Friday, April 08, 2005

TESOL Highlights Part I Last week I attended the annual TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) convention in San Antonio, Texas. Information overload! I am going to highlight some of the worthwhile elements of the conference in a series of posts. First day I attended a presentation by Anna Chamot of George Washington U.  She and her colleagues had implemented a study in the Arlington Virginia area, where they put to test a program targeting lower-literacy English Language Learners in secondary school. For those not as familiar with the field, immigrant students who come to U.S. schools arrive with a whole variety of levels of literacy in their native language. Some come with little or no schooling in their home country. Some are already more advanced than their American peers. As you might guess, those who are more literate in thier first language when they arrive have an easier time learning English and more rapidly acheive success in core classes. Literacy skill transfer from one language to the next. However, students who lack literacy in their first language not only have to learn the language, but also are learning to read and write and analyze and such. Naturally it takes them longer. Chamot's study showed that when these students were presented and taught literacy concepts and learning strategies in their first language, and then taught the target material in English, they fared better than when they were taught the curriculum strictly in English. They learned the English and attained the necessary literacy skills for academic learning that takes place in high schools. In other words,  there was value in using the first language in order to facilitate the acquisition of the second language and improve  literacy skills. What this would mean in practice in a classroom such as mine is I would, say, spend the first 30 minutes of a 90 minute class period "front-loading" the concepts in Spanish. Once the students had a grasp of what they were supposed to do, then the remaining hour of the class would be taught in English, using the typical kinds of support that ESOL teachers use, and the students would see the connections between what was taught in Spanish and what they are expected to do in English. Unfortunately for my lower-literacy students, they reside in an "English-only" state, in which instruction is not allowed in the first language. Opponenets of any form of bilingual education are afraid to discuss the options such as this because they fear that students are not being taught English. In fact, a program like this one in which the first language is used to support the learning of English, actually have the opposite effect. Students acquire English proficiency more rapidly and more thoroughly. My mother, who is an administrator in a small rural school district in California, reports that dual immersion, an approach where content is taught 50% of the time in each language,  has also proven effective. The students flourish. I think policy-makers at the state and national levels should pay close attention to research that shows the value of the different forms first-language support for English language learners. I for one would like to see our society value not only bilingualism but bi-literacy, and carry students all the way through their k-12 education fluent and academically proficient in two languages. Why not? This would result in more opportunities for the biliterate students and a stronger society. As a presenter at another workshop on the last day of the conference pointed out, the No Child Left Behind Act, which is driving all of education reform right now, requires research-based policy and instructional practice. If good research has demonstrated that first-language literacy instruction and dual immersion help students acquire English more efficiently and more effectively, and help students meet academic standards, then the NCLB demands that those practices be used. 1:32:30 PM    comment []

National Board Certification and Equitable Pay Just over a week ago i completed and submitted by Portfolio for National Board Certification. Should I succeed, I will be one of a minority of NBCT's who teach in high-poverty schools. A commentary in Education Week by Andrew J. Rotherham addresses the issue of unequitable distribution of NBCT's among high- and low-poverty schools. In my state, Georgia, they are considering changing the way they campensate teachers who earn their national certification. As it is now, all NBCT's receive a 10% annual bonus for the life of their certification. The state is considering keeping the same amount for those in low-performing or struggling schools, and dropping the stipend to 3% for those not in low-performing schools, because of the rising cost of paying the increasing numbers of NBCT's. A teacher in Georgia was quoted as saying that as a teacher he was disappointed but that as a citizen he thought this was the right thing to do. I think I can share that sentiment. Although I suppose that's easier for me to say since I am in a low-performing, high-poverty school. I look forward to hearing whether I succeeded in getting my national certification in Novemver (yes, it takes a long time to hear). I do think teacher's who prove their worth ought to be rewarded, and that those of us who teach in low-performing areas ought to be paid according to the job that we are charged with--we have a more difficult task than our peers in higher-income and higher-performing schools. They are taking kids from point X to point Y. Wea are having to take many kids from point A or B to point Y. Both the state and federal governments ought to find ways to increase pay for those of us who choose to work in these areas, National Board Certified or not. 12:10:07 PM    comment []