May 2007
Monthly Archive
22 May 2007 07:10 am
Teaching English as a second language
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Lucy Dowling has a long history of helping area students and their families who speak Spanish as their primary language. A teacher at Lomira High School, she continues to help English Language Learners gain proficiency in English. She recalls the days before school districts offered ELL programs. “It goes back to the years of the corn-canning companies that used to settle in this area and hire seasonal workers for harvesting the corn, peas, etc.,” Dowling said. “Many of those workers were corn ‘braceros’ or ‘hired arms.’ When the canning companies moved to other areas, many Mexican families decided to stay and bring up their families here. |
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search for : English Language Learners, ELL
21 May 2007 07:28 am
Braving a new world
| A recent report in Denver Public Schools showed there are more than 29,000 foreign-language speakers in the district – about 3,000 of whom are nonSpanish-speaking. And the cultural differences cause problems for students and staff. Vietnamese, Arabic, Russian and Chinese are other predominant languages spoken, and the district is bracing for a possible influx of Iraqi refugees. At the middle school and high school levels, DPS offers Newcomer Centers at Merrill Middle School and South High School. There, international students who have been enrolled in a U.S. school for less than three semesters can receive English instruction focused on listening, speaking, reading and writing from teachers trained in dealing with different cultures. |
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search for : English instruction
20 May 2007 07:04 am
Not just bilingualism – biliteracy
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As immigrants from around the world enter the United States, schools have long focused on teaching them English. But bilingualism is gaining favor among employers, educators and parents, fueling a movement to help children who are native speakers of Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic and other tongues master those first languages. Educators say many first-, second- or even third-generation immigrant children speak socially in what is often called a heritage language but would be lost if they had to write an essay or a formal letter in that language. Research has shown that proficiency in a native language can help students become better English speakers. In an increasingly global economy, it also makes business sense. |
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search for : teaching them English
19 May 2007 07:51 am
Students achieve language skills
| The Manteca Unified School District’s Shasta and Nile Garden elementary schools are in a county Office of Education pilot program to recognize English learners with the test scores and recommendations that show they have mastered their new language. Condit calls the program CHAMPS, for Children Achieving Multiple Proficiencies, and he hopes to spread the program across the county, starting with the rest of Manteca Unified next year. In California, about a quarter of public school students are classified as “English-language learners,” and San Joaquin County’s percentage is a few points shy of the state number. |
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search for : English-language learners
18 May 2007 06:22 am
Smiling in the same language
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About 40 pupils from Winchester Thurston came to meet and interact with refugee families who come from Burma, Turkey, Iraq and Vietnam. The families are placed at Prospect Park by Catholic Charities but are supported by a number of agencies, including the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council, which provides English as a Second Language classes, and South Hills Interfaith Ministries, which operates a preschool at the complex. The students visited the refugee community as part of its annual service project, which is designed to reach out to the world community, said Laurie Heinricher, dean of middle school pupils at Winchester Thurston. She’s hoping to continue the relationship between the pupils and refugees next school year. |
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search for : English as a Second Language classes
17 May 2007 07:02 am
Schools dip into general funds for ESL
| Although funding has increased, some county school districts are finding it necessary to take money from their general funds to finance English as a Second Language or Limited English Proficiency classes. Fort Wayne Community Schools is expected to dip into its general fund during the 2007-08 school year to balance a decrease in its ESL funding, said Kathy Friend, FWCS’ chief financial officer. “Our overall funding is going up higher than what the state average is, but the designated ESL funding is going down,” Friend said. |
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search for : English as a Second Language, Limited English Proficiency classes, ESL
16 May 2007 06:49 am
Florida Teachers Disagree on Amount of Preparation for Reading Teachers
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Some teachers of English as a second language and professors in the field are trying to convince Florida Gov. Charlie Crist to veto a bill that some other teachers have worked very hard to get introduced and passed. The bill, passed earlier this month by both the Florida House and Senate, would decrease to 60 from 300 the number of in-service hours of English-as-a-second-language training required of reading teachers who want to work with English-language learners. |
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search for : English as a second language, English-as-a-second-language training, English-language learner
15 May 2007 07:02 am
OSU-N senior seeks to improve teaching
| With wisdom beyond his 31 years, Clayton Caroon is embarking on another adventure. As a senior English major at the Newark campus of Ohio State University, Caroon, of Newark, will travel back to Vietnam for eight weeks this fall. His goal is to study Vietnamese teaching methods and culture that can be incorporated with English-teaching methods. His goal is to improve methods for teaching English to people who speak other languages. This is an underserved population, which is growing tremendously,” Caroon said. “There are a lot of English majors in the world but not a lot of English as a Second Language teachers.” |
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search for : English majors, English as a Second Language teacher
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