C. Patrick Proctor
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Blog
  • Publications
  • Presentations
  • Courses
Follow me on Twitter!

Language immersion, promotion of bilingualism alive in well in Arizona. But for whom?

4/26/2014

0 Comments

 
Local Boston Radio show, Here and Now, recently ran a story on the benefits of language immersion, holding up a program in Anthem, AZ as a model. Children in this Phoenix suburb are immersed in a 1-way Mandarin immersion program, and score equally well on standardized test scores as their non-Mandarin-immersed peers. District officials are interviewed, touting the benefits of learning more than one language. Meanwhile, in Phoenix and elsewhere across Arizona, scores of native Spanish speakers are prohibited from being able to learn in two languages because the anti-bilingual education law is actively enforced. This phenomenon, of who gets to be bilingual and biliterate through schooling, and who doesn't, underscores the realities of discrimination and xenophobia in public education. According to recent census numbers, the population of Anthem is 89.7% White and 2.6% Asian. If Anthem, Arizona were home to a huge influx of Chinese immigrants, what is the likelihood that this Mandarin immersion program would survive?
0 Comments

Institute of Education Sciences releases new practice guide for English learners in grades K - 8 

4/9/2014

14 Comments

 
IES has released a revision to its 2007 practice guide for English learners that takes into account the relative proliferation of research that has been published since 2007. The panel (on which I served) makes 4 recommendations, accompanied by specific "how-to's" that are characterized by instructional examples. The recommendations are as follows:

1.
Teach a set of academic vocabulary words intensively across several days using a variety of instructional activities;
2. Integrate oral and written English language instruction into content-area teaching;
3. Provide regular, structured opportunities to develop written language skills; and
4.
Provide small-group instructional intervention to students struggling in areas of literacy and English language development

The recommendations are rather broad, and are constrained to the extent that the panel was only able to consult findings from studies that conformed to standards for experimental, or quasi-experimental, research set by the What Works Clearinghouse. So there is much more research out there that might help fill out these recommendations (or add to them) that was not included in the report. Still, the focus is squarely on the role of language, paying strong attention to the need to ELs to have opportunities to USE language in spoken and written form and not just listen to it. The guide is freely available here.
14 Comments

    Archives

    March 2021
    January 2020
    October 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    November 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    August 2016
    August 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

    Follow @cpatrickproctor
Proudly powered by Weebly