Translating in Class?

[Anonymous]

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?

[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.

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.

This isn't an immersion school...

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

I see this scenario as a great opportunity for the other kids to learn other very important lessons - a bit of another language (I wish all kids learned another language in elementary school) and a lot about compassion. I hope the poster takes a broader view and considers the positive aspects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

look I know that everyone thinks they're an expert on education because they went to school but nowadays teachers try to accommodate kids needs in different ways. Kids with special needs get accommodations too.

if you don't want your child to be inconvenienced by being in a class with 20 other kids then you should homeschool them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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?

They do. I teach ESOL students and if they are beginners or lower proficiency levels, I pull them for 45 mins- 1 hour per day. This is at the elementary school level. We are not allowed to take them out of math, specials/resource classes or lunch. So I am trying to pull my caseload of appr. 40 students out of a limited time frame (basically only ELA, science or social studies). So even beginner ESOL students are in class for 6 hours per day when they are not with me. We cannot remove them from their English speaking peers all day and it also wouldn't be a good idea on many different levels. In a school with fewer ESOL students, a traveling ESOL teacher might pull them less frequently because they service students in 5+ different schools. in high school, ESOL might be a separate class if there are enough ESOL students in the school but it is only for one class period per day. If parents waive the right to ESOL services, students won't receive any ESOL services at all.

[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.

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.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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?

They do. I teach ESOL students and if they are beginners or lower proficiency levels, I pull them for 45 mins- 1 hour per day. This is at the elementary school level. We are not allowed to take them out of math, specials/resource classes or lunch. So I am trying to pull my caseload of appr. 40 students out of a limited time frame (basically only ELA, science or social studies). So even beginner ESOL students are in class for 6 hours per day when they are not with me. We cannot remove them from their English speaking peers all day and it also wouldn't be a good idea on many different levels. In a school with fewer ESOL students, a traveling ESOL teacher might pull them less frequently because they service students in 5+ different schools. in high school, ESOL might be a separate class if there are enough ESOL students in the school but it is only for one class period per day. If parents waive the right to ESOL services, students won't receive any ESOL services at all.

Another ESOL teacher here. 40? Are you part time? I’m full time and have over 60 students on my caseload. I pull out the newcomers 4-5 x/week for about 45 minutes and then have to service everyone else in a plug-in model in 10 classrooms. There are so many scheduling issues as you’ve pointed out, and we’re expected to just figure it out after everyone else has set their schedules. Then they change their schedules without communicating the change, and so it’s all a domino effect. We’re treated like the red headed step children (no offense to red headed step children) of the school who are prioritized dead last. I’m sure PPs posting here are happy to hear that.

[Anonymous]

PP- I am full-time and our caseload is supposed to be 35-40 students. We are always short on ESOL teachers in our district so by Thanksgiving, I am sure they will take away our newest ESOL teacher to put in another school (they always do this). That means we will have more students on our caseload and then we will have to redo our schedules- ugh! Many of my former ESOL students jump at the chance to be a peer buddy to a newcomer. It makes them feel important and useful. One of my worst behaved former students found his niche as a peer buddy to a scared newcomer. Anyway, I don't encourage teachers to have the peer buddy interpret everything. That is unsustainable in real life. I tell the peer buddy to make sure the student understands important school things like emergency drills, important papers to be signed by a parent and returned, etc. The peer buddy also helps them make friends. It is more difficult to learn the language as the kids get older and if they are only one of a few ESOL students in the school. But the Supreme Court decided on this a long time ago and students in this country have a right to an education. All of them including the ones who use more resources (ESOL, special education, etc).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:


Definitely agree, my great great grandparents came here from Europe not knowing any English. You know what they did? They made an effort and went to english speaking classes at the local church. They went to the library. What they didn’t do was demand that every document and company put out bilingual translations. This is beyond ridiculous and will turn this county into an extension of Mexico and South America.

I don't know about your great-great-grandparents personally, of course. But in general, it's a myth that everybody used to come here and learn English. See, for example, this abstract:

One myth about language and immigration in North America is that nineteenth-century immigrants typically became bilingual almost immediately after arriving, yet little systematic data has been presented for this view. We present quantitative and qualitative evidence about Germans in Wisconsin, where, into the twentieth century, many immigrants and their descendants remained monolingual, decades after immigration had ceased. Even those who claimed to speak English often had limited command. Quantitative data from the 1910 Census, augmented by qualitative evidence from newspapers, court records, literary texts, and other sources, suggest that Germans of various socioeconomic backgrounds often lacked English language skills. German continued to be the primary language in numerous Wisconsin communities, and some second- and third-generation descendants of immigrants were still monolingual as adults. Understanding this history can help inform contemporary debates about language and immigration and help dismantle the myth that successful immigrant groups of yesterday owed their prosperity to an immediate, voluntary shift to English.

You can read the full paper by going here : https://read.dukeupress.edu/american-speech/article/83/3/259/5820/GOOD-Old-Immigrants-of-Yesteryear-Who-Didn-t-Learn and then clicking on the pdf icon.

It's also a myth that people now come here and don't learn English. See here, for example, for Spanish-speakers: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/03/24/a-majority-of-english-speaking-hispanics-in-the-u-s-are-bilingual/ and here for a summary for immigrants from Asian countries:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/08/key-facts-about-asian-americans/

Thank you for sharing this info. Revisionist history is so prevalent in every thread remotely involving ESOL students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.

+100

People say that all the time about kids with disabilities. Then in both cases, they then use fact that someone hasn't developed skills as an excuse for further exclusion.

It's rare to find someone who is xenophobic and not also ableist, or the opposite, unless they're directly impacted by immigration or by disability. Selfish people who can't read research, and fear people who are different from them, generally fear both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

look I know that everyone thinks they're an expert on education because they went to school but nowadays teachers try to accommodate kids needs in different ways. Kids with special needs get accommodations too.

if you don't want your child to be inconvenienced by being in a class with 20 other kids then you should homeschool them.

American kid's should not be inconvenienced by others who came illegally. And yeah if a kid shows up in the 5th grade without a word of English spoken, he/she is a 'new arrival' likely of the kind without documents

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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?

They do. I teach ESOL students and if they are beginners or lower proficiency levels, I pull them for 45 mins- 1 hour per day. This is at the elementary school level. We are not allowed to take them out of math, specials/resource classes or lunch. So I am trying to pull my caseload of appr. 40 students out of a limited time frame (basically only ELA, science or social studies). So even beginner ESOL students are in class for 6 hours per day when they are not with me. We cannot remove them from their English speaking peers all day and it also wouldn't be a good idea on many different levels. In a school with fewer ESOL students, a traveling ESOL teacher might pull them less frequently because they service students in 5+ different schools. in high school, ESOL might be a separate class if there are enough ESOL students in the school but it is only for one class period per day. If parents waive the right to ESOL services, students won't receive any ESOL services at all.

Another ESOL teacher here. 40? Are you part time? I’m full time and have over 60 students on my caseload. I pull out the newcomers 4-5 x/week for about 45 minutes and then have to service everyone else in a plug-in model in 10 classrooms. There are so many scheduling issues as you’ve pointed out, and we’re expected to just figure it out after everyone else has set their schedules. Then they change their schedules without communicating the change, and so it’s all a domino effect. We’re treated like the red headed step children (no offense to red headed step children) of the school who are prioritized dead last. I’m sure PPs posting here are happy to hear that.

Actually its preferable that these children are sent to you as much as possible so as to not slow down the rest of the class.

[Anonymous]

American kid's should not be inconvenienced by others who came illegally. And yeah if a kid shows up in the 5th grade without a word of English spoken, he/she is a 'new arrival' likely of the kind without documents

But the real question is... can they use apostrophes correctly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

American kid's should not be inconvenienced by others who came illegally. And yeah if a kid shows up in the 5th grade without a word of English spoken, he/she is a 'new arrival' likely of the kind without documents

No way is English your native language. This is a simple plural. No possessive in sight.

But speaking as an ESOL teacher in a DCC high school, yes, most kids are here illegally, particularly the ones from Central America. They are illiterate even if they say they attended up to 8th grade in their country. We have "Spanish for Spanish speakers" classes and they do abysmally in reading, writing, grammar, etc., even in Spanish. I minored in Spanish in college and I am constancy correcting their verb tenses when they speak. They are, in effect, hillbillies. These are not diplomats' kids. Many of the HS students have only a year or two of elementary education, and they do mostly drop out. There are not enough resources to teach a 15 year old how to add 3 + 2 (not kidding).