Company’s ESL classes open doors to education
Maria Buezo, 50, doesn’t just take home a paycheck from her job but she’s also mastering the English language - helping her inside and outside the workplace.
At Bal Seal Engineering, a custom engineering company in Foothill Ranch,Buezo and her fellow co-workers enrolled in an English as a second language (ESL) program launched by the company.
The ESL program — which yielded its first group of 49 graduates in late 2008 — is improving communication, cooperation and customer service, Bal Seal officials say. But according to the company, it’s also motivating a large number of participants to continue their pursuit of education outside the workplace.
Read full story via OCRegister.com.
English-only rise in New York City high school graduation rates
Hight school graduation rates have increased under Mayor Bloomberg - except for students not fluent in English.
While the general graduation rate climbed to 52.2% in 2007 from 46.5% in 2005, the rate for students learning English (called English language learners, or ELLs) dropped from 28.5% to 23.5% over the same period.
Advocates say some city efforts that have improved achievement in general missed the mark when it comes to English language learners.
“We support high standards,” said Deycy Avitia, education advocacy coordinator at the New York Immigration Coalition, “but what we need is the increased resources and strategies to make sure they can meet the higher standards.”
Read full article here: English-only rise in New York City high school graduation rates.
Hooked on Obama Phonics
President Obama’s oratory skills have made him an inspiration for thousands of thousands of Japanese trying to learn English, The Wall Street Journal reports. Language schools are using Obama’s speeches to teach their students English and a compilation of his finest oratory has become a best seller, with 480,000 copies sold in three months. One teacher created a six-month course designed to teach Obama’s entire 2004 convention speech, sentence by sentence. His students may be able to wax poetic about the audacity of hope now, but what happens when they need to order a sandwich?
Read it on : Hooked on Obama Phonics - The Daily Beast.
Teachers, tutors try to keep up with demand for ESL classes
Teachers, tutors try to keep up with demand for ESL classes
Frank Helverson, right, a volunteer with Catholic Social Services, teaches English to Jang Wen Yu at Jang’s Hazleton home last week.
Jang “Bobby” Wen Yu and Frank Helverson sat at a table in Jang’s home on Seybert Street in Hazleton as they have regularly for two years to talk.
They discussed employment figures on pie charts, but it’s not the subject that keeps them together —the charts were from the last decade — it’s the language.
English.
Helverson speaks it.
Jang wanted to learn.
Together, after being paired through Catholic Social Services, they worked out a teacher-student relationship that has become a friendship.
Last month, Helverson and his wife attended Jang’s wedding and 12-course reception dinner in New York City’s Chinatown.
At his family’s restaurant, Golden City in Hazleton, Jang manages conversations with customers more easily because of his practice sessions with Helverson.
“My English is getting much better,” he said.
Helverson said he volunteered as a tutor to counteract anti-immigration sentiment he noticed in Hazleton two years ago when the city introduced an Illegal Immigration Relief Act that included English-only provisions.
“I wanted to do something positive. Also I was hearing the wrong notion that immigrants don’t want to learn English,” he said.
In Hazleton, people are waiting in line to learn English.
Interest growing
Read full article here: The Standard Speaker.
MTV Tr3s Introduces a New Kind of Variety Show with ‘Entertainment as a Second Language with Carlos
MTV Tr3s and comedic host Carlos Santos have teamed up to premiere a new variety show, “Entertainment as a Second Language with Carlos Santos” (E.S.L.). “E.S.L.” is all about access - giving fans a peek at celebrity video confessionals, exclusive interviews and live performances, laugh out loud comedic sketches, and a chance to vote for their favorite music videos. On February 26th at 9 PM ET/PT, MTV Tr3s will deliver this weekly bilingual and bi-cultural cutting-edge variety show. On hand to help get the party started is platinum selling reggaeton artist Don Omar, who will be performing his new single “Virtual Diva” from upcoming album I-Don, for the first time on television.
Thomas Merton Adult Learning Centre helps students turn their lives around
We do a million different things here’ Thomas Merton Adult Learning Centre helps students turn their lives around
Principal John Quinlan walks into a classroom and asks what the students are learning. The class erupts in laughter. Teacher Patricia McCabe says they are having a grammar lesson.
“English grammar is so difficult,” says Quinlan. The chatter in the class suggests they would agree.
“I can’t even understand it,” he jokes. The class erupts in laughter again.
The laughter is not that of rebellious teenagers mocking their elders, but of students eager to learn.
The class is one of many English as a Second Language (ESL) and Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) classes at the Thomas Merton Adult Learning Centre.
“We do a million different things here,” says Quinlan.
Run by the Halton Catholic District School Board, the centre offers a wide range of programs from an adult high school, ESL/LINC courses, international languages classes, and literacy and basic skills for special needs adults.
The adult high school credit courses are for anyone who hasn’t completed their Ontario Secondary School Diploma. Quinlan calls many of their students “refugees from a traditional school system,” adding they might have had problems with attendance, lateness or discipline.
“We basically run three semesters in one,” says Quinlan. “We teach the kids just like you would in a normal school, except everything is really accelerated.”
Read full article here: OakvilleBeaver.com: News: Story: ‘We do a million different things here’.
ESL program creating bilingual students for over two decades
ESL program creating bilingual students for over two decades
He is a child development major and an English as a Second Language student at Bakersfield College.
“I think the hardest thing about coming to a new country is learning the language,” Jia said.
“I appreciate the ESL program because it gave me a good chance to make a rapid progress on English study, and I really benefited from it so much,” said Jia who won the ESL Department award last year, regardless of the short period of time she has been living in the United States.
The ESL Department was created at Bakersfield College in July of last year.
ESL classes have been taught at BC for more than 20 years. However, they used to be part of the Foreign Language Department and then the English Department until last year when they decided to create their own department to serve the needs of their students.
Jia was one of the many students who benefited from the creation of the ESL Department.
Read full article herer: ESL program creating bilingual students for over two decades - Features.
Korean teachers turn an eye to Kennett’s ESL program
Agroup of English teachers from South Korea has spent the last few weeks in some of Kennett’s schools, exploring the ins and outs of the English as a Second Language program.The five teachers - three at the high school and two at Kennett Middle School - were here as part of a program sponsored by the English Language Institute from the University of Delaware and the board of education in Seoul, Korea.
During their visit, the teachers took classes at the ELI by day and took graduate courses in English as a Second Language at night. The university also provided workshops for teaching methodology.
According to Shinja You, the South Koran government recently initiated a reform in the English language program, with an emphasis on “teaching English in English,” forcing the teachers to adapt to a language immersion program to teach English to all students in the education system.
Read full article via : PA8NewsGroup.com.
Early Launch for Language
Can kids learn anything if they are exposed to a subject for only half an hour a week, with no homework?
When it comes to learning another language, educators say yes.
“The kids getting it for 30 minutes won’t become fluent, but that’s not the point of those programs,” said Julie Sugarman, research associate at the nonprofit Center for Applied Linguistics in the District. “It’s to give them exposure to the language. Just because kids aren’t able to do calculus in sixth grade doesn’t mean we shouldn’t teach math in elementary school.”
Foreign language instruction is considered more important than ever as the nation’s demographics and national security issues change and the world’s economies become intertwined.
Read full article via washingtonpost.com.
Schools chief: Slash English-learner funds
The state schools chief has recommended that the Legislature slash more than $30 million in funding to teach English to students who aren’t fluent, a move that critics warned would further cripple schools that have been forced to shrink their budgets.
In his annual State of Education speech at the Capitol on Thursday, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne said $8.8 million for language instruction is adequate for the upcoming budget year. He added that so far, he believes the state’s new standards to help students become fluent in English are succeeding.
And Horne said students in Grades 3 and 8 should have to pass the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards test before moving up a level. He also wants to expand AIMS to test students on history, which he acknowledged would require more funding.
Read Full Article here…Schools chief: Slash English-learner funds.