African American Language speakers. It has now changed its name to appropriately describe its expansion to over three hundred elementary and junior high schools and to include other groups of nonstandard English speakers who are identified as Limited Standard English Proficient students (LeMoine, 2002, lecture). These constituents, what Ogbu (1997, pg. 234, 235) call “castelike minorities,” include African-Americans, Mexican Americans, Hawaiian Americans, and Native Americans, whose native language is not Mainstream American English (MAE). Students are classified as Standard English Language Learners; they are often misclassified by the school district as “English Only” speakers because a great portion of their respective home languages “[incorporate] English vocabulary but [embody] phonology, grammar, and sentence structure rules from indigenous languages other than English” (L...
When one thinks about Hispanics, all too often the image of a field full of migrant workers picking fruit or vegetables in the hot sun comes to mind. This has become the stereotypical picture of a people whose determination and character are as strong or stronger than that of the Polish, Jewish, Greek, or Italian who arrived in the United States in the early 1900's. Then, the center of the new beginning for each immigrant family was an education. An education was the "ladder by which the children of immigrants climbed out of poverty into the mainstream." (Calderon & Slavin, 2001, p. iv) That ideal has not changed, as the Hispanic population has grown in the United States to large numbers very quickly and with little fanfare. Now, the population of Hispanics in the United States has reached numbers that are finally drawing that attention of schools, state offices, the federal government, and the marketplace. As the new, largest minority, as well as the largest bilingual group, in the United States, Hispanics are finally being recognized as a group of people with the potential to greatly impact economic, social, and education reform. In this paper, several issues will be examined that relate to education: language barriers, poverty, cultural representation, and problem schools. Through an understanding of the Hispanic culture and the motivation behind the Hispanic population, the American education system will be able to overcome the natural hindrances of a diverse society.
Immigrants who do not speak English seem to have an impact on the educational system in the United States. Why Bilingual education for Limited English Proficient (LEP) students is useful for promoting multiculturalism, mainstreaming education, and teaching literacy in English? After the event in San Francisco, where Chinese students were left without access to school because the teaching and material was only in English the Supreme Court ruled that all school district should address the language concerns to ensure that the all non-English speaking students had equal opportunity to school (Duignan, 2006, 2012). Countries like Asia, Latin America, and Caribbean countries that show a variety in traditions, religions, and even the languages that they speak. Ever since the beginning of immigration, Bilingual education has been used in countries such as America who take in refugees and immigrants.
Curtin, E. M. (2006). Lessons on effective teaching from middle school ESL students. Middle School Journal, 37(3), 38–45.
In 2009, teachers of a New Jersey school banned foreign languages and stated, “any language other than English will not be tolerated" (Debaron 1). This situation was soon no longer allowed. While over ten percent of the total adolescent education systems contain emergent bilinguals, a whopping sixty percent of those students are educated in only English (Bale). Maria Estela Brisk, a Boston College Education professor, believes, “schools has wasted much energy in the search for a "perfect" model and the best way to learn English” when they could just focus on proving “quality education” to every student in the system (1). Teacher’s main priority should consist of effectively teaching their students to prepare them for the future, but currently there are a lack of certified bilingual education teachers. When students are taught more in different ways, they can educationally benefit their cognitive abilities, involving the brain with “mathematics, problem solving, logic and memory”, can be improved to create an overall better student. Even by learning another language at a earlier age can contribute to __________. Learning another language will be