Bugg Stories vol. 9

there's been a whole is a bright middle school you can get a little spanish and kurdish along with the english being spoken of the nearly one thousand students here one hundred sixty seven on rolled in english as a second language classes i can't tell you how many times people come to me and they say you're teaching esl and you work with kids from fifteen different language groups here at night how to use big are those lines which is susan howell is right esl teacher adviser i don't speak all those languages this is not a bilingual program metro nationals esl program is exactly that it's a much as a second language is not a bilingual program we teach english un english right mitchell employs one spanish translator and for esl teachers along with susan helper this is the first year for the esl program it right is naming six wide eyed fifth grader sit around a table staring at their teacher and a picture book with simple sentences she holds

my years ago an esl started metro teachers found themselves instructing mostly the children for professors and students at vanderbilt the day the vix is completely different whenever there is chaos in the world of metro will eventually see it in the school's children from countries facing political or economic turmoil the first wave maybe sons and daughters are professionals followed by waves of refugee children or vice versa when they come to america these children are placed in great levels according to their age what esl teachers like jenna turner find isn't bearing level of ability we have kids you can and they can read a page out of that but not say you what it means that they can name carlo the words on the page and then we had kids who can maintain their starting at ground zero again and within one class you have that you have all these kids together when beginners class it took two weeks for the esl classes at right to get underway that's because the sheer numbers at the school nine ninety six at last

official count created a logistical nightmare trying to pull the esl students out of wanted to appropriate classes a day while grouping them any esl classes by age and ability some of these children seven eighth graders even have never been to school and art whether it in their own language senator you can tell the biggest difference in a child who can read and write in her first language and child who has had no reading and writing experience the child who's had the experience and reason writes in her first line that she will take off in english because all of that is familiar the symbols might be different everything might be different it's familiar to her to read even if you know for us it's reading left or right in arabic it's reading right to left but still the whole process of reading and writing in copying things all of that's familiar even if it's completely different system they still do so much better even a child with a seemingly full command of the english language could be filling the cards have been a real interesting case for us because they they broke every rule we ever had esl teacher

adviser susan how our weekend and here they're speaking english like americans six years later they're still raining first grade reading level maybe second it's a learning curve for teachers and write little friend reynolds admits she didn't understand esl she thought it would be a school within the school she certainly didn't expect this in her eighth grade english class hours teaching a spelling lesson and i've gone through the whole lesson will excite him just keep an irritating in them getting them to respond in near camp or hindi but this was sued and didn't say anything is a smiling the whole time she gave of the assignments and the smiling boy raised his hand an essay i said is there a problem in dc speaking a really nice and he just started crying his eyes his way although water i was in the worst excesses will scratch with what i'm talking about students who speak not one word of english i mean

how can i how can i teach them teacher training didn't cover this in the course room in another part a bright middle school students of all cultures learn a song in spanish in english next week they'll learn in kurdish and arabic proof that this will be a year of the learning curve for everybody right for national public radio nice the poem head and no