The increasing number of non-English speaking students in Cullman County Schools is a hot-button political issue for many, but becoming angry won’t solve problems that arise when immigrant students can’t communicate with their teachers, said Jo Gusman, spokeswoman for New Horizons In Education, Inc., an educational consulting firm.
Gusman said Alabama has one of the largest percentages of English Language Learners nationwide, and school officials can expect a continued increase in the number of non-English speaking students. There are 400 ELL students of the total 10,000 students enrolled in Cullman County Schools, and schools fail to meet statewide Adequate Yearly Progress standards if a group of students falls behind on state student achievement assessments.
Improving the classroom experience for those students is the only practical solution, Gusman said.
“We have to put our energy into things we can control,” she said.
Cullman County Schools Federal Programs Coordinator Don McPherson agreed, and said the government requires local schools to include students who don’t speak English in a classroom setting with English speaking students.
“The Federal Government has told us, whether we like it or not, they’re here and we have to educate them,” he said. “Now, I might not agree with that, but we have to comply with federal law.”
Cullman County teachers attended a presentation on improving education for English Language Learners at Fairview High School’s Auditorium Tuesday.
Growing up in a Spanish-speaking farm family, Gusman said she experienced challenges faced by non-English speakers in the United States. She began her teaching career in 1974 as a bilingual instructional assistant, and later attended California State University Sacramento, where she earned her bilingual cross-cultural teaching credentials and master’s degree. In 1981, she began working in a multilingual setting at a Newcomer School with immigrant kindergarten through eighth-grade students. She taught at the school for a decade.
Gusman said when she started teaching at the Newcomer School, she was presented a list of the names of students in her class, and 12 to 15 different languages were also listed.
“I remember looking at that list, and I thought ‘I’m a college graduate and I didn’t even know these were languages,” she said.
Most teachers in attendance raised their hands when Gusman asked how many had students in class whose primary language is Spanish. Only a fraction raised their hands when she asked how many could communicate with those students in the students’ first language. She said non-English speaking students can develop conversation fluency in English in two to five years, but typically take four to seven years to develop more technical, academic language.
Gusman said most states are conducting “endorsement programs,” which she described as fast-paced courses designed to help teachers work with immigrant students. The programs contain a large amount of information, and Gusman said teachers should adopt a “less is more” philosophy when dealing with ELL students.
Suggestions offered by New Horizons In Education to improve learning for ELL students include incorporating songs, raps, riddles, jokes or poems and beginning a lesson with a context-filled experience before decoding text.
“We have to educate these people,” McPherson said. “If you ever want to be mad at somebody for why they’re here, be mad at their parents. These children didn’t decide to be here. But if you’ve ever been to Mexico, you’ll see why they want to come here.”
Top Stories
February 20, 2007
Non English-speaking students on the rise
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