"Unless they live in a caves with no TV, there is simply no way normal kids can avoid acquiring English--with time."
True, although ... in our ESL program, and these weren't kids (well, you know what I mean, undergrad age), but the biggest blockade to their English proficiency was ghettoization. Most of our students lived in one dorm, and outside class, they hung around solely with others of the same language group, and never spoke English. So the Koreans hung around just with Koreans and spoke exclusively Korean, and so forth. Even the few students who didn't live in the dorm for the most part rented apartments with other students from the same language group and we saw the same thing. They watched television, but that's passive, and it doesn't substitute for actually communicating in the target language.
At my school, ESL students are now required to take both the ELA test and the NYSESLAT (the ESL test). Is this common?
There are so many problems with this new testing requirement, I am amazed more people aren't up in arms. Here are a few that come to mind:
1. Glossaries. Students may use word-for-word glossaries, *not* dictionaries, during the ELA test. Unfortunately, word-for-word glossaries do not exist except at the most basic levels. There is too much idiom, too many variations of meaning. Any good glossary carries attributes of a dictionary, providing clues to the meanings of words in various contexts. Moreover, glossaries are not available in all languages, and their quality varies. To make matters worse, many students do not read in their native language, and could not use a glossary if they had one.
2. We are not just talking about two exams a year. There are interim assessments every 6(?) weeks. Add to that the one-on-one reading and writing assessments, administered during class time, and you could easily spend the year testing and preparing for tests.
3. Students with one year in the U.S. are rarely prepared to pass the ELA exam. Those who can pass it probably have a background in English. The leap from a five-year exemption to one year is ridiculous.
4. ESL teachers are discouraged from actually teaching English. They were before, with whole language and all, but now the English language is perceived as a distraction from the matter at hand. We simply don't got time for petty matters such as the third person singular of the verb "to have." Forget about the concept of third person singular.
5. What are the consequences of failing this test? Students in the U.S. for three years or less are supposedly exempt from promotional criteria. So, if they fail the test, they still go on to the next grade, right? Are the schools the only ones to suffer material consequences?
6. If parents understood what was going on, they'd likely be up in arms over it. Instead, many of them sign their kids up for all the afterschool test prep programs available. Kids are forced to forgo extracurricular activities so they can prepare for the test.
The insanity of this new measure is boggling. Granted, maybe five years is too long for exemption from regular requirements. As NYC Educator suggested, maybe three would be more appropriate. And maybe ESL teachers should have room to teach English. If the ESL program needs reworking, teachers should be involved, and the changes should be deep. Slapping a new test on kids with a year in the U.S. does nothing to solve the problem.
I agree with both of you. ESL classes are excellent locales for communicating in the target language, and it appears the testing requirements preclude that in high school, and now in elementary school too.
My students are also required to take the NYCESLAT test (as well as the Regents exam).
Unfortunately, I think that the powers that orchestrated the NCLB rules regarding testing really intended to use the assessments to punish schools. Hence, testing ELLs under unfair circumstances would only serve that purpose well.
Sorry to be so cynical, but dang if it doesn't feel that way!
Having English teted each year as required under NCLB is an attempt to force certain communities in the United States into the mainstream and to become more 'American.'
If we graduate students from a government school without them having basic English proficiency, then we are allowing a balkanization within our country that lead-always leads-to strife and blood in the streets.
Any time one community in a country has separated itself from the whole and was allowed to separate, widespread death follows. All one ha to do is do a cursory read of history to see that.
"ESL teachers are discouraged from actually teaching English."
Uhm, 'scuse me? What, then, do you teach?
And see my post on bilingual education.
RWP,
I think the reference is to test-prep in lieu of English instruction. While I'm not a big fan of your reference to"leftists" (I prefer to attribute the deterioration of bilingual education to idiocy, which to my mind is the exclusive province of neither the left nor the right), I agree with you about bilingual ed., and its misuse. A great book on the topic of bilingual ed. as it can and should be used is Mirror of Language by Kenji Hakuta.
My 5th grade daughter is in a "dual-language" program, so named to avoid the stigma now associated with "bilingual education." She's been there since first grade and is now speaks Spanish fluently.
Miller,
While I don't see widespread death as an inevitable consequence of multiple languages (Spanish is now spoken by 20% of our population, German was once so popular that John Adams was unable to muster sufficient support to make
English the official language, and I'd argue that despite that ,American English has become the most successful language in the history of the world), I'm a very strong advocate of teaching English to newcomers.
However, NCLB is precluding me from achieving that goal in some cases. I'd also argue that passing the English Regents exam does not indicate fluency, though I don't know enough about the elementary ELA exams to venture an opinion.
One problem here is that ESL is not considered a "content area," so that schools and regions sometimes lack a clear sense of what the students should be learning. There's more focus on teaching models than on the material itself.
Scores not up to par? Make sure the teachers are using the workshop model and differentiating, while also doubling and tripling the time spent on test prep! That seems to be one of the unspoken long-winded mottos.
If instead we defined what the students were supposed to learn (basic vocab and grammar principles, for inatance), then we could have a more coherent curriculum. Also, we could address discrepancies between the curriculum and the test. We could say, "How can you test second-year students on X, Y, and Z, when they've only learned N, O, and P?" Without a curriculum, there's no discrepancy to address; it all gets lost in the vagueness. I suspect a general lack of curriculum accounted in part for the lack of protest regarding the new ELA testing requirement.
Tests are no substitute for curriculum. I don't suggest a rigid curriculum with scripts and "Skilltivities" (to quote one of Kaplan's worst neologisms); I mean something basic that the teachers can supplement. Maybe even a textbook, provided it's high quality and only constitutes part of the curriculum. Now, wouldn't that be nice?
NYCE,
"I prefer to attribute the deterioration of bilingual education to idiocy, which to my mind is the exclusive province of neither the left nor the right."
While one can be on the left politically and see idiotic teaching "theories" for what they are (as you admirably do), you must admit that those espousing these "progressive education" policies are almost exclusively leftists, with many very far to the left at that.
I think they're closer to the moon than the left, and very distant from any classroom I've ever seen. The virulently anti-labor Bloomberg and Klein, despite past affiliations, are prominent exceptions to your rule.
I occasionally do group work, pair work and things that approximate the "workshop model." However, it's my class, I'm in control, and every one of my kids knows it. There is no group work where there's no self-control and discipline, and I need to decide whether or not kids can handle that sort of thing.
What's idiotic, in my view, is to take any methodology and claim it supersedes all others, as various administrators have done every September since I began teaching.
The very best teachers I ever had relied on lecture, and they were brilliant. They simply knew the material backwards and forward, could defend their ideas, and could entertain new ones from students. I studied a lot of literature, so I'm not talking about students who questioned whether or not two plus two was four.
Amen, NYCE, amen.
Despite any anti-unionism, though, I would argue that Bloomy is a dyed-in-the-wool nanny-state limousine (add your own cliché here) liberal. I know little of Klein's politics, though I will note that he did serve in Clinton's Justice Department.
I'd say anti-unionism ought to disqualify you from the liberal bandwagon, such as it may be. I'll have to consult with my acquaintances in the left-wing cabal (we can't afford a vast conspiracy just yet).
There's no way anyone gets elected in NYC (let alone the state) while espousing a right-wing social agenda. But I'm pro-labor, pro-teacher, and pro-union, and I will never, ever vote for anyone who isn't, not even for dog-catcher.
Well, maybe for dog-catcher. But only if I get to watch them chase dogs.
In response to AAT's earlier questions:
Those interim assessments of highly questionable utility are three times a year (October, December, and April), at least for ELA. (My kids don't seem to have taken a math one yet.)
Taking both the NYSESLAT and the ELA is now a statewide requirement for all the ELLs in grades 3-8 who've been here for more than a year. (See http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/osa/ny...memo8-4-06.htm)
. So it's definitely not just your school.
And the issue of kids who were born in the US being in stuck in ESL for years? A HUGE one at TMS. Frustrating and depressing, and an awful lot of buck-passing goes on. And as AAT points out, if we weren't so worried about getting in trouble for giving explicit grammar instruction, then things might be a little better.
I assume you're referring to the University of Iowa Workshop Model. Like constructivism, it has its place, when done correctly. Also like constructivism, it's overused -- and more often than not, abused.
I couldn't tell you where it comes from. But it's been presented to us as though it were the Ten Commandments.
I think different people can teach differently, just as different people write and speak differently. But each year, someone stands in front of us and declares this is the way everything must be done, and everything they told us the previous year was nonsense.
Then, perhaps ten years later, they rename and repackage the same concepts they'd categorically rejected and declare we cannot get by without them.
I have been teaching for way more than 20 years, and I recall the ESL program once being successful, and way better than the bilingual classes.
My students were reading and writing in English within months of their arrival. Then either the BoE or Districts changed the program, and I am not seeing the improvement I used to.
Over 10 years ago, before the rule changes, we had a "Welcome Class" that was devised by our ESL teacher. She kept the newly-arrived students for 2 periods and the results were fantastic. When she was forced to give it up to meet the new mandates, she found herself teaching
Open Court. The results were not the same, and has not been the same since.
I don't exactly know what the "old timers" did in their ESL classes, but the results were amazing and in a very short time period. However, I do not think the students would have been ready for the Citywide tests after one year. Three years seemed fair.
Commenting by HaloScan
