ELT World » ELL

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.

A Race Against the Clock

david — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 12:25:03 +0000

Time is of the essence for children learning English, notes Melissa Lazarín in an article for the somewhat imressively named ‘Center for American Progress’.

‘Kindergarten English language learners enter school with a vocabulary of 5,000 English words fewer than their native English-speaking peers,’ suggests Melissa, ‘ELLs must not only learn a new language; they must keep pace with their English-proficient classmates who are continuing to rapidly grow their vocabulary and further develop their already advanced literacy skills. More than two-thirds (69 percent) of English language learners are citizens by birth or naturalization and begin their education in U.S. schools, but for those newcomers who enter the U.S. school system in later grades, time and the constraints of the traditional school day pose a particularly serious challenge.’

‘Expanded learning time,’ she adds, is ‘a schoolwide strategy that entails redesigning and lengthening the school day and/or year to help support teaching and learning for all students, can be particularly beneficial for ELLs. Current efforts to promote the expansion of learning time suggest increasing the school day by two hours or lengthening the year by 360 hours—the equivalent of at least 30 percent more learning time. This additional time can be pivotal in closing both the academic and language gap for ELLs.’

This article, entitled A Race Against the Clock: The Value of Expanded Learning Time for English Language Learners, is accompanied by a downloadable report.

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