September 2007
Monthly Archive
19 Sep 2007 07:41 am
English Is Schools’ Number One Job
| The percentage of Harrisonburg public school students in the English as a Second Language program — already the highest in Virginia — now stands at 41 percent with the start of the new school year. According to school officials, 1,765 of the district’s 4,302 students are in the program. The overall enrollment number is based on attendance taken on Sept. 4, while the ESL numbers were collected late last week, according to Wanda Hamilton, who is director of the district’s ESL programs. Last June, the district had 1,653 ESL students, or 38 percent of the district’s total 4,338 enrollment. That percentage was the highest in the state, officials have said. |
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search for : English as a Second Language
18 Sep 2007 07:05 am
Older Immigrants Help Each Other With English Learning Skills
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Members of the Coalition of Limited English Speaking Elderly strives to help others with their English learning skills. This group of 49 social service agencies serves older, often immigrant populations. As the name implies, often English was not their first language, and despite trying to embrace it, the new language sometimes is a challenge. Beth O’Grady, executive director for the coalition, says about 30 ethnic groups can typically be found at each meeting; all together, all getting along. That spirit of cooperation is something that goes on year-round.Their shared goal is to help limited-English-speaking elders get the services they might need, the different organizations point potential clients to sister organizations all the time. |
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search for : limited-English-speaking elders
17 Sep 2007 07:52 am
Teachers train to help students with English
| New Jersey is preparing a corps of educators with a new specialty: helping immigrant students master English during regular academic classes. One in five New Jersey students does not speak English at home. These students no longer are concentrated in large cities: non-native speakers were enrolled at two-thirds of school districts during the 2006-07 school year. Although the state has embraced bilingual education and offers plenty of programs in Spanish and Korean, New Jersey students account for 167 languages, a significant barrier to offering bilingual classes in every academic subject.Non-native speakers have reached a critical mass. Districts focused on boosting their test scores are including more students in mainstream classes. So the state Education Department is aiming to prepare 200 regular classroom teachers for the challenge, by expanding teacher training at three state universities this fall. |
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16 Sep 2007 07:54 am
School Board Wants Faster Transition to English For ESL Students
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More than one in four students in Waukegan are in the Transitional Bilingual Education program for students who speak another language at home, fueled by Latino immigrants. A majority of Waukegan District 60 school board members have publicly called for a quicker transition of students from bilingual classrooms taught in Spanish and English to monolingual classrooms. The bilingual program is designed for children to transition from Spanish to the regular English classroom successfully. Students that start in the bilingual program in kindergarten in Waukegan usually transition into monolingual classrooms by fourth grade. |
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search for : Transitional Bilingual Education program, English to monolingual classrooms
15 Sep 2007 06:48 am
English Language Learners find success in Saint Paul Public Schools
| Once referred to as “ESL” (English as a Second Language), present-day programs are now called ELL (English Language Learner) programs, which refer specifically to the use or study of English by speakers of other languages. (The name change recognizes that, for many students, English is actually a third or fourth language.) The district has approximately 250 licensed ELL teachers and 105 bilingual educational assistants. Valeria Silva, formerly SPPS Director of English Language Learner programs, is one of the reasons the ELL program has made such advances in recent years. Silva was awarded the 2007 University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) Excellence in Leadership Award in April of this year and was promoted to the Chief Academic Officer for Saint Paul Public Schools last winter. |
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search for : ESL, English as a Second Language, English Language Learner
14 Sep 2007 05:27 am
Cable Company Launches “English ON DEMAND” Service
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Comcast, New England’s leading provider of cable, entertainment and communications products and services, today announced that it is piloting English as a Second Language (ESL) courses on its signature video-on-demand service throughout New England. The company formally introduced its groundbreaking “English ON DEMAND” service to the public at a community event at Lynn City Hall this morning. Available to all Comcast Digital Cable customers in New England, the company’s ON DEMAND service already offers 9,300 programs every month that Comcast customers can watch whenever they want. Like 95 percent of those ON DEMAND programs, Comcast’s new “English ON DEMAND” courses are free. |
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search for : English as a Second Language, ESL
13 Sep 2007 07:11 am
Unrealistic Assessments Can Overwhelm ESL Learning
| Sandy Dauby a kindergarten English Language Learners teacher at Haywood Elementary School makes a compassioned plea on behalf of her students. “ELL teachers set high standards for their students; to achieve these goals, teachers need appropriate class sizes and uninterrupted, test-free teaching time. Both of these factors have become obsolete in ELL classrooms. In order for students to meet these standards, they must feel comfortable, confident and safe. How can we meet these emotional needs when we bombard them with assessments they can’t read? More importantly, are we assuming they don’t possess the content knowledge being tested because they cannot read the English language?” |
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12 Sep 2007 07:28 am
No ESOL Child Left Behind
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Seeing the increasing population of English language learners, the Department of Education deemed it appropriate to create a program to aid teachers in helping these students. According to the article in today’s issue of the Traveler, a $1.3 million federal grant was awarded to the UA to train Springdale School District teachers to be certified in ESOL – English for Speakers of Other Languages – also sometimes referred to as ESL, or English as a Second Language. The new training program, Project Teach Them All, is a third option for teachers looking for ESOL certification. The other two options used by most teachers are the ESOL academy, which consists of two weeks of training in June and graduate level classes taken though a community college, or the UA, which could be too expensive and time consuming for a teacher. |
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search for : ESOL, English for Speakers of Other Languages, ESL, English as a Second Language
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