Translating in Class?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exactly. The ESOL teacher will test her in English and most likely test her 1st language literacy too. By 5th grade, this student is mostly likely literate in Spanish barring extreme circumstances. BTW- There is no official language of the U.S.

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.

that has been my consistent and constant observation as well. it's frankly quite a dismal situation here.

[Anonymous]

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.

I'm a linguistic academically and for my career, and I concur with what the "MCPS teacher" wrote.

As an aside, I have noticed you posting a lot with the same pattern of attacking semantics or the actual person than responding to what that individual actually wrote in his/her key point(s).
Plus, didn't someone accuse you of reporting for deletion lots of posts today.
Not the best way to have a real discussion here.

[Anonymous]

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.

I'm a linguistic academically and for my career, and I concur with what the "MCPS teacher" wrote.

As an aside, I have noticed you posting a lot with the same pattern of attacking semantics or the actual person than responding to what that individual actually wrote in his/her key point(s).
Plus, didn't someone accuse you of reporting for deletion lots of posts today.
Not the best way to have a real discussion here.

NP. What's your point? You also think we should just not educate these children who come from other countries? That will be best for our society? What if we said the same for children with special needs since they require more teacher attention and different strategies? If you don't feel the same way about both groups then you're just xenophobic. That is my key point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ESOL teacher here. In nine years of teaching, I've only come across two students older than nine years old who were illiterate. One of them ended up with an IEP and the other had stopped going to school in first grade because the teachers mocked their native language. I would venture that some of the students parents are illiterate in their own language because they often call to ask about the forms I send home in Spanish. Many of my students' parents speak Spanish as their second language since there are many dialects in Central and South America.

Another ESOL teacher here. I’m surprised. I teach HS and have had many students who are illiterate and are teenagers. It’s not that unusual.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:According to PARCC and MAP proficiency scores half of our ES and MS students are indeed, illiterate.

touche

[Anonymous]

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.

I'm a linguistic academically and for my career, and I concur with what the "MCPS teacher" wrote.

As an aside, I have noticed you posting a lot with the same pattern of attacking semantics or the actual person than responding to what that individual actually wrote in his/her key point(s).
Plus, didn't someone accuse you of reporting for deletion lots of posts today.
Not the best way to have a real discussion here.

It's a linguist, not a 'linguistic'. What language are you 'linguistic academically' in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Exactly. The ESOL teacher will test her in English and most likely test her 1st language literacy too. By 5th grade, this student is mostly likely literate in Spanish barring extreme circumstances. BTW- There is no official language of the U.S.

Who gives a shit if there isn’t an “official” language of the US. Schools are taught in English you twit.

[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.

+1. My kid’s class has a diplomat’s kid from Japan who barely speaks any English. Is that acceptable to the oP because it’s not Spanish? I’m sure in two months that kid will be keeping up just fine in English

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exactly. The ESOL teacher will test her in English and most likely test her 1st language literacy too. By 5th grade, this student is mostly likely literate in Spanish barring extreme circumstances. BTW- There is no official language of the U.S.

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.

I second this. Teachers absolutely have to try their best, and I'm hopeful this teacher is, but that does not mean translating lessons. All that does is slow down learning time for everyone else.

Agree. I just don’t get liberal views on helping one single person and screwing 25 others over. What a waste of class time.

[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.

+1. My kid’s class has a diplomat’s kid from Japan who barely speaks any English. Is that acceptable to the oP because it’s not Spanish? I’m sure in two months that kid will be keeping up just fine in English

Asian ESOL students average less than a year in ESOL. The average Hispanic ESOL is 3.5 years. Big difference. Asian families value education.

[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.

I'm a linguistic academically and for my career, and I concur with what the "MCPS teacher" wrote.

As an aside, I have noticed you posting a lot with the same pattern of attacking semantics or the actual person than responding to what that individual actually wrote in his/her key point(s).
Plus, didn't someone accuse you of reporting for deletion lots of posts today.
Not the best way to have a real discussion here.

It's a linguist, not a 'linguistic'. What language are you 'linguistic academically' in?

there you go again! looks like you're 50% of the posts on this thread. full of excuses and attempted diversions.

[Anonymous]

Still waiting to see these links to ESOL type programs in other countries that have massive illegal immigration. Heck, even ones that don’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is DC, OP. Kids at our elementary school speak 22 different languages. Alice Deal has students speak in 15 different languages for the 8th grade International Baccalaureate promotion ceremony. It was wonderful and the experience enhances learning for everyone. No one is held back by being exposed to children who speak other languages. This is a major international city for crying out loud. This is one pf the best things about living here.

The schools have pull outs for ESL, and the preK teachers say within 30 days the new students can follow in class and at 90 days they are more fluent than their parents.

The kid isn’t in PreK and the rich IB schools are not the same as poor Spanish speaking kids coming in on FARMS with zero parent involvement. How can you not see that?

Parent involvement is not a function of household income. Low-income parents love their children just as much as affluent parents love their children. I can't believe I have to say that.

There’s no use trying to argue with white supremacists.

[Anonymous]

This happened in DC's class at a school in VA. I wasn't pleased at all. It wastes class time and yes, the kid translated everything the teacher said (not just emergency info as someone eluded to upthread). This method isn't fair to either kid (why would a child be tasked with instruction of concepts they are learning themselves?!?)

Back in my day, ESOL was a separate set of classes where those who don't speak English get sent to separate classrooms. Why don't they still do that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exactly. The ESOL teacher will test her in English and most likely test her 1st language literacy too. By 5th grade, this student is mostly likely literate in Spanish barring extreme circumstances. BTW- There is no official language of the U.S.

Who gives a shit if there isn’t an “official” language of the US. Schools are taught in English you twit.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/admissions/immersion.aspx

MCPS offers Spanish, French, and Chinese elementary immersion programs at seven schools. Some immersion programs are based on geographic location and/or give preference to local school students. Some programs are total immersion, meaning all core subjects are taught in the target language, while others are only partial immersion.