Author: Nicole

The number of limited English speakers in Texas has grown by about 50 per cent in the past decade with 1 in 5 students struggling. Sadly, at the same time there has been a 20% drop in educators working in bilingual and ESL classes.

We asked Liz Lee, our new sales representative in Texas, for her thoughts on the situation as reported in the Dallas News:

This has been an ongoing problem in Texas that has gotten worse.  As the population of non-English speakers has continued to grow, the pool of certified bilingual teachers has waned.  When I first began working in Texas, I worked with pre-K and elementary programs.  The bilingual ones were more predominant and successful in South Texas, which was a reflection of demographics.  It was most difficult to find teachers for programs in North Texas.  The majority of bilingual teachers were raised and educated in South Texas and were not willing to relocate.  The culture is very family oriented so venturing away from home is not common.

 

The article addresses financial incentives, and lack of funding is certainly a big problem in education overall.  It has especially affected special programs as cutbacks have been the norm for the last decade.  Even textbook adoptions have been pushed forward so that new materials have not been selected for as long as a decade.  Many retiring coordinators of language programs have not been replaced due to lack of funding.  The decline of all teacher candidates due to lack of incentives is also a problem. 

 

I would imagine that the number of qualified bilingual candidates would be also be on the decline as time goes by and generations change.  When the Hispanic population first began to grow, the children were not allowed to use their native language in class.  Memories of rulers hitting knuckles are not uncommon among adults today.  This changed, but many young Spanish speakers never had adequate education in their native language.  The use of Spanglish or code-switching is abundant.  Many can communicate orally but have little or no reading/writing skills.  Their native language ability is poor and certainly not that of an educated professional.  In addition, the phenomenon of not wanting to communicate in Spanish exists.  These young people comprehend but want to respond only in English.  The desire to assimilate is stronger than the one to preserve heritage. 

 

The article also speaks to the certification issue where requirements are more rigorous.  Those with the cultural and language backgrounds needed to facilitate programs are discouraged.  I relate this to a friend who I recently encouraged in her job search.  I’ve found her English to be quite adequate and never considered that she might be self-conscious about her language ability.  She certainly has the required job skills, but she was concerned that a mandatory assessment might include words beyond her comprehension.  Time and money for furthering education is an issue for many.  My friend has managed to balance evening classes with a full-time job and a family, but it is has not been easy.  Add financial burden to the time sacrifice and top it off with the stress of working with young students and teens, and the result will be fewer candidates.  With cutbacks, training for dealing with behavior problems is limited or non-existent.

 

As a language teacher and promoter of language acquisition and as one who has met educators and researchers in the world of bilingual programs, I’ve done a lot of thinking about bilingual education.  There was a time when I was not an advocate of bilingual programs.  I still believe immersion is the best.  However, as with many issues there are circumstances that must be considered.  When very young children are introduced to a new environment, I believe that they should not check their language skills at the door and enter a world to learn new concepts in a completely foreign tongue.  Scary!  I have come to believe that learning basic skills in one language (whichever) is best; then, transferring these to a new language can be easily achieved.  Too many programs have not fostered development of needed skills in one language resulting in children not having a strong foundation in any language to which they have been exposed.  The programs that I have found to be best are the dual language programs.  Language arts instruction occurs in the student’s first language.  Other disciplines are taught in a second or first language depending on the subject.  Students are exposed to a third language in an exploratory class.  I would like to see all high school students graduate as bilinguals and bi-literates.

 

Working with adults and students in higher education is another issue with other sets of circumstances.  Hopefully a solid first language foundation is in place so that the transition of skills can occur more easily.  This is not always the case.  Also, similarity of the first language to the second helps.  This too is not always the case.  This is where good ESL materials can contribute to success!

It is difficult to believe that a reality TV star (and narcissist, sexist, racist, ignoramus, buffoon, etc) is now the president of the United States. We are disillusioned and we are also trying to focus on positive things that will allow us to not entirely lose our faith in America and humanity in general. So…we are not going to write much about Trump… but we will link to others who have.

In the Chronicle of Higher Education, Trump’s Surprise Victory Sends Shock Through Higher Ed

A Canadian perspective from the Higher Education Strategy Associates, A Second Thought About Half-Way Through a Pretty Awful Day

 

Over the years, we have come across a lot of teachers who fantasized about having their own language school. Of those, a few bravely actually took the leap and made the fantasy a reality. That reality can be rough, though, for a variety of reasons. We were interested to learn that relatively well-known ELT authors Hugh Dellar and Andrew Walkley have taken this leap themselves. They have written about a few things they wish they had known before they had started; if you are one of the ones who dreams about taking the leap, you are lucky to be able to benefit from their experience.

Read Hugh and Andrew’s reflections

For the past five years or so, there has been a growth in corporations buying up independent language schools to create large, multinational chains of schools. This trend has amplified in Britain over the past few years, with the summer of 2015 being weak and agents’ costs rising considerably. The situation is ripe for acquiring British private language schools and that is exactly what is happening. Because of how the strengths and weaknesses of various currencies, the Irish have been in a good position to buy and that is what they have been doing!

Read more on the EL Gazette.

A federal class action was recently filed alleging that the School District of Lancaster, Pennsylvania has been illegally refusing to enrol older immigrant children in public school or diverting them to a inferior, privately-run disciplinary. The plaintiffs include six refugees, aged 17-21 from Burma, Somalia, Sudan and The Congo.

This is not an isolated incident of discimination agains ELL students. This is the third class action launched in the past two years in the US. Similar suits were also filed against school districts in Utica, New York and Collier County, Florida.

More details

The University of British Columbia just released a report on how their open access materials for Mathematics have saved students up to $1 million this year.

While we agree that publishers often make bad decisions, including sometimes unreasonably increasing the costs of textbooks, we generally object to the attitudes expressed in this report. Post secondary education costs thousands of dollars very year. Why do people generally accept this and not accept several hundred dollars for their textbooks. Professors seem to love to be the champions of students, helping them find ways to avoid paying textbooks…. so why don’t they give up their pay as well so that students can save on the much larger expense of tuition?

Textbooks and educational publishers are whipping boys, it would seem, and it is hardly fair. No publisher is rolling in money these days while everything they publish is an investment (or a gamble). The publishers have real costs: authors, editors, printers, paper, warehouses, shipping, returns, damaged stock, unsold stock, desk copies for instructors and so forth. It is ridiculous to focus on the cost of books; education is expensive and it is very convenient diversion for those in post-secondary instituions to point fingers at publishers.

Read UBC’s report

We were particularly moved by a current Unicef fundraising campaign, and English Central has decided to do what we can to help spread the word… and encourage your help!

Today, we are faced with multiple emergencies all over the world. Conflict, natural disasters and climate-change events mean that 462 million children now live in crisis-affected areas and 75 million of them have had their education interrupted or have had to abandon it altogether to flee to safety. For these children, back to school may never come.

Education is especially important for children during times of crises, giving them a sense of normalcy and hope for the future in the midst of violence, instability and disaster. It provides them with the skills to build better, safer, healthier lives for themselves, their families and their communities.

UNICEF is there, on the ground before, during and after a crisis hits. Unicef has always provided temporary learning spaces, rebuilt schools, established accelerated and alternative learning programs, trained teachers and provided school children with vital school supplies. But with today’s global emergencies they are seeing a severe education-funding shortfall, in 2015 only 12% of children living in crisis and in need of education were reached.

Please join English Central in donating school supply kits today and help more children receive the essentials they need to continue to learn.

Each kit costs only $3.71 and contains a backpack, an exercise book and pencils. A donation of:

• $26 will provide 7 children supplies
• $53 will help 14 children
• $102 will provide supplies to 27 children

For every person who clicks the link below to donate, English Cental will match the donation*. On Halloween, kids no longer come around with those little orange collection boxes anymore; let’s keep the tradition of working with Unicef at this time of year, though, and do some good at little expense.

Please join us and donate today!

* We will match any contributions made by October 31st, 2016 up to a maximum of 300 backpacks. Note that this campaign is through Unicef Canada – for our US readers, you can participate nevertheless; plus, the exchange rate means that this is even easier for you to help!