Bilingual or immersion: Style of teaching inflames debate
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley
Press on Monday, May 10, 2004.
By DEBRA
LEMOINE
Valley
Press Staff Writer
In the national debate about the soaring immigrant
population, few issues inflame natives and newcomers as language -
and more specifically how to teach English to the newcomers' children
in public schools.
California is the
prime battleground for the debate. There are 1.6 million children
learning English in the state's public schools; they make up almost
half of the non-English speaking students in U.S.
schools. The Antelope Valley
is hardly excluded. One in seven Valley public school children, or
12,312 students in spring 2003, have limited
or no English language skills, according to data reported to the
California Department of Education.
The educational debate has centered on whether it is best to teach
lessons through bilingual education - in students' native language
and slowly transition to classes in English - or to teach them
everything in English. In other words, bilingual vs.
English-immersion instruction.
Pick a side of that debate, and there is academic research to
support and refute which method is best.
California voters
decided in 1998 with the approval of Proposition 227 that students
should be taught primarily in English and it should take them a year
to learn the language. The initiative was spearheaded by English for
the Children, led by Silicon Valley
entrepreneur Ron Unz. English for the
Children sponsored similar measures in other states; voters in Arizona
passed on in 2000 and Massachusetts
voters did so in 2002. Voters in Colorado
rejected a similar measure in 2002.
The initiative does not outlaw bilingual education in California
outright. It does, however, give preference to English-immersion
classrooms. For a school to offer a bilingual program, 20 or more
parents must call for it. Across California
in the 1997-98 school year, the year before Prop. 227 was enacted,
409,879 students were enrolled in bilingual education classes. By
2002-03, the number had dropped to 141,428, either because students
have moved into English-only classrooms or because parents are
choosing English-only instruction.
Over the same period, the number of students in California
needing English language instruction has increased 108% among
students who speak either no to little English.
Most are being taught in English-immersion classrooms. In the
1997-98, 466,793 students were enrolled in English-immersion programs, That number grew to 882,118 in 2002-03.
Results mixed
Many English-only advocates point to California's
rising test scores to say their method works best. More students are
learning English, and their scores on state academic tests given only
in English are rising as well. For example, 45% of students who took California's
English language proficiency test in 2003 scored in ranges that
indicate they can read, write and speak the language fluently. In
2001, the first year the test was given, 25% of English learner
students scored in the same range.
Comparisons of scores on the Stanford 9, a standardized test that California
discontinued spring 2002, showed gains of an estimated five
percentage points between 1998 and 2002.
Whether Prop. 227 has helped out student performance in the
classroom is anyone's guess. Researchers on both sides ideologically
have analyzed the Stanford 9 test, given to all California
students from 1998 to 2002. Depending on who is doing the math, Prop.
227 has been labeled a complete failure or a
glowing success.
The state Legislature commissioned its own five-year study, which
offers no definitive conclusions. The study, conducted by WestEd, says that there is no evidence that
suggests Prop. 227 is a failure or a success after studying test
scores and California
schools for two years. The study also suggests that no one
instructional method is best. In other words, one size does not fit
all for teaching English learners.
What WestEd researchers did find in the
five years since the passage of Prop. 227
was a greater focus on teaching English learners.
Prop. 227 coincided with the "standards" movement in California
schools. In 1999, the state issued new guidelines on what should be
taught in each grade and which textbooks to use to accomplish the task.
To ensure schools are teaching what the state tells them to, the
state gives standardized tests to measure academic progress.
The state also issued guidelines and goals for teaching English
learners and provided special teaching tools to accomplish this task.
It then tests English learners to measure their progress.
Problem gets attention
Before the standards movement, programs for English learning
students varied across school districts, said Anthony Martinez,
director of biliteracy for the Antelope
Valley Union
High School District.
As schools brought their subjects in line with state mandates, the
programs developed a consistency with goals for English language
development that support goals in other main subjects.
"Absolutely nothing was consistent," Martinez
said. "All school districts should now know about the ELD
(English language development) standards."
Even the textbooks used for English language development classes
and the goals for the students, matches with other state standards
across the curriculum. The skills learned in the language development
classes match the state's language arts standards for English
literature classes.
Another explanation offer by Valley educators is that no matter
what method you use, when you pay attention to a problem, things are
going to improve.
Roger Gallizzi, Palmdale School
District's assistant superintendent of personnel, became the Palmdale
district's first bilingual education director in 1997, the year the
district decided only two students had learned English well enough to
be classified as fluent English speakers.
Seven years later and two directors later, Palmdale reclassified a
record 294 students, with plans to reclassify 310 students by the end
of the 2003-04 school year.
Gallizzi said the credit doesn't belong
to one person.
Putting anyone in that position meant the district was paying
attention to the issue.
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Conquering language
Fluency in English proves to be challenge for students, schools
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
on Monday, May 10, 2004.
By DEBRA LEMOINE
Valley Press
Staff Writer
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first of a four-part
series about teaching English to the growing migrant population in the Antelope
Valley.
Maria Tanaka came to Lancaster
three years ago with her son to visit family. Immersed in the "Aerospace
Valley," her son
wanted to move here so he could learn to navigate airplanes and work
for NASA someday.
Her son noticed that people knew what they wanted to do here, she
said.
"That's why he wanted to come," she said in Spanish
through a translator. "He wanted to see if it's true."
In Mexico,
it is common to offer money for her son to get the kind of job her son
wants, she said. So Tanaka came to Lancaster,
knowing no English, to work as a housekeeper and school volunteer to
give him opportunities he'd never have in Mexico.
Her son, now 16, is a junior at Antelope
Valley High School.
He is learning English and makes "A's" and "B's."
He will succeed, she said.
Tanaka's story is just one version of the tale about the thousands
of immigrants and first-generation Americans living in the Antelope
Valley. Over the past
decade, Hispanics became the majority ethnic group in Valley public
schools, and one in seven Valley public school students speak little or
no English. While not all Hispanics move to the Valley not knowing
English, many do. Not every student who can't speak English in a public
school is Hispanic, but most are. Students in AV schools come from
homes where any one of 25 different languages - from Russian to Korean
- is spoken, but 97% of them speak Spanish at home.
"It's difficult. It's challenging," said Ruth Holton, Lancaster
School District's director
of curriculum, instruction and assessment. "Most come in with
background knowledge. They just can't share it with us because they
don't speak the language."
The Valley's demographic shift has increased the burden for public
schools to teach more than 12,000 out of the 86,000 schoolchildren
English while also teaching them to read, solve algebraic equations or
dissect a frog. Most English learning students attend eastside schools,
and half of them go to a school in the Palmdale
School District.
The price for failure is devastating for these students.
English-language skills can be a barrier to learning in the
English-only advanced classes that lead to college and a career. Not
knowing English can deny them even minimum-wage jobs.
Pressure builds for schools
The stakes are almost as high for schools. Just as the number of
non-English-speaking students - called English learners by educators -
doubled in Valley schools, the federal government turned up the
pressure on schools to prove that all students are learning on
standardized tests.
Under the federal education law known as the No Child Left Behind
Act, schools have 10 years to make sure all of its students are
"proficient" in language arts and math. What that means is
not only do schools have to prove they are teaching English learning
children to speak, read and write in English, but these students have
to keep up with their peers in traditional academic subjects.
Ultimately this law has the potential to shut down a middle school
if 100% of the school's English learners haven't mastered algebra in
the eighth grade by 2013.
In 1998, California
voters made learning English in one year a goal for all
non-English-speaking students and made English immersion classes the
preferred program for them to meet this goal when passing Proposition
227. Whether non-English-speaking students can reach those goals - or
how far they can move toward it in one year - depends on a host of
factors, ranging from the quality of their schooling in their home
country to their motivation to learn.
In a report released in February, the state Legislative Analyst
Office found that most California
public schools are not reaching the goals of Prop. 227. The report
criticized California
schools because test-score projections show it will take six years for
half the state's 1.6 million English learners
kindergartners to become fluent in English and 40% still won't be
fluent by seventh grade.
"This is slow," an analysts wrote
in the report.
Many researchers believe that students can learn
"conversational" English in a year - meaning the English
students learn on the playground and use to speak to each other. But to
learn "academic" English, the advanced vocabulary used in
upper-grade textbooks, can take six years or longer. In the report,
legislative analysts wrote six years is too long because these students
need English skills to be able to take and succeed in the upper-level
academic classes that lead to college.
Test scores on the rise
In March, the California Department of Education released test
scores for its English fluency test that showed more students are
learning English. Test results show that 43% of the students who took
the test scored in the fluency ranges in 2003 - up from 34% in 2002 and
25% in 2001. However, 25% of California English learners still speak
little English.
Although the legislative analyst's report came out a month before
the release of the new test results, analysts acknowledged students are
performing better on the English fluency tests. However, those results
aren't translating to higher scores on state academic tests, which all
students take in English no matter how well they know the language, the
analysts said. The analysts selected test scores from the sixth grade
to show the discrepancy between English learners and their
English-speaking peers because this grade is the year half of them are
becoming fluent English speakers and the year when students are about
to cross the threshold into higher level academic coursework.
In 2003, 10% of English learning sixth-graders scored in the
proficient or higher ranges on California
tests. "Proficient" means a student is on track for a
four-year college. In contrast, 41% of native English-speaking students
scored in the proficient ranges. Even students living in poverty, who
are considered harder to teach because they often lack essentials such
as three meals a day, scored higher than the English learning subgroup,
with 19% in the proficient ranges.
At the opposite end of the test ranges, 61% of English learning
sixth-graders scored in the bottom ranges on the test scores, with 49%
of poor students and 29% of English-only students scoring in the same
ranges.
"Clearly ELs (English learners) are
performing far below the level desired by the state," analysts
wrote. "In fact, EL students, who make up 24% of the sixth-grade
class, account for about 40% of all students who score in the bottom
two levels of the (state tests). This low performance is likely to have
long-term consequences, both for students and for the state."
AV results match state
Test scores across the Antelope
Valley reveal a similar gap
between English learning students and their peers. For example, when
sixth-graders took state tests in the Palmdale
School District last
spring, 9% of English learners score in the proficient or higher ranges
on state academic tests in language arts and 7% in math. But 25% of
native English-speaking students and 17% of students living in poverty
scored in the same ranges for language arts, and 20% of native
English-speaking students and 12% of poor students scored in the same
ranges for math.
Raul Maldonado, who is in charge of the Palmdale
School District's biliteracy programs and testing for all students,
said he was surprised by the district's overall test scores and the
lower math scores of English learners.
"Numbers are a lot easier to pick up," he said.
"Numbers don't change. They are the same in Spanish and
English."
Maldonado believes English learners are just as capable of reaching
the state's lofty test score goals as English-only students. He breaks
down the goals into their tiny components - scoring within a certain
range on subsets within a test, such as doing long division or adding
fractions on the overall math test. When he sees the goal broken down
into smaller steps, he believes non-English-speaking students can do it
just as well as English native students.
But 100% of them reaching those goals in a decade is
another matter.
"It's not realistic," he said. "It is one thing to be
held to high expectations. Having those expectations for 100% of
students is another. We know under the bell curve it doesn't
occur."
As Maldonado analyzes the district's English learners program, he
said the district needs to concentrate more resources on the students
in the "intermediate" levels of English language development,
where he believes most students - including himself in grade school -
get stuck.
Ruth Holton of the Lancaster
district agreed.
"Many of them learn the social language quickly," she
said. "They don't have the academic language to understand what is
going on in the classroom. It is a challenge when they sound like
they're fluent to make sure they are learning."
When students score in the intermediate range on California's
English fluency tests, they typically speak English well enough for
social situations, what researchers believe can be learned in a year.
They are speaking it on the playground but having problems
understanding it when they read and writing it well enough to get good
grades in class.
One sign that Maldonado offers teachers to distinguish
intermediate-level English speakers is that they understand directions
from teachers and speak full sentences in class. However, they often
make grammatical mistakes or misuse words.
The Palmdale district also received a few negative reports on its
English learner programs in the 2002-03 school year
that led to changes that are being implemented this school year. Some
of those reports - a routine federal compliance review of its entire
English learner program and state scholastic audits of three of its
schools - pointed out that there wasn't a consistent districtwide system for teaching English learners;
some students were in classes with teachers who weren't trained to
teach English learners; and some students didn't receive their
federally required 30 to 40 minutes of daily English language
instruction.
Those audits led to the development of a master plan for English
learners, a pink book that outlines how the district is supposed to
teach English learning students from the first day they enter school
until they are officially declared fluent speakers. The district also
started using new language arts materials - reading and English books -
that includes new state-approved materials for English learners.
The Palmdale district purchased new software to help schools track
the progress of English learning students. In the past, school
administrators would spend days at the district office sifting through
thousands of paper records to see if their students were ready to be
considered fluent speakers or to receive new services.
Schools improve
Academic test scores are not available for the 2003-04 school year, but the district has declared a record number
of students as fluent English speakers - 294 so far this year. In the
2002-03 school year, Palmdale redesignated 150 students, and over the past six
years, it declared an average of 100 students a year as fluent English
speakers. In 1997, the year before the district hired its first
bilingual education director, it declared only
two students fluent in English.
Maldonado believes those early results are a good sign that the
district's plan is working.
"I believe that the Master Plan for English learners is
working," Maldonado said. "Schools can access the procedures
a lot easier with the Master Plan."
He added that the school district purchased new software that helps
them track students through the district and know when a student has
met all the criteria to be reclassified, which includes scoring at
certain levels on state academic and English fluency tests.
The 15,800-student Lancaster
district redesignates about 4% of its 2,000
English-learning students a year.
"We don't think that's enough," Holton said.
However, she added that the state criteria for redesignating
students are sometimes higher than native speaking students are
achieving. One criterion is scoring in the 36th percentile on the California
Achievement Test 6, which is a goal that is higher than district's
overall average score for the test.
There also are alternative ways to decide whether a student is ready
to be reclassified as a fluent speaker.
"We want them to be successful," she said. "If we redesignate too soon they can slip back."
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Dual immersion boosting fluency in second language
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on
Tuesday, May 11, 2004.
By DEBRA LEMOINE
Valley Press
Staff Writer
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second part of a four-part
series about teaching English to the growing migrant population in the Antelope
Valley.
PALMDALE - Veronia De la Cruz's two boys
have been going to Palmdale schools since preschool, so when she talks to
them in Spanish, they answer her in English.
She hopes to change that by enrolling her sons at Los
Amigos School,
where students learn to read, write and speak in English and Spanish .
"He's only 5," she said of her younger son. "Every time
I talk to him in Spanish, he responds in English to me. Hopefully, this
school will help him out a lot."
"I guess it was my fault," she said. "I'd talk to him
in English."
De la Cruz immigrated from Guatemala
when she was 4 and learned how to read and write in English in U.S.
schools. She was hired by a Spanish-speaking investor for her ability to
speak English and Spanish, but wishes she could read and write in
Spanish, too. She wants her sons to be biliterate.
Biliteracy is the ultimate goal for
kindergarten through fifth-grade students in Palmdale
School District's
dual-immersion program, which began in 1998 with a kindergarten class at
three schools - Tamarisk, Buena Vista and Manzanita. Each year, the program added a class. In
2001, Los Amigos opened on 37th Street East
as a campus of portable classrooms. The school's permanent campus, under
construction at 67th Street East
and Avenue R-8, is expected to open in September 2005.
Dual-immersion schools, like Los Amigos, are emerging as a proven tool
in the ideologically slanted political and academic battle over the best
way to teach students who don't speak English. The dual-immersion
teaching method shows the highest test score gains for students learning
English - as well as native English speakers - over their peers in
English-only classes. A study conducted by the Los
Angeles Unified School
District shows its Spanish-speaking
students in dual-immersion programs learn English faster than in
bilingual and English-immersion programs.
Research proves true
"The students are able to fully learn a second language, to read,
write and speak in that language," Los Amigos Principal Geoff Brown
said. "To me, that in itself is a great benefit."
Because of the benefits backed by research and the increasing need for
schools to teach English to immigrant students, dual-immersion programs
are gaining in popularity across the country. In California,
dual-immersion programs have grown from 29 in 1990 to 145 in 2003. Most
programs teach English and Spanish, but there are a handful of programs
in Korean, Cantonese and Mandarin.
Dual-immersion programs are set up differently across the country, but
essentially students are taught in two languages with the idea that
native speakers will help teach their language to their peers. At Los
Amigos, students spend roughly 50% of their time learning in both
languages. Only younger students are segregated by language and taught
the same reading lessons twice - once in Spanish and again in English -
because some phonetics are different in the two languages.
In the upper grades, students are mixed together and split their time
between a Spanish teacher and an English teacher. Students learn history
from both teachers. One week the Spanish teacher teaches history; the
next week the English teacher does.
"When you learn something, it doesn't matter which language you
learn it in. The skills transfer," Brown said.
Whether they are in a Spanish or English class, students must stick to
the language spoken in that class. That means when they don't understand,
they have to ask questions in their second language.
No one is punished for speaking the wrong language, Brown said.
However, the students say they may not be answered by their teacher and
must ask the question again in whatever language is being spoken. In the
fifth grade, students will ask questions in their second language and
often have to search for the right word by describing it. The native
speakers often will supply the word.
"That's how we know they are acquiring the language," said
Imelda Trinklein, fifth-grade Spanish teacher.
"You know what they mean. They communicate well, but not always
perfectly." she
Benefits abound
In Alejandra Ambriz's
family, only her sister and cousins speak English. The 10-year-old says
she speaks whichever language her friends do and sometimes will translate
when someone doesn't know the language. "I read both; I read more in
English," the fifth-grader said. "I think I like both. I read
in English for fun."
Of course, most of the books in the Los Amigos library are in English;
most of the available Spanish-language books are for younger children,
Brown said. The school is buying more Spanish-language books for older
students and recently received its Spanish-language copies of the popular
Harry Potter series.
Nicholas Ruffin, 11, said he speaks English at home and to his
friends, but sometimes Spanish words will come out on the playground.
"Sometimes I'll say, 'dame mi pelota,' or
'give me my ball' in Spanish," he said. "I don't know. It just
comes to me in Spanish."
In class, Ruffin said he understands his teacher when she speaks in
Spanish and said doing workbook lessons in Spanish is easy. But speaking
in class is sometimes hard for him.
Trevor Bird, 10, said he struggles with Spanish. He doesn't always
understand what his teacher is saying. "I would think that if I've
been in it for six years, I'd be able to speak fluently," he said.
"But I'm not. I'm about 50-50."
When he's supposed to be speaking in Spanish, he said he sometimes
will ask classmates questions about the lesson in English.
Researchers say students in dual-immersion programs begin to
outperform their peers and begin to speak in both languages fluently
around the fifth and sixth grades. Dramatic differences in test scores
tend to show up in the latter grades, but dual-immersion students' test
scores may lag behind their peers in lower grades because of the emphasis
on language development.
Test scores improving
Palmdale's 6-year-old dual-immersion program has grown to the point
where academic test-score gains usually emerge, but test results from
those fifth-graders won't be available until August. Brown believes the
fifth-graders who have been in the dual-immersion program for five to six
years will perform as well as researchers say.
"I think this year will give us a good snapshot in how we're
doing," Brown said. "I think we'll see it."
State English-language fluency tests show 59% of English-learning
fifth-graders at Los Amigos score within the fluency ranges. Another 29%
are within the intermediate ranges, which is where the school expects
students to be.
About 12% score within the beginning ranges.
Los Amigos students are learning English faster than all students in
the Palmdale School
District, where 52% of fifth-graders score
in the fluent ranges, 35% score in the intermediate ranges and 13% score
in the beginning ranges.
Students with intermediate language skills can speak in complete
sentences, but often make grammatical mistakes or use the wrong word.
Beginning students can understand some of the language and tend to give
short, yes or no answers to questions.
Native English-speakers at Los Amigos take a test to assess their
Spanish-language skills, but those results are not reported publicly
school by school, and the school does not have its results yet.
State academic test scores show Los Amigos students are lagging
slightly behind their peers in the Palmdale
School District in other
subjects such as reading and math, but the school's scores are high
enough to meet state and federal academic test score goals.
Some of the lower scores are attributed to the school's transiency. Brown said students were admitted to the
program after first grade who are struggling to catch up. But when scores
are isolated by students who have been in the program since kindergarten
or first grade, the expected results pan out.
"It's tough for them," Brown said. "What we try to do
if we add, we have them take tests to make sure they have some
proficiency in both languages."
Students are tested in their second language if they attempt to enroll
in the second grade or later, Brown said. Students without some
proficiency in the second language are no longer admitted.
Educators say learning two languages has many benefits.
"Cognitively, they are at an advantage," Trinklein
said. "They use more of their brains."
William Lucerno, 11, whose family speaks
Spanish and English at home, said he likes learning in both languages. In
perfect English, he explained why he needed to learn Spanish. "My
family speaks Spanish when we go to Mexico.
It helps me communicate with them better."
William Sumney's family speaks English at
home, but he said using two languages is fun. "My mom stuck me in
this program so when I get a job I can speak in both languages," the
11-year-old said.
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Students speak up in two languages
District offers dual immersion classes for English, Spanish
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on
Wednesday, May 12, 2004.
By DEBRA LEMOINE
Valley Press
Staff Writer
Shari Healy's class of 30 second-graders at Mesquite
Elementary School in Palmdale
buzzes with the boundless energy of 7-year-olds as they talk while writing
stories about pictures clipped from magazines.
Six giggling girls eliminated boys from their group by working their
teacher's system to their advantage. Another group, consequently all boys,
fidgets with pent-up energy. They stand up as they raise their hand seeking
Healy's attention or they jockey for the pencil sharpener until Healy makes
them sit down.
The noise level in Healy's room is the first clue that this is not an
ordinary second-grade class. Because Healy's students never spoke English
before they entered a Palmdale school, she structures lessons to have them
talk, so they can practice the language. In this case, they talk to sort
their thoughts before they write a story based on their clippings.
Across the Antelope Valley,
public schools are tasked with teaching more than 12,000 students English
while teaching them their other lessons. And half of the Valley's English
learners attend school in the Palmdale
School District.
A majority of Palmdale's English-learning students are taught in
English, either by enrolling in a regular classroom or a structured English
language development class such as Healy's room. In the 2002-03 school year, nearly half of the 5,420 English learners in
Palmdale were enrolled in a structured English immersion class. The other
half were enrolled in a mainstream classroom where they receive 30 minutes
of English language lessons a day. In junior highs, students are often in a
mainstream classroom for most of the day while taking an English language
development class as an elective.
Palmdale also offers two programs where students learn in their native
language. More than 200 students are enrolled in traditional bilingual
education programs for students to learn their lessons in Spanish along
with lessons in the English language. Under federal laws, the district must
offer a bilingual program if parents of 20 or more students in a single
grade request it.
Palmdale district also is the only school district to offer a
dual-immersion program, this at Los
Amigos School.
The district's dual-immersion mixes groups of Spanish- and English-speaking
students in classrooms, and teaches all students to speak, read and write
in two languages. More than 300 English learners were enrolled in Los
Amigos' dual-immersion program in the 2002-03 school year.
No matter which program the students are enrolled in, their parents made
the final decision for their placement, said Raul Maldonado, Palmdale
district's bi-literacy program director. In fact, a majority of
English-learning students in a mainstream classroom are there because
parents want them there.
Healy speaks little Spanish herself and teaches her class entirely in
English. Her students' English sounds as perfect as any 7-year-olds' on the
playground, with almost no trace of a Spanish accent. Most have been in a
Palmdale school since kindergarten, and many were recently reclassified as
"intermediate" speakers, which roughly means
they speak English, but their phrasing has errors when they speak in long
sentences.
During recess or their physical education time, the students only speak
English, even to each other.
"When they're outside and there's others
around, they want to fit in," Healy explained.
In kindergarten, even students born in the United
States might walk in not knowing one
word of English, said Grace Sotelo, a bilingual
instructional aide who works in Healy's classroom.
At first, students are very shy about trying new words.
"They feel like they are going to say it wrong," Sotelo said. "They want to hear you say it, or
have you guess it."
By the end of the year, they are more confident. By second grade, it is
hard to tell them apart from their native-speaking peers. That's because
the second-graders have fully acquired the social skills of English
language development. Social English is the easy part, and most researchers
believe those skills can be acquired in a year. But academic English, the
more difficult vocabulary used in textbooks and advanced academic classes,
will take a few more years.
Researchers say it takes at least five years to learn academic language.
Healy said one difference between her class and a class of native English
speakers is that she often must demonstrate vocabulary words or directions
to students until they learn it. A teacher could tell her class of native
speakers to look up the word in a dictionary.
In Healy's class, students struggle over "academic English"
when they are writing. They still think in Spanish and are translating
their thoughts before they speak, she said. Their pencils freeze on the
paper because they don't know how to spell certain words or can't remember
that "father" is the English word for "padre."
"They're pretty good. Another year or so, they'll think in
English," she said.
The goal of the structured English immersion program is English fluency
by third and fourth grade.
"They shouldn't be in this program forever," Healy said.
Healy's students have the best chance of obtaining English fluency and
keeping up with their peers. The earlier a student enters an American
school, the easier school and mastering English will be for them. However, Palmdale
School District officials say
many students will "get stuck" at the intermediate level in
school.
"Children pick up language much better than adults," Healy
said. "They adapt very well."
"The older ones keep that accent because they are so used to that
language," Sotelo added.
Just as students come and go all year long in public schools, children
enter U.S.
schools at all ages speaking little or no English. When research shows that
it takes six years to learn the language, the academic success of older
students comes down to the quality of their schooling in their home country
or to their motivation, said Anthony Martinez, director of bi-literacy at
the Antelope Valley Union High School District.
"If the student has a foundation or a solid academic background, it
is easier and faster to apply that base to a second language," he
said.
The 2,230 English-learning students in the AV high school district
aren't sheltered all day with one teacher who instructs them in English and
in all their academic subjects. Students new to the language may spend a
couple of class periods in an English Language Development class and the
rest of the day in mainstream classrooms.
A majority of high school students are enrolled in a mainstream
classroom because they meet district criteria for it and receive support
through bilingual aides or tutoring. A handful of the district's English
learners in the 2002-03 school year were enrolled
in a structured immersion program where they take a special class during
the day to develop their language skills and spend the rest of the day in a
mainstream classroom with assistance from bilingual aides.
At AV High, 15 students are learning English by reading a simple story
with pictures and dialogue balloons in Jared Efrle's
English Language Development class. Most of them have recently immigrated
to the United States
and are just beginning to learn English. They speak a few English words in
casual conversation, mostly to practice greeting Efrle
and visitors in the classroom. For most students, their English is broken
and cautious when it's their turn to speak in class.
Efrle begins the lesson by going over the
pictures with his students, then he reads it to
them. When the boys in the story sample dim sum, Efrle
asks them to name the "sticks" in the story and points to the
picture on an overhead projector.
Alma Villa, a freshman, answers "palitos"
automatically and makes a gesture that implies closing two chopsticks
together to pick up food. Palitos is the Spanish
word for chopsticks.
Villa wrote chopsticks as "chastik"
in her workbook next to the picture. "Chastik"
tells her how to pronounce "chopstick" using Spanish phonetics.
The mixture of Spanish in the English class is not unusual. The students
speak fluently in Spanish to each other during the class. Some of it is
gossip and some of it is translating words in the lesson for students who
arrived more recently. The one person in the room who doesn't speak Spanish
is the teacher.
Like Healy, Efrle speaks little Spanish and
conducts his class entirely in English. When a student needs something
translated, typically a classmate does it for them.
Most of the students in Efrle's class already
read in Spanish, so they transfer their reading skills by learning the
phonetics of the English alphabet. In Spanish, each letter has one possible
sound, so if a student knows Spanish phonetics, they can read in Spanish, Martinez
said. The English alphabet is far more complicated with many letters having
two to three sounds.
"For the most part, letters in Spanish have one sound, which makes
it difficult to learn English because of the rules and multiple sounds
letters make," Martinez
said.
The teens spend two hours each day learning English in a class like Efrle's. Then they attend the regular academic classes
of high school - all of which is taught in English.
After Proposition 227 passed, which emphasized English-only instruction
in public schools, many textbook companies stopped publishing
Spanish-language versions of academic textbooks, Martinez
said. Instead, students have to rely on translations by the district's
bilingual aides.
After a few years in American schools, many Palmdale teens say they
understand English well enough to know what's going on in class. However,
they sometimes don't know the right words to express themselves when they
talk, and find writing essays for class even harder than speaking.
"You listen and you understand, but you can't say the words,"
said Rocio Campos, 15.
Campos and her brother Alexhis, 17, immigrated from El
Salvador six years ago.
"I came in the sixth grade," Rocio
said in English. "I had to take regular classes. I was getting Cs,
straight Cs. I had to get help from friends, but I didn't have many
friends."
Rocio was frustrated at the time because she
was a good student in El Salvadorian schools. Her family moved to Palmdale
a year later, and she was placed in classes for English learners in seventh
grade and moved up into regular classes a year later.
The Highland High honors student says school is easy for her now, and
she plans to be a lawyer.
"Except for math," she said. "I hate math."
Alexhis has a similar tale. Only he wasn't a
very good student in El Salvador,
and he enjoys math and science so much he plans to become an engineer.
"I didn't want to study in my country," he said. "I
didn't put in the effort. Too many bad influences."
Seeing the sacrifice his parents made to bring him here inspired him.
His family considers going to school his job.
"When I came here I got better because of my family," Alexhis said.
Learning the language is the hardest part about attending high school,
said Paloma Avina, 17.
She was sad to leave her friends at her school in Mexico.
She also was afraid she would not make any friends, because she believed
that people only spoke English here.
"I thought there would not be many people like me," Paloma said in Spanish. But she made friends and they
help her in class.
Now she understands most of what her teachers say in class and believes U.S.
schools are easier than her school in Mexico
because her teachers in Mexico
expected more from the students. Her difficulty with U.S.
schools is speaking and writing in English.
Her sister Ofelia, 16, agrees.
"I learn to speak English," Ofelia said. "I understand
English. I don't know how to speak. I don't know how …" to put the
words together. She finished her sentence in Spanish.
Ofelia said she uses the materials given to her by the bilingual aide to
keep up. Most of the time she listens to her teacher lecture. She
understands some of it and other times words are familiar, but she doesn't
know the meaning. When she doesn't understand, she asks another student to
translate what the teacher just said.
Jacqueline and Jesica Gerbautz
came to the United States
three years ago. Jacqueline, 13, is a freshman at Highland High and is
enrolled in the International Baccalaureate program.
She often finds it difficult to express her feelings in English, and
spoke in Spanish. High school is harder for her than middle school, she
said. Her teachers expect her to write more, and she struggles with essays.
Their younger sister doesn't have any of their struggles because she was
6 years old when they immigrated. Now 9, she attends Los Amigos in
Palmdale, where students learn in both English and Spanish.
"She speaks very well," Jacqueline said in Spanish. "No
one knows she wasn't born here."
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the third part of a four-part series about
teaching English to the growing migrant population in the Antelope
Valley.
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© 2004 Antelope Valley Press, Palmdale, California (661) 273-2700
Parents take English challenge
Immigrants learn language to help kids
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on
Thursday, May 13, 2004.
By DEBRA LEMOINE
Valley Press Staff
Writer
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the final of a four-part series
about teaching English to the growing migrant population in the Antelope
Valley.
Most people are at home cooking dinner after a long day at work when 20
parents arrive at Antelope Valley
High School for their night
classes.
What motivates them to come is the need to learn the English language.
Immigrants come to the United States
because they want better lives and better-paying jobs, said Maria Tanaka, a
Mexican immigrant who came to the Antelope
Valley three years ago so her son
could get a better education. Immigrants want their children to have
opportunities they didn't have.
"They come here to work and have a better living without taking into
consideration the language barrier and the job they will acquire,"
Tanaka said in Spanish.
With one in seven Valley children learning English in public schools,
educators have set up programs to teach the language to their parents and
other adults in the community.
Many Valley school districts offer courses such as basic English, computer
skills and high school diploma credit.
Academic research shows parents play the most important role in how
successful a student is in school. Parents who can't communicate with the
school may not know what extra help is available or even whether their
children are failing.
"We want to help them so they can help their children with their
homework," said Ruth Holton, Lancaster
School District's director of
curriculum, instruction and assessment.
"We're trying to teach them English quickly to help the kids."
Through the Community Based English Tutoring grants, schools pay teachers
to stay after school to teach parents and other adults in the community. The
idea behind the grants is to teach adults English so they can tutor their
children and each other. For the most part, the program is used to help the
parents learn how to talk to the school.
Kids encourage parents
At AV High, Jared Efrle uses the same books and
lessons with adults that he does earlier in the day when he teaches the
English Language Development class to high schoolers.
Efrle speaks little Spanish and conducts the entire
lesson in English using pictures and simple words - just as he does with his
high school students every day.
Dora Medina of Lancaster has
three teen daughters at AV High and another in elementary school. She immigrated from Mexico
17 years ago, and her daughters all were born in the United
States, where they learned English in
public schools.
She only speaks Spanish at home, but her daughters don't want to be her
translators.
"Many times my daughters are trying to encourage me," Medina
said in Spanish. "They tell me I have to learn English. I have tried to
learn the essential words for going to doctors or stores."
As a school volunteer and by guiding her four daughters through school,
she knows how difficult it is for parents like herself to work with schools.
She said she has had situations with her daughters' teachers in the past,
when they didn't want to help the girls when they were struggling. Once one
daughter was accused of misbehaving, but she couldn't talk to the principal
because he didn't speak her language.
"When students are frustrated in class, they can't go to their
parents because they know their parents can't come to school and seek
assistance and support them," she said.
Medina and other parents say
if schools had more bilingual workers, parents would know what is going on at
school.
"Because they are in an English-speaking country, some people are
intimidated to approach a school or hospital," said Tanaka, whose son
attends AV High. "There is no one there to help them. There is a huge
need for bilingual staff."
Parents who recently immigrated are especially intimidated, Tanaka said.
They don't know who to talk to when they have questions. They send their
children to school to see what they can learn. When they are invited to
parent meetings and school functions, they often won't attend because they
believe no one who speaks Spanish will be present.
Eliminating the fear
"It is very difficult," Tanaka said. "If they call, the
first thing that answers is an answering machine in English. If they come to
the school personally, the person at the reception desk only speaks
English."
That frustration often is viewed as indifference by school officials who
know they need parents to have more successful students, said Anthony
Martinez, director of biliteracy programs for the Antelope
Valley Union High
School District.
Other times parents of English learners seem indifferent because they are
putting their full faith into the school to do what is best for their
children.
"For the most part, many of the families of English learners who were
born here have complete trust in the educational system," Martinez
said. "What is being done, taught and offered is always to a student's
best interest. It's not that they are not interested. They see it as 'the
professionals know what they are doing.' "
An educational system in which parents choose programs for their children
- such as which support services their children will have while learning
English or which classes they take in high school - is very different from
what they knew in their home countries.
Parents view their job as making sure their children are at school and
behave, not dictating which classes they should take.
When Martinez, a first-generation
American, was in school, he said he never missed a day - except in middle
school when his grandmother died.
Shari Healy, a second-grade structured English-immersion teacher at Mesquite
Elementary School in Palmdale,
said often the first thing she is asked by parents is how their children
behave in class. The grades come second.
By federal law, each school has a committee of English-learning parents
called the English Learners Advisory Committee. Its members' role is to be
the school's voice for non-English-speaking parents and to give parents
another opportunity to become involved in school and their children's
education. Each school selects members to represent them on the districtwide committee.
The advisory boards tell schools they want their children held to higher
standards, Martinez said. They
want their children in classes that will prepare them for college. A 2000
Public Agenda poll found more Hispanic and African-American parents say that
college is their ultimate goal for their children than white parents.
Preparing for college
Martinez agrees with the
parents. He analyzes transcripts of students and flags them for counselors
when students who tell him they plan to go to college aren't enrolled in the
right classes. He hopes someday all students - not just English learners -
must take courses required for college entrance in order to receive a
diploma.
His reasoning is that parents of English learners - and other students as
well - don't know about university entrance requirements. Often parents
believe a high school diploma is all that is necessary for college entrance.
The English learner advisory committees are asking for more information on
the requirements to give to other parents. They are asking the schools to
place their children in those classes and hold them to high standards.
"If you are the first in your family with that goal, you are unaware
of those requirements," Martinez
said. "Add to that if you are an immigrant from a different country and
a different educational system and you don't speak the language."
Medina said she wants her
daughters to go to college. Her eldest daughter wants to be a veterinarian.
One of her twins wants to be a doctor or a nurse.
But she shakes her head when she thinks about it. She said she doesn't
know how she will pay to send three daughters to college at one time.
Despite barriers they have seen while working in the schools, Medina
and Tanaka say the school is improving. They see more bilingual workers at
the school and see more school documents being translated this school year.
Public schools that receive federal funding for English learners must
translate documents into parents' native languages and often must offer
translation services.
Communication is key
When parents and educators find a way to communicate, often schools find
the parents of English learners are some of the most motivated in getting
assistance for their children.
Healy can't talk one-on-one with many of her parents because she speaks
very little Spanish. However, their support and enthusiasm makes up for it.
Healy writes notes home in English that bilingual aides translate into
Spanish. The parents write back notes that are translated for Healy.
"At the beginning of the year, they're unsure," Healy said.
"Lately they'll try their broken English on me."
This is what Healy wants. She wants parents to feel just as safe as their
children in speaking English in her class.
"If you make a mistake, oh, well. That's how you learn," she
said.
Healy said if the parents of her English learners know she is offering
something after school to help their children, they will make sure their
children are there.
One thing Healy believes is the parents of her students want her to teach
them English.
Only about 500 of Palmdale School
District's 5,000 English learning students were
taught lessons in their native language. Parents have the option of selecting
in what type of program their children will learn English. Half of the
students were in regular classrooms with native speakers. Most of them are
there because that is where their parents want them. Yet that desire can lead
to some practices that ultimately may hurt students.
Palmdale and AV Union districts say parents will lie about the language
they speak at home.
"There is a stigma," Martinez
said. "It's considered a negative and they believe we hold lower
expectations of students and automatically place them in ELD (English
language development) classes. They are just hurting themselves in that
way."
If parents don't tell the school which language they really speak at home,
then their children lose out on special services and schools lose funding set
aside to teach students English.
Martinez said the high school
district experiences this more than most districts. Often if a student was an
English learner in elementary school who now speaks English, their parents
don't classify them as English learners when they are enrolled in high
school. To catch those students, Martinez
said he asks for rosters from the district's eight feeder elementary
districts and tries to flag for special services those who need them.
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