The Tracy school district (17,530) in California is largely Hispanic and students with poor language skills have consistently lagged behind their peers in academic subjects The traditional approach had been only one language skills period per day which hadn't improved student achievement. Starting last year, all teachers in all subjects were trained to infuse their classes with literacy lessons. Other districts across the country are trying similar strategies, integrating language skills in all classes. What do you think about this here in Milwaukee where we have large numbers of ELL students?
Be sure to read the many comments.
Making English Part of the Fabric - School Districts Try New Approaches in Teaching Foreign-Language Speakers ad Achievement Requirements Get Tougher. Vauhini Vara. 8.24.12. The Wall Street Journal - Education
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443713704577603980738740256.html
This article boasts a "new method" in teaching English to immigrant students in Modesto, CA. Essentially, it is an immersion approach, whereby students engage in conversation about things that are of interest to them. This is NOT a "new method." This is merely a departure from the old way of teaching language through copious lists of grammatical rules and boring stories of WASP characters that most immigrant students cannot comprehend. This "new method" merely starts with what students know and can relate to.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with immigrants learning the language of their country of residence is challenging other countries, as well. View this video about how Germany is utilizing social media to motivate their immigrants:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMwVsrbZnlU
One could view this as an anthropological phenomenon that will not reach its zenith in our lifetime. As educators, we must teach with what we know as best practices. The fact that this article calls the immersion approach a new method is alarming to me. It is only excellent teaching!!! Meet kids where they are at! Help them make connections to the world! Give them some voice in what it is they want/need to learn! It's not rocket science.
Vauhini Vara in her article titled, “Making English Part of the Fabric” explores how school districts are trying new approaches in teaching foreign language speakers. Vauhini cites that “for years in [California] have lagged behind their fluent classmates.” Vauhini spotlights the Tracy, California School District in order to explore an exemplary example of how all instructors are infusing language development into their courses. For example, students in a seventh grade math class are being asked to write a paragraph using math terminology to explain the Pythagorean theorem as opposed to simply stating a squared + b squared = c squared. Not only is this new approach reaching over a fourth of the students in the district who are English language deficient, the district is addressing aspects of the Common Core standards as well.
ReplyDeleteI selected this article for two reasons. First, the majority of the students in my “caseload” at HWA Academy are ELL learners with Spanish as their primary language. Secondly, I formerly taught school in San Jose’, California where I taught ELL learners some which spoke Vietnamese and Chinese (Cantonese). During that time period students were “sent off” to Ell classes. On one hand, I am excited that the Tracy Unified School District is focusing upon a more holistic approach to English Language acquisition. On the other hand, I am concerned that my site HWA is only starting to dialogue about how to incorporate English language acquisition into all of their core subject areas. Keeping this in mind, I need to strive to utilize resources like the “ELL Binder” (created by my colleague Sonja Pavlik) to infuse ELL into my Title I instruction.
I chose this article because one my classes I have here at Saint Anthony's is an ELL. My struggle with them has been that there are more advanced then beginning english so it has been difficult for me to really figure out what would be the best for them. I agree with the article that language should be infused in all of their classes because the more exposure they receive the faster they will be able to grow in their language capabilities. As part of my ELL, I always try them to practice their conversational skills just by simply asking them what are their weekend plans or what are their musicians, anything that I can think will interest them and get them talking. I agree with Pat, and don't really believe this is a new approach it is simply something you should be doing as a good teacher. I'm surprised it took them so long to figure it out!
ReplyDelete