As a Spanish tutor on campus, I often work with beginning Spanish students. Many are eager to learn and try really hard, but all too often, I meet students who seem have given up on language learning, daunted by the task before them. Now, I should preface this by saying that this is not entirely our fault.

After all, American public school systems invariably start teaching foreign languages in late middle school and early high school, even though studies have consistently shown that foreign language acquisition comes much easier when it is started before puberty. This logic makes absolutely no sense to me. (more…)

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Faye Leath, director of at-risk services, said the Alamance County School System relies on government funding to pay ESL teachers, provide support services for migrant students, and staff the intake center, which assesses student abilities. Next year, the schools will receive an estimated $2 million in state funding and another $382,000 in federal funding for ESL and migrant students.

A handful of school principals have dug into their own coffers to pay for a translator, but the large majority of schools rely on teachers to make sure parents understand what is going on.Tina Manning, the school system’s lead ESL teacher, said sometimes other parents comment to her about the resources spent on educating Hispanic children.

She tells them that federal law requires them to educate all students, regardless of immigration status. “Bottom line is no matter how you feel about immigration or anything else, the school system is here to serve the child,” Manning said. “And we want to educate everyone to be a productive person in this country.” (more…)

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When it comes to foreign languages secondary students might opt to take and the courses offered at school, Spanish easily ranks as the most popular choice among Fayetteville junior high and high school students. This year, as it has in recent years, Fayetteville High School offered Spanish, French and German as foreign language offerings.

There are 108 students enrolled in all German classes and 118 students taking French classes at FHS, school counselor Doug Wright said. Meanwhile, there are 569 students – about 29 percent of the student body – enrolled in Spanish classes this semester, he said. (more…)

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Patty Price of Hampton volunteers with Refugee and Immigration Services to provide English instruction for non-native speakers. A retired social worker, she has also volunteered with the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program.

Recently asked about just how her volunteering has challenged her, she responded

“Teaching English as a second language to an immigrant involves so much more than just learning the basics of grammar, vocabulary and phonics. It’s also a challenge in cultural indoctrination. My first student was a Somali mother of six young children. She had lived much of her adult life in a refugee camp in East Africa and had never attended school as a child in her village. I found it extremely difficult to relate an English word from our most basic American cultural usage to anything she could associate with in her life experiences. Fortunately, most of her children were enrolled in language and cultural diversity classes in the public schools and they helped their mom to grasp many of the more confusing words. I always appreciated it when they were close by during our lesson times and could aid her understanding.” (more…)

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Superior parents are split about a district plan to convert an elementary school to teach in a foreign language.A group of administrators and school board members is holding community meetings to gauge parental interest in sending their kids to a language immersion program.

Immersion schools are taught completely in a foreign language to ensure students learn the language completely. The program is designed to produce students fluent in a second language while improving their efficiency in other curricular areas, said Janna Stevens, Bryant Elementary School principal. English is introduced into an immersion school’s curriculum starting in the third grade and is phased in until the second language is limited to few hours a week by high school. (more…)

When compared to students in lower grades, high school students who aren’t fluent in English have only a few short years to grasp the language while learning the same subjects as their peers. And for many, that can mean losing the chance of getting into the college of their choice — or going to college at all.

“English is the only thing holding me back,” said Jean Carlos, a student in a bilingual class at Wilby High School in Waterbury. Carlos said high school classes in his native Bolivia were much harder. He wants to be a mechanic and likely will go to a trade school. In Waterbury, there are as many students in English learning programs at the high school level as there are at the middle school level. In the city’s high schools, there are 425 students in language programs, including 86 in bilingual classes in Spanish and Albanian. (more…)

The Dalton McGuinty government is paying “lip service” to English-as-a-second-language needs because it refuses to order schools boards to stop diverting millions of dollars from these essential student supports, says Tory education critic Joyce Savoline.

The McGuinty Liberals like to boast about putting $200 million annually into ESL programs, knowing full well boards are spending some of the money in other areas, she said.

An article by Sun Media’s Michele Mandel noted that more than half of Ontario elementary schools with pupils requiring English-as-a-second-language instruction do not have a specialist ESL teacher. More than a quarter of all secondary schools with English language learners lack ESL teachers as well. (more…)

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Alberta’s population is growing at a rapid rate. The population rose by 3.1 per cent to approximately 3,474,000 from July 2006 to July 2007. Much of that growth has come from people immigrating to the province.Some reports say as many as 23,000 people immigrated to Alberta and most of that population will be looking for work in skilled or unskilled labour positions. They will need to fill out tenant agreements, driver’s exams, banking information and so on.

But many of these people cannot read or write English.On top of this, many immigrants are illiterate in their mother tongue, as well. Moreover, 71 per cent of Rocky View School Division’s English as a second language students are Canadian born. To rectify this, Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) Canada certifies organizations to teach people how to teach English to speakers of other languages. (more…)

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