ELT World » Americas

US: Researchers advise race to top applicants on ELLs while ‘Common Core State Standards Initiative’ takes effect

david — Sun, 23 May 2010 14:03:49 +0000

States need to give test developers explicit instructions on how to avoid unnecessary linguistic complexity when designing content tests, reports Education Week. They need to provide detailed guidelines to school districts on how to select and use testing accommodations for students. Those are two of the recommendations in a new research brief on how to include ELLs appropriately in academic content assessments.

United States: Teaching science to ELLs

david — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 10:04:35 +0000

The United States, notes the NSTA, has long been called a melting pot, a place where diverse people mixing and mingling. Learning the dominant language is a challenging part of the process, particularly when a student is trying to learn a new language and expand their content knowledge.

Read the full story here.

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English language learners making gains in the US

david — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:54:14 +0000

An associated press story notes that schoolchildren who are still learning English have made progress in state tests over the last three years, according to a report that may indicate tougher accountability standards have resulted in positive gains among a growing segment of the U.S. public school population.

Read the full story here.

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Debunking myths on US immigrant education

david — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 08:50:09 +0000

United States: Skirmishes over immigration often take place in the schoolyard, exclaims Rosemary Salomone in the Washington Post. Those opposed to immigration claim that bilingual school programs impair a child’s academic success and that school children who retain their foreign language are threatening the future of English in America.

New ‘lip’ research sheds light on foreign language learning

david — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 08:43:57 +0000

United States: Lip movements may play a key role in the learning of second language speech sounds, while hand gestures may not be beneficial, suggest two Colgate University professors:

For Japanese learners of English, there is difficulty producing distinct “r” and “l” sounds, as in “rake” and “lake.” In fact, these learners cannot even hear that these two words are different.

In turn, English speakers, to great comic effect, often mistake the short vowel sound in the Japanese word “shujin” [my husband] with the long vowel sound in “shuujin” [prisoner]. Native English speakers can confuse these two words and others because unlike Japanese, length of a vowel does not change a word’s meaning in English.

Read the full story here.

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Does the NCLB act promote monolingualism?

david — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:57:36 +0000

The United States is now eight years into the No Child Left Behind Act and educators, researchers, and advocates remain locked in heated debate over the effects of the law’s testing and accountability mandates on students, many from immigrant homes where a language other than English is spoken.

Edweek notes how two recently reported developments reveal that the NCLB Act is an impediment to fostering bilingual skills and bicultural understandings…

Read the full story here.

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Colombia: Teaching English to the Colombian Police

david — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:42:34 +0000

Two Professors faced the task of teaching English to members of the national police force when they went to Colombia last summer. Their task was to teach English to about 100 members of the national police force for six weeks. Dr. Keith Terry, a UNK professor, noted;

‘They’re working more and more with the American military. When members of the American military go there and work on projects, they want to be able to have one-on-one conversations.’

A quite frankly excessive promo flyer for a conference

david — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:05:39 +0000

Not only can you win prizes, you can even attend presentations. BTW, I actually know one of the people in the pictures.

A bit OTT if you ask me

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United States: Winooski refugee influx brings praise and concern

david — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:39:57 +0000

Vermont: The Burlington free press reports that ‘History is repeating itself in Winooski in the form of a wave of new immigrants. About a third of the students in the Winooski public-school system are English language learners, School Superintendent Steve Perkins said last week.’

This, apparently represents a 20 percent increase when compared to the student population of four years ago. Perkins, refreshingly, regards the refugee influx as an opportunity and a challenge, not a negative, while the district has hired people to teach refugees English, and all teachers have had extensive training in overcoming language barriers, he said.

Read the full story here.

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Canada: ‘Sports kept me going… It made me come to school more’

david — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:04:15 +0000

The Ottowa Citizen notes that when Awo Farah arrived in Canada from Djibouti in 2001 to seek a better education, the nine-year-old Grade 5 student couldn’t speak English. Eight years later, it’s amazing how her life has developed … all for the positive.

Farah would substitute the word “crazy” for “amazing” to describe her early months in her new country as she used her outgoing personality to learn to speak English with her friends, became a strong academic student and was a highly recruited basketball player by several universities.Rideau athletic director Sherri Tanner understands why Farah has succeeded. “Her social personality allowed her to pick up conversational English and her involvement in sport gave her confidence and a place to work on her communication skills.”

Read the full story…

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