ELT World North America

Wisconsin: The State of Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has announced that students from Racine Unified’s Limited English Proficient, also known as English Language Learner, programs have met the Annual Measurable Achievement Objectives for the 2007-08 school year. “The student’s progress is a reflection of the instruction by our bilingual and ESL teachers,” said Dr. [...]

Massachusetts: The Morse is one of several libraries in the area conducting English as a Second Language programs (through Literacy Unlimited) for those not from around here — and that “around” can mean anywhere from Mexico to Moldavia. “We asked students, ‘what would you like to learn?’ They want to speak, to have that social [...]

Tennessee: The Daily Beacon reports how the University of Tennessee is hosting several exchange students visiting the United States from Brazil. For five weeks, 20 students will be on campus, learning about the history and culture of East Tennessee. The English Language Institute began in 1978 to encourage developing English language skills of non-native students. [...]

Nebraska: In 1996, Crete had 59 English Language Learners. By 2006, it had 560-a nearly 850 percent increase-and they now constitute one-third of the total student enrollment. But it’s certainly not the only community in this country with sky-rocketing numbers of Spanish speakers. Across the United States, but especially in the new “gateway” states (which [...]

Mississippi: Claudia Smith hopscotches countries and continents throughout the day teaching at three Petal schools as one of two English Language Learners instructors. The English Language Learners, or ELL program, began in the Petal School District during the 2002-03 school year with only a few students, according to program director Kathy Hall. At the Jan. [...]

Connecticut: The Newhaven Independent notes that Dr. Jose Ortiz has been in charge of what he calls ‘a revolution’ in the New Haven Public Schools’ English Language Learners program. He’s doing it, he said, against a system whose testing requirements and mandates are stacked against many of the immigrant kids, largely from Latin America, who [...]

Maryland: Jim D. Rollins had been superintendent of the Springdale public schools in northwest Arkansas for almost a decade when the mostly white community began its dramatic transformation into a booming gateway for immigrant families and their non-English-speaking children. In 1990, the district, with just under 8,000 students, had virtually no English-language learners, or ELLs. [...]

North Dakota: The ELL population across the United States has ballooned in the past several years. In 1990, one in 20 public school students in grades K-12 was an ELL student, according to American Educator magazine. The figure now is one in nine, growing from 2 million to 5 million. In Grand Forks, the number [...]

Illinois: As director of the English Language Learners Program at Valley View School District, it is my responsibility to coordinate the identification and correct placement of students in our district who are in need of learning English as their second language - children whose native language is any other language besides English. The great majority [...]

New York: Only one out of four English language learners graduated within four years in 2007, and that number is declining, according to an alarming report reviewed by the state Board of Regents. More ELLs graduate after five or six years, but results are still too low, said State Ed Senior Deputy Commissioner Johanna Duncan-Poitier. [...]