Translating in Class?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My bilingual child has a child in her class who doesn’t speak English. I’m thrilled about it because it gives my daughter a chance to practice her second language, be a helper, and get positive attention for knowing/using her second language (she’s reluctant sometimes). All of the kids pitch in to try to help. Terrible thing for kids to put their own stuff aside to help someone else, right?

Good for you. Others don't want their classroom to slow down for this nonsense.

+1

I feel so bad for teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Say all you want, folks, but this is a VERY inefficient use of time. If one child requires that much assistance, s/he is not in the right setting.

While we preach about least restrictive environments, the other children in the class are losing instructional time. Add up the minutes.

ESOL classes are leveled. If a child doesn't know any English, s/he is not mainstreamed in the core content areas. Electives, like PE and art, can more easily accommodate second language learners. But core subjects that are tested are high-stakes.

What about reading groups in this case? Understanding the nuances of a text - both fiction and non-fiction - isn't easy if the language is unknown to the reader.

absolutely none of that is true at least not an mcps I know they have a Mets class for kids who have not had any kind of formal education or severe gaps and their education. Other than that they are mainstreamed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Say all you want, folks, but this is a VERY inefficient use of time. If one child requires that much assistance, s/he is not in the right setting.

While we preach about least restrictive environments, the other children in the class are losing instructional time. Add up the minutes.

ESOL classes are leveled. If a child doesn't know any English, s/he is not mainstreamed in the core content areas. Electives, like PE and art, can more easily accommodate second language learners. But core subjects that are tested are high-stakes.

What about reading groups in this case? Understanding the nuances of a text - both fiction and non-fiction - isn't easy if the language is unknown to the reader.

absolutely none of that is true at least not an mcps I know they have a Mets class for kids who have not had any kind of formal education or severe gaps and their education. Other than that they are mainstreamed

I think this is an issue of not specifying age/grade. In HS they may not be mainstreamed in the core content areas, but in elementary they are. The original post is about a 5th grader, so presumably most people are talking about elementary. But I do believe they are not just dropped into HS English and history classes. They take an ESL version. But that’s not true for 5th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our ES has had several students from upper middle class, professional families immigrate over the summer in the past and arrive speaking nothing but Chinese, Russian, or Korean. There are some other students that speak these languages and sometimes yes, the teacher will ask them to translate important directions or questions for the student so they aren't totally lost. This usually lasts about a third of the school year, then they stop needing it, and by a year later they are on or above grade level and you can't tell they ever didn't speak English. So no, this phenomenon is not just an "illegal immigrant" (code: poor Hispanic) thing. Children's brains have an amazing capacity for language.

+100 OP you never had a kid move to your area from a foreign country when you were a kid? I always thought it was fun. This is not a new phenomenon. All kids are required to be in school by law. Relax. Maybe your kid can learn something from this experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

MCPS teacher here, most times these kids are not literate in Spanish because they come from poor countries seeking a better life. Which means their families are barely literate and they often have had little to no formal education in their own language. Similar to poor minority children here who speak broken english due to their circumstances. The illegal immigrants coming here have no formal education, many times it’s generationally. It’s not the legal immigrants who are sucking up ESOL services because the legal ones usually have had enough formal education to go through the US legal process by-themselves or with a company. Many legal immigrants are white collar workers. Let’s not pretend that these children and their families are literate. OP, do something now, document everything and push the principal and teacher to change their practices. If not go up the email chain. MCPS will usually create a policy in the background for professional staff in the background, even if you think it’s rolling along slow.

Posting-in-bold-MCPS-teacher PP, I think it's particularly disturbing that you as a teacher characterize the language spoken by "poor minority children" (I'm assuming that you mean poor US-born black children?) as "broken English". It's not. "Broken English", charitably, is English spoken by a non-native speaker. But poor-US-born black children children are native English speakers. It's just that the version of English they speak isn't Standard American English.

If you're interested, here is a good piece you could read that addresses the issue from both a linguistic and a teaching perspective:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/04/the-code-switcher/554099/

If you're not interested, of course, then you're not interested.

Code-switching is nothing new. You act as if the PP has no clue. As as an ELA teacher, I've been dealing with dialects of all kinds for over 20 years.

the difference? If proper English isn't supported at home (much like any other language learned), transference doesn't occur.

METS kids are illiterate in their own language, as they have never received formal schooling. So newly arrived METS kids are, for the most part, eager to learn, as there's more opportunity here. Furthermore, they are in small, contained classrooms with trained teachers who can introduce foundational skills and build from there.

African American "ebonics" (a term which is no longer used) is a dialect that has become acceptable in the U. S. However, similar to other countries, once you're out of your "area," the standard language - and NOT the dialect - is used. I can't tell you how often I slipped back into the dialect while traveling throughout my parents' home country. And I was called on it immediately.

We just have more patience in the U.S., which makes it more difficult to code-switch. Furthermore, b/c we've become lazy with grammar, most kids don't understand syntax in standard English. My daughter learned more about language in her Italian and Latin classes, as she certainly wasn't studying grammar in her English classes.

Not all METS kids are completely illiterate or have never attended school. Some have primary education and may know the alphabet and numbers in their home language. They might even have a small pool of sight words and be able to write their name. Quite a few had oral formal education, but no opportunity to pick up a pencil.

As you said, they are mostly eager to learn. Once you adjust for trauma, they often show more growth than native born students.

OK - So how would you describe an American-born kid - let's say age 14- who attended some school and who may know the alphabet and numbers? Would you describe him/her as literate?

With the push from the state to ensure kids are reading complex texts and taking advanced courses, METS kids are at a disadvantage b/c of academic gaps and emotional trauma.

So yes, I'd say they are illiterate. This isn't to say they can't (and won't ever) catch up. But it will take longer to ensure they master benchmarks, and that means more resources shifting toward the ESOL classroom.

So when schools receive their allocation, it's from a big pot that can oftentimes be too small to meet the needs of a growing population. And that means everyone is affected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Say all you want, folks, but this is a VERY inefficient use of time. If one child requires that much assistance, s/he is not in the right setting.

While we preach about least restrictive environments, the other children in the class are losing instructional time. Add up the minutes.

ESOL classes are leveled. If a child doesn't know any English, s/he is not mainstreamed in the core content areas. Electives, like PE and art, can more easily accommodate second language learners. But core subjects that are tested are high-stakes.

What about reading groups in this case? Understanding the nuances of a text - both fiction and non-fiction - isn't easy if the language is unknown to the reader.

absolutely none of that is true at least not an mcps I know they have a Mets class for kids who have not had any kind of formal education or severe gaps and their education. Other than that they are mainstreamed

I can't even understand what you've written!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Say all you want, folks, but this is a VERY inefficient use of time. If one child requires that much assistance, s/he is not in the right setting.

While we preach about least restrictive environments, the other children in the class are losing instructional time. Add up the minutes.

ESOL classes are leveled. If a child doesn't know any English, s/he is not mainstreamed in the core content areas. Electives, like PE and art, can more easily accommodate second language learners. But core subjects that are tested are high-stakes.

What about reading groups in this case? Understanding the nuances of a text - both fiction and non-fiction - isn't easy if the language is unknown to the reader.

absolutely none of that is true at least not an mcps I know they have a Mets class for kids who have not had any kind of formal education or severe gaps and their education. Other than that they are mainstreamed

Read - https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/esol/instruction/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our ES has had several students from upper middle class, professional families immigrate over the summer in the past and arrive speaking nothing but Chinese, Russian, or Korean. There are some other students that speak these languages and sometimes yes, the teacher will ask them to translate important directions or questions for the student so they aren't totally lost. This usually lasts about a third of the school year, then they stop needing it, and by a year later they are on or above grade level and you can't tell they ever didn't speak English. So no, this phenomenon is not just an "illegal immigrant" (code: poor Hispanic) thing. Children's brains have an amazing capacity for language.

+100 OP you never had a kid move to your area from a foreign country when you were a kid? I always thought it was fun. This is not a new phenomenon. All kids are required to be in school by law. Relax. Maybe your kid can learn something from this experience.

Pretty sure this isn't even close to the same situation. And no, I never had a student enter any of my classes as a complete non-speaking student that needed complete translation when I was growing up. The fact that you think everyone has is very very strange.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our ES has had several students from upper middle class, professional families immigrate over the summer in the past and arrive speaking nothing but Chinese, Russian, or Korean. There are some other students that speak these languages and sometimes yes, the teacher will ask them to translate important directions or questions for the student so they aren't totally lost. This usually lasts about a third of the school year, then they stop needing it, and by a year later they are on or above grade level and you can't tell they ever didn't speak English. So no, this phenomenon is not just an "illegal immigrant" (code: poor Hispanic) thing. Children's brains have an amazing capacity for language.

+100 OP you never had a kid move to your area from a foreign country when you were a kid? I always thought it was fun. This is not a new phenomenon. All kids are required to be in school by law. Relax. Maybe your kid can learn something from this experience.

Pretty sure this isn't even close to the same situation. And no, I never had a student enter any of my classes as a complete non-speaking student that needed complete translation when I was growing up. The fact that you think everyone has is very very strange.

DP. Why strange? It's not so common that it's happened to everybody, but it's not that rare, either. I was in several classes where this happened, in the 1970s and 1980s.

[Anonymous]

OP - I hope the child has two parents who are helping her/him with this new experience. No amount of aides or translating or buddies will achieve what involved and active parents will for this child's schooling and english skills development.

[Anonymous]

50 percent of the kids at the W schools would need to be sent home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP - I hope the child has two parents who are helping her/him with this new experience. No amount of aides or translating or buddies will achieve what involved and active parents will for this child's schooling and english skills development.

most likely not

There's a difference between one ESOL child being absorbed into a gen ed classroom vs. the children of diplomats entering a school as a cohort.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP - I hope the child has two parents who are helping her/him with this new experience. No amount of aides or translating or buddies will achieve what involved and active parents will for this child's schooling and english skills development.

most likely not

There's a difference between one ESOL child being absorbed into a gen ed classroom vs. the children of diplomats entering a school as a cohort.

The ONLY thing you know about this girl is that she is 11 and Spanish dominant. Not whether she also speaks Arabic or French. Not whether she has two parents at home. Nothing.

Diplomats' kids don't enter school as a cohort, by the way. Or at least not exclusively.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP - I hope the child has two parents who are helping her/him with this new experience. No amount of aides or translating or buddies will achieve what involved and active parents will for this child's schooling and english skills development.

most likely not

There's a difference between one ESOL child being absorbed into a gen ed classroom vs. the children of diplomats entering a school as a cohort.

Yes, you're right. It's much easier to adjust to one child than a large group of children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter just told me that her 5th grade class has a new child that only speaks Spanish. There is another child in the class that is kinda bilingual. The teacher is using google translator to talk to her directly and she says after a few sentences when speaking to the whole class, she pauses so the other bilingual girl can translate to her the same few sentences, and then this continues every few sentences. Does this truly happen in other schools? Who just sends a 5th grader into a school, that doesn't know any English? Does the teacher have to continue this bilingual lessons. It must eat up so much time.

OMG. I was that kid. Except I was in 6th grade and had to learn Japanese. You must not get out much.