Learning the Language
Education Week reporters covered English-language learners, bilingual education, and civil rights issues and explored the educational, policy, and social issues surrounding ELLs in U.S. schools. This blog is no longer being updated, but you can continue to explore these issues on edweek.org by visiting our related topic pages: English language learners and bilingual education.
Education
Info on ELLs Brought to You by Power Point
In my job of covering news about the education of English-language learners, my first preference is to get out into classrooms and observe students and teachers. My second preference is to attend a conference featuring educators and researchers who are talking about what's new in the field. That's how I get ideas on what classrooms I should visit.
Education
How Do Other Countries Teach a Second Language?
Over at the Migration Policy Institute, some researchers have been examining how other countries are educating children from immigrant families. I'm not familiar with the work of the researchers who produced these studies, and I learned about the studies a couple of months after they were released. (Find the press release here.) But I didn't want to miss the chance to report a bit on what's happening with second-language learners outside of the United States.
Education
Standards for Preschool ELLs: It's a Trend
California is poised to be the first state to adopt a set of standards, which state officials call "learning foundations," for English-language development devoted to preschool ELLs, according to officials of the California Department of Education. The California standards spell out what preschool ELLs should know at the "beginning," "middle," and "later" stages of learning English for the areas of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Find a link to them here.
Education
A Portrait of the Immigrant as a Young Man (or Woman)
What's really unusual about Learning a New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society, a book based on a five-year study of several hundred immigrant students, is the in-depth profiles of 16* immigrants in U.S. schools.
Education
Immigrants Still Feel Welcome in Arlington, Va.
I've been reading so many stories lately in my morning newspaper, The Washington Post, about people who would like to stop the flow of immigrants—undocumented immigrants in particular— to their communities that I was surprised to see a front-page article in today's Post with this headline: "Immigrants Haven't Worn Out The Welcome Mat in Arlington."
Education
Critiques of Arizona's Take on Research
The Institute for Language and Education Policy—which says its mission is to educate the public on research-based strategies for English-language learners—has posted a 10-page critique of a 13-page document that an Arizona task force is using to justify changes in programs for ELLs.
Education
Spanish for Native Speakers in North Carolina
Students in about 35 school districts in North Carolina have the option of taking a course called Spanish for Native Speakers, according to an article published yesterday in the Winston-Salem Journal. The students who enroll in the classes have been speaking Spanish all their lives, but many of them don't know the proper grammar for the language, according to the article. Many also have been speaking English all their lives, and one point of the classes is to help them become truly bilingual.
Education
A Panel Discussion on Children and Immigration Raids
The Urban Institute followed up the release of its report, "Paying the Price: The Impact of Immigration Raids on America's Children," commissioned by the National Council of La Raza, with a panel discussion on the topic of how children have been affected by workplace immigration raids.
Education
What's in a Name?
If a child has the name Juan Carlos Hernandez Gonzalez, how should a school record that student's name in its databases? What if the name is Abdul Rahman bin Tariq bin Khalid Al-Alawi? A report prepared by the Regional Educational Laboratory Appalachia for the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences gives some answers to these questions. It's called "Registering Students From Language Backgrounds Other than English."
Education
School Leadership and Immigration
As a follow-up to a couple of blog entries I've written lately (here and here) about how schools have gotten caught up in law-enforcement actions by federal immigration authorities, I'll point you to an article in November's issue of The School Administrator, published by the American Association of School Administrators.
Education
Bilingual Education is Addressed at Ed Department Conference
I mention in this week's Education Week how bilingual education got a lot of attention at last week's summit on English-language learners, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, in Washington. The educational method received very little attention at the previous five annual conferences on this group of students.
Education
Deportations and School Life
With some communities seemingly making up immigration policy as they go these days, I've been reading more news stories about how schools are involved in actions by immigration authorities. I recently tried to answer the question in Education Week: What is a school to do in such situations?
Education
How to Make an English-Proficiency Test
This is a story about how states have been required to do something under federal law, and only NOW are getting a handbook from the federal government on how to do it.
Education
"Doing What Works" and English-Language Learners
English-language learners are the subject of the first entries on a Web site, Doing What Works, launched by the U.S. Department of Education today. I've been browsing the site to see what the Education Department, in this case, relying on research from the Institute of Education Sciences, considers to be best practices for teaching ELLs. The entries focus on how to teach ELLs to read, a subject that I learned a bit more about recently in writing about how the Reading First program of the No Child Left Behind Act is working for this group of students.