California Seeks New Ways to Teach English
Manor Hill is Liberty’s elementary ELL center, but the district — like others in the metro area — has programs for all ages. And, like other districts, it is growing rapidly. Liberty is providing services for about 65 students, up from 43 in 2006 and 19 in 2003, says coordinator Gina Schmidt. “Within 11 years, we’ve grown from eight to 64,” she says. “That means we’re growing and our staff is growing along with it.”
California: Valley Educators Seek New Ways to Teach English
Teaching non-native students English is a continuing goal for Coachella Valley educators. More than 17,000 non-native students did not pass the test needed to be reclassified as fluent English speakers in Coachella Valley schools this school year, results released last week show.
In the Desert Sands Unified School District, about 32 percent of non-native students passed the California English Language Development Test, or CELDT, to be reclassified as fluent English speakers. That’s 3 percent more than 2006-2007 figures. ‘It is critically important to our English-learner population that they speak soon - and as well and as proficiently as possible - if we are to be successful in this hyper-competitive, global economy,’ state Superintendent Jack O’Connell said in a media teleconference April 23rd.
Connecticut School ‘Outsources’ ESL
Those whom doubt our position as a commodity think again. Schools hire vendors for food services, buses and maintenance, but one local private school has outsourced a whole academic department.
The leaders of the private Putnam Science Academy, as the name suggests, are confident in their ability to teach high school boys science and math. ‘When we come to teaching a language, it’s a different story,’ said Vice Principal Tarkan Topcuoglu. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Minnesota: Second Thoughts on ESL Programs
With growing numbers of immigrants moving into the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District, the number of students using English as a Second Language programs has almost tripled in the past decade. Burnsville-Eagan-Savage District students this year speak 57 languages and dialects, and a little more than one out of every eight students use ESL services.
On Thursday, the school board plans to consider implementing several programs developed by a committee charged with evaluating the district’s ESL offerings. ‘The more the numbers of [students learning English] increase, the more and more teachers are affected by students in their classroom,’ raged Assistant Superintendent Sandi Novak. ‘The teachers have to have the skills necessary to continue to meet high expectations.’
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