Friday, May 25, 2007

2010 Statistic

http://www.bnkst.edu/literacyguide/ell.html

This is a great website with tons of links about English Language Learners.

"By the year 2010, over thirty percent of all school-age children will come from homes in which the primary language is not English."

I thought this statistic was especially interesting. Thirty percent is a lot. That means that if there are 20 children in your classroom, 6 will be students who do not come from English speaking homes. As teachers, we are going to have to find ways to communicate with parents. It will make parent/teacher relationships more difficult, especially if the teacher does not speak the language that the parents do. By 2010, most of us will be teachers, and I'm sure as we continue to teach the number of children who's primary language is not English will go up. How do you think we can find ways to communicate with families who do not speak the same language as us?
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

In more and more of my observations I have been noticing the amount of help teachers aides give. In a multitude of classrooms there are Spanish speaking aides and the support this gives the teacher is priceless. I recall speaking to one of my teachers and she told me that if she didn’t have her bilingual aide she would literally be lost with her students parents. I know that one aide is an enormous asset to the classroom but I haven’t seen or been in any classrooms with more than one aide. All of the classes I have been in have more than 25 students(with at least 2 ELL students) and there are only two adults/educators available, this means that students are more than likely not getting enough attention on a daily basis.

Maybe something the schools could do is have specialized ELL student/teacher/parent conferences on a monthly basis? More frequent meetings with someone there to help out with the language barriers would keep the ELL students on track and keep the parents and teachers on a level playing field. There are conflicts that come with this idea thou, (teacher schedule, lack of bilingual helpers etc.) You have a really great question here Kristen!

May 28, 2007 at 4:40 PM
FCP104 said...

After reading this statistic, I sat and thought about it for a moment. When I look back on my experiences in school systems I can see how one day this will be a reality. It is already a reality. As our country becomes more and more diverse, so do our school systems. I also thought about how when you are competent in your native language, it makes it easier to learn a second or third language, etc. In the future, I think that it would be an assest for teachers to learn how to speak a second language. This would make it a whole lot easier for teachers to be able to communicate with the parents of ELL students. I realize that Spanish is the main second language used in this country, and among ELL students, but I think that some teachers should learn other languages such as Hindu, Portugese, etc. I realize that this would not be an easy task, but it would be very beneficial!

June 2, 2007 at 3:13 PM

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