While Patchogue tries to recover from the killing of Ecuadorean native Marcelo Lucero, the local library for years has served as an oasis for immigrants seeking education and assistance to gain citizenship.

It sits as a testament to a part of Patchogue pushed aside in recent weeks as the village wrestles with the stabbing death of Lucero, allegedly by a group of teenagers targeting Hispanics.

Dozens of Suffolk County residents have taken free citizenship and English classes there in the past four years. And since 2002 - when the library formed a Spanish-language outreach committee - the library has offered informational sessions on immigration, housing and health, library officials said. (more…)

Jeanne Taylor is old school in the education world. The Franke Park Elementary teacher has traveled around the world teaching children English and to figure out the best ways for them to learn.

She taught children in Taiwan and later traveled to refugee camps from Thailand to the Philippines to pick up teaching skills she could bring back to her Fort Wayne classroom to help her own foreign students learn her language.

The 30-year veteran is now entrusted with helping students learn to read and write in a language they’ve never spoken. (more…)

The special education budget for 2008-2009 approved Monday by the Hope School Board provides services for 10 percent of the student population of the Hope Public School District. “Our biggest expenditure is paying for teacher salaries and classified personnel,” Assistant Superintendent and Special Education Supervisor Charlotte Briton said in an interview following the meeting.

Briton said 10 to 12 years ago the percentage of special education students in the HPSD was at about 12 percent; but, since then many have been re-evaluated and retested. Currently HPSD has 248 special education students in kindergarten through 12th grade. HPSD schools provide services to special education students in three private schools and one home school student, according to Briton.

“We are very conscious, making sure they qualify,” Briton told board members Monday. Briton said they were concerned at one time about children being placed in special education due to an inability to speak English. “We are careful about not placing a Hispanic student in special ed simply because they can’t speak the language very well,” Briton said. Briton said they also occasionally have students who have come to Hope with little or no previous schooling.

“The important thing about Hope is our ESL (English as a second language) program takes these children and works with them,” she said. “We are working closely with Clinton Primary. If they see students are lacking not only with English, but also lacking when they give them something in Spanish, then we try to cooperate in that area. We make sure we are not missing any students in that respect.” (more…)

Humble ISD is truly a diverse community, as evidenced by an annual report on the English as a Second Language program, or ESL. The program has increased from 1226 students in 2001 to 2923 in 2008. Special programs coordinator Sara Smith-Frings recently presented information on the set of courses to members of the Humble ISD Board of Trustees.

“In Humble, 54 other language speakers are represented,” said Smith-Frings. “Spanish continues to be the majority ‘other language’ (nearly 88 percent) with these individuals originating from a number of countries including Mexico, Venezuela, Chile, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Peru. Vietnamese is the second most prevalent language, at two percent of the ELLs” (more…)

Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, the leading provider of print and digital educational materials for middle and secondary students, and California’s own Diane August, Ph.D., have unearthed key research-driven strategies that help equip teachers to incorporate the state’s English Learners (ELs) into the mainstream curriculum.

Dr. August, who is a senior research scientist with the National Research and Development Center on English-Language Learners, co-authored Expressions, a supplemental English language development program of Glencoe Literature: California Treasures. Expressions is a comprehensive collection of exceptional literature and engaging nonfiction. It is designed specifically for the state of California and provides integrated skill development and targeted differentiated instruction for Grades 6-8. (more…)

Immigrant integration workers returned from Minnesota this week with a more optimistic view of the future. OneMorgan County Coordinator Brenda Zion said the Minnesota efforts to help immigrants assimilate to America hold out great hope for Morgan County.

She took a trip to greater Minneapolis and several agencies this week along with Karen Liston, an English as a Second Language teacher with the Fort Morgan School District, and others from Greeley, Zion said. It may seem surprising, but Minneapolis is a pretty international city, she said.

It began dealing with an influx of Hispanics and Somalis many years ago, which has given it experience to share with other cities, Zion said. (more…)

The British Council in Sana’a is to host a visiting British speaker and author Peter Lucantoni, a highly regarded international ELT specialist. He will assist in training teachers in a Teaching Monolingual Classes program at the University of Science and Technology. The speech will take place in the Girls’ Section of the Great Hall the morning of Wednesday November 12th at the University Of Sana’a Faculty Of Education.

Peter Lucantoni is the author and co-author of several popular textbooks for students, including IGCSE English as a Second Language and Our English (both Cambridge University Press), KET Practice Tests Plus (Longman) and International English (Hodder Murray). He has also written a book of practical classroom ideas for teachers and teacher trainers. (more…)

If the referendum passes, I know I will not have a huge amount of students in my classroom next school year. I moved to another school building this year, and so far I love my new grade level. However, our future bilingual second-grade classrooms would be much better with another teacher. At this moment, my next-school-year students are sitting in first-grade classrooms where there are already 32 students in each!

Just thinking about the 2009-2010 school year and the possibility of even more young learners is problematic. I need to teach English as a second language every day. As part of an excellent bilingual program, I expect my students to have the opportunity to use their language skills in a relaxed and not stressful environment. With crowded classrooms, this cannot be possible.

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