The state schools superintendent is changing the screening process that determines whether students get extra help with English.

Tom Horne says too many kids are being placed in the daily four-hour immersion course designed to help English learners. Some children are being enrolled in the course because they’re behind academically, not because English is their second language.

Schools are using a series of three questions to determine whether students belong in the immersion class. Horne is telling to schools to simply one of the questions to ask “What is the primary language of the student?” If the answer is not English, the child will be placed in the ELL program. (more…)

Yucaipa Adult School is offering an English class (English as a second language) on Mondays through Thursdays, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Yucaipa High School Ninth Grade campus, Room 56 at 12358 Sixth St. Mark Morgan will teach levels beginning to advanced to June 11.

Register at the class or call Yucaipa Adult School Office at 797-0121.

CLASES DE INGLES – ESL

Lunes-jueves, 6-9 p.m. – clases de mayo – junio 11. Bienvenidos todos niveles principiante al advanzado. Maestro: Mark Morgan en Yucaipa High School, 9th Grade Campus, 12358 6th Street, Yucaipa, cuarto numero 56. (more…)

Learning a second language does not cause language confusion, language delay or cognitive deficit, which have been concerns in the past. In fact, according to studies at the Cornell Language Acquisition Lab (CLAL), children who learn a second language can maintain attention despite outside stimuli better than children who know only one language.

That’s important, say Barbara Lust, a developmental psychology and linguistics expert, professor of human development and director of CLAL, and her collaborator, Sujin Yang, former postdoctoral research associate at the lab, because that ability is “responsible for selective and conscious cognitive processes to achieve goals in the face of distraction and plays a key role in academic readiness and success in school settings.” (more…)

With one in five people in the U.S. speaking a language other than English when they are at home, Tessa Bent’s research into how children perceive so many different varieties of foreign-accented English has never been more timely.

How children develop the ability to accurately understand the speech of talkers who can sound very different from one another, and radically different from the child’s own speech, is what one researcher will investigate with the $356,000 in funding provided by the National Institutes of Health. Most specifically, grant recipients want to explore variability introduced by differences in the native language backgrounds of the talkers. (more…)

The Dollar General Literacy Foundation has awarded Augusta Technical College a $10,070 grant. Augusta Technical College will use the funds to further its literacy and basic education outreach efforts.

The Foundation has awarded more than $33.4 million in grants across Dollar General’s 35-state market area. These grants provide program support to nonprofit efforts to reach low-level literacy adults and their families. Adult basic education, GED preparation, English as a Second Language, family literacy and workforce literacy are among the initiatives that will benefit from these grants. In addition to cash grants, Dollar General’s in-store Learn to Read brochures have offered free literacy referrals to more than 53,000 people. (more…)

It’s easy to dismiss the Amazon Kindle DX introduced this week as being nothing more than a bigger version of the existing Kindle 2, with a handful of extra features. But make no mistake: Kindle DX represents far more than merely more of the same. Kindle DX is a game changer for e-book readers, and one that has a chance to transform how we consume content.

Kids aren’t the only ones who might use Kindle as a tool. Those learning English as a second language, be it in an ESL program or at home, could benefit from the Kindle DX’s dictionary and text-to-voice reading. (more…)

According to figures from the Department for Children, Schools and Families, 862,860 pupils in the state system spoke English as a second language in January this year. In primaries, they account for 15.2 per cent of under-11s, compared to 14.3 per cent in 2008. In English secondary schools, 11.1 per cent of pupils speak another language at home, against 10.6 per cent a year earlier.

Figures broken down by area will be published later in the year. But data published in 2008 showed that in 14 local authorities – almost one in 10 – English-speaking primary school pupils were in the minority. In the London borough of Tower Hamlets, only 23 per cent of pupils spoke English as their first language. (more…)

Premier Wen Jiabao of China said, in January, that more than 300 million Chinese were learning English. At present there are an estimated 70,000 English language teachers in China mainly from English speaking countries i.e. South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, UK and the USA.

In early April, Pearson Plc (the owner of Penguin and Financial Times) said it would buy the Wall Street Institute chain of 39 English language schools in 7 Chinese cities. Pearson estimates $70 million in revenue in 2009-10 through this chain which delivers adult education programs and anticipates more in the coming years.

Walt Disney has also sneaked into this market. Exercises introduce Disney books and movies the Chinese government otherwise restricts.

English First SV a Sweden based company has a sprawling network of children’s schools in China. It also runs overseas study adult education programs. (more…)