August 2007
Monthly Archive
14 Aug 2007 06:48 am
Bilingual students improve on the 2007 Connecticut Mastery Test
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Elementary school students in the English as a Second Language program made strong progress on the reading and writing sections of the 2007 Connecticut Mastery Test performing at the same level as their English-speaking peers. In writing scores, 90.1 percent of ESL elementary school students in Greenwich scored at the proficient level or above this year, compared with 94.6 percent of non-ESL students. Last year, 85.9 percent of ESL students were at the proficient level or above, compared with 94.7 percent of non-ESL students. |
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search for : Connecticut Mastery Test
13 Aug 2007 07:31 am
Eighteen-thousand Missouri ESL Students Return To Classes
| Twenty years ago, about three-thousand Missouri students were ESL students—those to whom English is a second language. The state education department’s Craig Rector says two yers ago the number had gone past eighteen-thousand. And they spoke 98 languages. Spanish speakers are the biggest number; then a combination of people from Bosnia, Coatia, and Serbia, then Vietnamese speaekrs, Arabic, and Somali. Rector says many of them are from situations where conditions and conflict have limited their education. In fact, some might never had had a chance to go to school. But Rector says they catch on pretty fast, learning conversational English in a year or two. He says academic English takes longer, often four to seven years. He says younger students have an easier time. |
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12 Aug 2007 03:24 am
ESL Students Seeking Jobs As Truck Drivers
| English as a Second LanguageEnglish as a Second Language learners, attending a special program designed to prepare them for trucking careers, are seeking co-op experience inside trucking companies. Some of these individuals have goals of working as truck drivers, mechanics, dispatchers, and safety officers. These individuals will have experience speaking English (Intermediate level) and are seeking to enhance their working knowledge of trucking language to help them pass the driver training and driver licensing requirements or to go on to other related forms of higher learning. Co-op placements are sought for six-week periods. Placements would ideally expose participants to many aspects of the trucking industry, including: yard and loading; safety and compliance; routing and dispatch; shop/garage and driving. |
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search for : English as a Second Language
11 Aug 2007 07:22 am
What it Will Cost for Adult Immigrants to Learn English
| Researchers conclude it would cost federal, state, and local governments $200 million more per year than the current $1 billion per year they are now spending to provide English classes for immigrants who are legal permanent residents. The funding would have to be sustained for six years, which is about the amount of time the researchers estimate it would take immigrants to become fluent in the language. If undocumented immigrants are added to the mix of people taking English classes, the researchers say that $2.9 billion in new funds would be needed on top of the $200 million each year for six years. |
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search for : English classes for immigrants
10 Aug 2007 07:57 am
Western Piedmont Community College Offering ESL Courses
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Western Piedmont Community College students enrolled in Spanish 112 last semester participated in a Service Learning activity with students enrolled in the college’s English as a Second Language (ESL) program.Service Learning integrates community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience and teach civic responsibility. Spanish and ESL students met several times to share language and culture. The Spanish students practiced their language skills with the native Spanish speakers, and the ESL students practiced their classroom learning with the native English speakers. Participants also shared information about their respective cultures, including holidays, traditions and foods of their native countries. |
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09 Aug 2007 07:12 am
English as a Second Language programs offer help for parents
| Buncombe County NC Schools ESL and migrant programs will hold a help session for parents in their native language during the first day of school. The session will be held Aug. 16 from 2 to 8 p.m. at Buncombe County Schools Offices Newcomer Center cafeteria, 175 Bingham Rd. Parents will be able to get help filling out school forms and understanding school information. There will also be people there to help answer questions in their native language. Information about adult ESL, health insurance, preschool classes, after school care, college scouting and community resources will also be available. |
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search for : ESL
08 Aug 2007 07:44 am
America’s Challenge To Reform ESL Training
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Assuming the passage of immigration reform at some date, it will most certainly include the condition that undocumented workers learn English to qualify for citizenship. Using assumptions about the current undocumented immigrant population, estimates are that approximately 6.4 million unauthorized immigrants in the country will require English language instruction in order to gain the necessary skills to pass the naturalization exam and obtain LPR status or to fully participate in the country’s civic life. As a result, it will be a necessity for the United States to more fully fund ESL initiatives as an economic imperative in order to remain globally competitive. |
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07 Aug 2007 07:07 am
Migrants who need to learn Spanish
| For generations, immigrants have integrated into American life by learning English, California’s official language, according to a 1986 state constitutional amendment. But for thousands of indigenous farmworkers moving from Mexico’s Oaxaca state to Greenfield, they must first learn Spanish to survive. As the adults from Mexico’s Mixtec and Triqui Indian populations work hard to learn Spanish and find their place within the town, they also are fighting to keep their native language and culture alive in the younger generation, which, at school, is learning English. |
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