Learning the Language

Schools should be taking steps to get parents of English-language learners involved in their children's education despite the significant challenges, says a new policy brief from the researchers at Arizona State University. Doing so will help ELL students overcome the isolation many feel and give non-English speaking parents tools to help their children succeed in school.

The paper, "Promoting ELL Parental Involvement: Challenges in Contested Times," describes programs that have bridged the language and cultural issues that often prevent schools and parents of ELL children from working together.

"It is very important to identify practices that may improve ELL parental involvement and thus student achievement," authors M. Beatriz Arias and Milagros Morillo-Campbell write.

The paper is available from ASU's Education Policy Research Institute and Education and the Public Interest Center at the Colorado University at Boulder.

Posted by Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, edweek.org at 4:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Arizona School Administrators Association says the state's school districts will need at least $300 million more to implement a 2006 law requiring a four-hour instructional period for English-language learners, according to this Associated Press story.

State officials dispute the figure, saying it is too high. But districts are getting ready to submit their cost estimates within the coming weeks. A survey by the association of 64 districts shows that the $56 million in state funding for the program will not meet the need for additional teachers, curriculum, and professional development, the story indicates.
State budget proposals do not include any additional funding.

Under a federal court ruling, however, the state is required to fund new instructional programs that have been approved for ELL students by this coming March or face fines.

It's unclear how the state and districts will resolve their differences as they work to fulfill the demands of a ruling in a class-action lawsuit over the adequacy of school funding.

Posted by Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, edweek.org at 9:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An interesting back-and-forth at the Daily Herald in Carpentersville, Ill., questions the fairness of English language classes in that suburban Chicago city. The Nov. 30 article highlights Sharon Fetting's suggestion that native English-speaking children should receive foreign language instruction, just like English-language learners. At a November school board meeting, Fetting proposed that English-speaking students should receive Spanish-language instruction.

The Daily Herald columnist, Jameel Naqvi, writes:

I also take issue with what seems to be Fetting's suggestion: that is, that the district has an equal obligation to teach English to kids from non-English homes and to teach Spanish or any other language to children from English [speaking] homes.

Last week, Fetting responded in the Daily Herald:

It is only fair that our children, who speak English as a first language, have the same advantage to learn a second language without having to pay extra for their education.

Your thoughts?

Posted by Rachael Holovach at 4:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Aboriginal languages in Canada continue to decline, according to data released by Statistics Canada this week and discussed in this Canadian Press article . While there are some exceptions, fewer people who identify themselves as aboriginal said they could speak their ancestral tongue. The article also highlights attempts to develop aboriginal languages in classrooms.

In the United States, the 1,112-student Harbor Public School District in Michigan began offering a Native American language course for the first time this fall, according to a Jan. 15th article in the Petoskey News-Review. The grant-supported Anishinaabemowin class is offered in collaboration with the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians. Educators in the district face the challenge of making materials from scratch and creating a curriculum without textbooks. If you’re curious about Anishinaabemowin, www.anishinaabemowin.org offers audio samples, including stories and nursery rhymes.

For additional information, the University of Southern California’s Center for Multilingual Multicultural Research hosts a list of Native American Language Resources including teaching resources and learning aids.

Posted by Rachael Holovach at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington has released a second edition of its book, Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education. The 124-page text provides a framework developed for New Mexico dual-language programs and adapted by a national panel of experts. The principles, categorized into 7 strands, reflect academic standards and requirements under No Child Left Behind, as well as research findings.

"By helping English language learners and native English speakers achieve high standards in English and another language, dual language programs can be an effective tool for schools and districts seeking to achieve NCLB goals," the authors write in the introduction.

The guide is written by CAL's Elizabeth R. Howard, Julie Sugarman, and Donna Christian, Kathryn J. Lindholm-Leary of San José State University, and David Rogers of Dual Language Education of New Mexico. The principles are meant to apply to developmental bilingual programs for English learners, two-way immersion programs, and foreign language immersion programs.

Posted by Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, edweek.org at 3:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tomorrow I leave Washington for a one-month journey through the Middle East. For half of the time—in the United Arab Emirates and Jordan—I'll be reporting for Education Week. For the other half, I'll be taking a vacation in Egypt, which includes visiting an aunt and uncle who have lived in Cairo for several years. (My uncle is director of the Narmer American College, a private K-12 school in the outskirts of Cairo, and my aunt teaches kindergarten at the same school.)

I'll be filing Web stories from Dubai and Amman. You'll find them on the home page of www.edweek.org, not here, unless I get inspired to write something about how English is taught in Jordan or the UAE that would be relevant to teachers of ELLs in the United States.

Until mid-February, then, I'm turning this blog over to two of my colleagues at Education Week: Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, an associate editor who writes about curriculum, standards, and instructional issues; and Rachael Holovach, a research librarian. Both have helped me to cover my beat by sending me news items or reports about ELLs from time to time. Ms. Holovach has taught Spanish in a variety of settings, including a dual-language program here in the District of Columbia.

I hope you'll enjoy the input at Learning the Language from some new writers.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Delavan-Darien public schools in Wisconsin are shifting their approach to teaching English-language learners. Rather than having teachers pull English-language learners out of mainstream classes to help them with English, as had been the practice until recently, the district is supporting collaboration between regular teachers and English-as-a-second-language teachers in the children's regular classes, according to a Jan. 2 article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Schools across the state are embracing a more inclusive approach for ELLs, according to an official from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction quoted in the article.

I saw some of the benefits of this approach when I observed ELLs in St. Paul schools in Minnesota last school year. In one class, the mainstream teacher seemed to have as many techniques up his sleeve for working with ELLs as the ESL teacher with whom he collaborated. One benefit is that the two teachers can learn from each other. They can also use the same materials and reinforce each other's lessons. See "Team Teaching Helps Close Language Gap."

Find some tips for inclusion for ELLs here in a research brief published by the principals' partnership, a program of the Union Pacific Foundation.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 1:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Tired parents collapsed on couches resting after a hard day of work are a couple of the images that some immigrant teens from Catalina Magnet High School in Tucson, Ariz., have captured to show what life is like for their families in the United States.

Julie Kasper, a teacher at Catalina Magnet High School, organized students in her English-as-a-second-language classes to work with a local documentary photographer, Josh Schachter, to create a photo gallery to tell about their lives outside of school. A June 7 article in Tucson Weekly, "Free but Isolated," tells about the project. The photos were hung in the midtown office of Tucson City Council Member Nina Trasoff, and you can see them online here. The photo gallery is called "Home? Teen Refugees and Immigrants Explore Their Tucson."

I'm struck by how many of the photos show children in reflective poses. Even the boy hanging upside down from a jungle gym seems to be lost in thought. Some immigrant children probably do spend a lot of time in thought to make sense of the world they've come from and the one they've arrived in. I love the simplicity of a photo of a young woman whose face is mostly obscured yet framed by a black cloth with tiny polka dots.

I learned about the gallery through a Jan. 8 press release from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. That Alexandria,Va.-based organization selected Ms. Kasper and three other educators as finalists for the ASCD 2008 Outstanding Young Educator Award. The winner will be named in March and will receive a check for $10,000. (I updated this last paragraph on Jan. 11.)

Ms. Kasper was recognized by ASCD in particular for her work with her students in carrying out the photo project. I like how she helped English-language learners to express themselves to people who aren't just their peers.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I thought it was a no-brainer that teachers of English-language learners should align their instruction and materials with their students' culture, until I investigated what research is available to back this assumption for a Jan. 9 Education Week article.

I didn't find any researchers who thought culture-based instruction is a bad idea, but I did talk with some who say the claims of its effectiveness are not YET backed up with empirical evidence from research studies. Those folks are arguing for more research that carefully looks at the impact of culture-based instruction on reading test scores and other student achievement outcomes.

I discovered that a review of research on ELLs, such as that of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education and published in 2006 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, isn't just gathering dust on the bookshelves of college professors.

Candace A. Harper, an associate professor of education at the University of Florida, Gainesville, said she used the National Literacy Panel's review as a textbook for a graduate-level class for reading teachers preparing to teach English-language learners. She encouraged her students to critique the review, not just to accept all of its conclusions.

"The way that the targets for learning have been framed determines the kind of research that gets funded, tending to be toward discreet, easily measured gains, which are short-lived," Ms. Harper told me in a telephone interview. "They aren’t examined over the long term. The strong associations between skills like phonemic awareness and success in reading and reading achievement hold through the elementary grades. We don’t know if they are long-term gains."

Her message to her students is to know the research, but don't consider it to be the be-all and end-all when it comes to teaching ELLs.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

How can a child who speaks only English make friends with a girl in her school who speaks only Spanish? Jacqueline Jules, a librarian at Timber Lane Elementary School in Fairfax County, Va., has written a children's book that provides some ideas.

Not surprisingly, since it is a librarian who has written the story, called No English, one of the ways Diane, the girl who speaks only English, and Blanca, the girl who speaks only Spanish, become friends is by reading a book together in the library that has English and Spanish text side by side. I like how the book tells how Diane makes some mistakes in her communication before figuring out how to connect with Blanca.

The story struck a chord with me because of an experience I had of being welcomed in a new school. In 4th grade, I was a newcomer in a suburb of Chicago, after my family moved there for a year from small-town Pennsylvania. I recall that kids with a European heritage like mine far outnumbered Mexican-American kids in my new school, but I was quickly befriended by Lisa, a Mexican-American girl. Unlike the girls in "No English," we didn't have a language barrier, because Lisa was bilingual. She was my first friend of a race or ethnicity different from my own. She taught me how to count up to 10 in Spanish during recess, and she invited me to her home. I was fascinated by how her Mom spoke to her only in Spanish. It was hugely important to me that year to have her as a friend, as it is important for ANY child to have at least one friend in school.

The book has neat illustrations by Amy Huntington and is appropriate for lower elementary school grades. It's available for $17.95 from Mitten Press at www.mittenpress.com.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 1:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A new resource is being developed that could be useful for schools with bilingual programs in Navajo and English—the first software system to teach the Navajo language. The software will be owned by the Cornville, Ariz.-based organization, Navajo Language Renaissance, and is being created with assistance from Rosetta Stone, a Harrisonburg, Va.-based company, according to a Jan. 6 Associated Press article.

A Dec. 6 Navajo Times article gives additional details, such as that the project is endorsed by the Navajo Nation Board of Education. I wrote about a bilingual Navajo-English school on the Navajo Nation in Window Rock, Ariz., last school year, where teachers created some of their own materials to teach Navajo.

Rosetta Stone has already completed basic language software programs for Mohawk, Alaskan Inupiac, and Labrador, an Eskimo language, under its endangered languages program, which it launched in 2004, the Associated Press article says.

While teachers can translate books from English to Navajo or create posters in Navajo, I haven't heard of any who have the time and money to create something as complicated as a language software program. That takes collaboration, and it's good news that some experts have come together to produce materials for less commonly taught languages.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

What do Angelina Jolie and I have in common? We've both visited an immigration detention center in the United States for unaccompanied minors. These centers house children who are picked up by federal immigration authorities without their parents. Often, the children are trying to reunite with their parents in the United States.

Last school year, I visited the Boystown shelter for unaccompanied minors in Miami and wrote about the school there run by the Miami-Dade public school district.

Ms. Jolie, well-known for her off-screen involvement in humanitarian causes, has visited a shelter for unaccompanied minors in Phoenix run by Southwest Key Programs.

She recently decided* to give $150,000 to a center at the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants that has a mission to provide pro-bono lawyers and social services to unaccompanied minors. A press release says Ms. Jolie has given half a million dollars to the committee over the years.

Believe me, some of those kids can probably use a good lawyer. At Boystown, I interviewed a youth who had been detained at the shelter for eight months and another who had been held for 14 months—and pro bono lawyers got them out.

One of the teenagers who I interviewed had learned to read at the shelter, but he was still really glad to have gained his freedom.

*(Previously I said this news was announced today, but I see the press release is from 12/31. I got it today.)

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 4:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Under the No Child Left Behind Act, English-language learners must be tested in how well they are acquiring English. If they are enrolled in dual-language programs—which in this country most commonly teach Spanish and English—the federal law doesn't require schools to measure students' progress in Spanish as well.

But for those educators who would like to keep track of how their students in dual-language programs are progressing in Spanish, the Center for Applied Linguistics provides a free guide about Spanish-language assessments.

The guide doesn't recommend one test over another. But it provides a lot of information unlikely to be found in any of the many publications put out by the federal government about the education of English-language learners. One handy chart lists various Spanish-language assessments and their equivalents published by the same companies in English or other languages.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Larry Ferlazzo, who teaches English-language learners at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, Calif., regularly reports on the Web sites he considers to be most useful for teachers of English as a second language.

See his resource-sharing blog for a list of "The Best Internet Sites for English-Language Learners—2007" and "The Best Web 2.0 Applications for ESL/EFL Learners—2007."

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)