What are the differences in ESL instruction and Bilingual Education?
· ESL is very different from Bilingual Education. Bilingual Education teaches students in both their primary language and English. ESL programs use English as the language of instruction to teach students.

Why should the state use its resources to support programs for Limited English Proficient students?
· It’s the law. Federal law prohibits the denial of equal educational opportunities by recipients of federal funds (i.e., the State and local school systems) on the basis of an individual’s national origin.
· The North Carolina Supreme Court recently interpreted the North Carolina Constitution to require that every child receive a sound basic education, sufficient to provide the child with the ability to read, write and speak the English language. LEP students who do not have access to appropriate ESL instruction are unconstitutionally denied a sound basic education.
· The State has adopted testing policies under the ABC’s in Public Education Program that require LEP students to be included in the state testing and accountability program within two years of their entrance into the North Carolina educational system. ESL instruction will help LEP students' understanding of the curriculum and thereby improve their performance on state tests.
· The dramatic increase in the number of LEP students highlights the necessity for schools to have adequately staffed ESL programs and training for mainstream teachers. Such support permits students learning English to function at a higher level in the classroom and thus increases the amount of time the classroom teacher can devote to teaching the curriculum. Overall student achievement is increased, as is parental support.
· http://www.intrex.net/cartesol/lepfinal.htm

What are some ways to effectively communicate with the parents of an ESL student?
    Communicating effectively with the parents of an ESL student is very important to the student’s progression of learning. “Many ESL teachers are from a cultural environment where the school is quite basic to life, as in the U.S., where the school was often a community center. However, many cultures around the world do not associate school with community but often with oppression, governmental authority and so forth; ESL teachers must be aware of this. It may be very difficult to encourage some parents to attend functions at the school even when language barriers are not a factor.”

• Hold an early event, such as a picnic for the students and families at a local park not associated with the school. Parents of previous ESL students can be invited so that non-English-speaking parents will have others to interact with than just the teacher and their own child or children.
• Visit homes of students. “The ESL teachers can make this a priority for any reticent parents who do not attend functions of their children. We realize that this requires extra, non-school time, a constraint for many ESL teachers. However, the results can lead to heritage language support and successful parental programs. For a few hours of organizational strategizing and then a social "event" with the ESL students and parents in an off campus location, many teachers have found rewards of lasting friendships with parents who will return to the ESL classroom and present information about their own heritage language even after their own children have left the school."
• Invite parents to the classroom to observe their children. “Many parents are fearful of interfering in their children's education or do not come to school because they are afraid that they will appear strange to the peers of their children. A system of rotating visits from all students' available family can help to overcome this fear. When the parents are specifically and individually issued an invitation to the class, and know that this is a part of the education for all the children, they will usually make efforts to attend. When children see that their peers and teachers value their parents' presence at the school, even though their parents may appear "different" or not speak English, they will realize that their parents are respected individuals and will continue to give respect to them as well outside the classroom.”
• It is important to build relationships with the parents individually.  “Some parents equate language learning with grammar exercises and homework papers parsing sentences and memorizing vocabulary. As most professionals use a more thematic, task-based or functional approach to teaching ESL, we must reassure the parents that their children are progressing despite the lack of copious grammar exercises. It may prove fruitful to spend one hour with parents before a school event demonstrating a typical language class where the parents are asked to be the "students." The teacher should make every effort to have the "class" as near to how he or she teaches the children with additional visuals to make the exercises age appropriate for the parents. An overview of what has been learned, with plenty of visuals, can help parents realize that their children are, in fact, learning without the grammar exercises they may believe to be language. Usually the parents enjoy the "language" class using Total Physical Response (TPR) or other methods and may even begin to think about enrolling in adult ESL classes themselves.
• It may be necessary to have translation in parental meetings. Teachers' suggestion--use a school counselor or other adult rather than a child of some of the parents. If that is not possible, then try to use an older sibling rather than the child enrolled within the actual class, since this role reversal places the parents in a difficult position in front of the teacher. In many cultures, such a loss of social status or "face" is difficult to overcome when the teachers wishes to have further access to the parents.”
• http://iteslj.org/Articles/Anderson-HeritageLanguage.html

• From 1980 to 1990, the U.S. Census Bureau found that the ESL population grew 26 percent nationwide but 170 percent in North Carolina. This statistic gives North Carolina the fastest-growing ESL population in the Southeast. http://www.unc.edu/dth/archives/1998/12/120198/loc8.html
• NC has the third fastest growing Hispanic population in the United States. According to a US Census projection for the Hispanic population increase between 1990 and 1999 is 128.9%.  http://www.census.gov/population/estimates/state/rank/hisp.txt
• According to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction there were a total of 28,580 students identified as needing English as a Second Language (ESL) instruction for the academic year 1997-98. This compares with 12,408 students in 1993-94. As long as North Carolina is an attractive location for jobs and business the number of LEP students will increase. http://www.stanford.edu/~hakuta/LAU/States/NorthCarolina/NCPopGrow.htm
• According to a study done by the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition on and Language Instruction Educational Programs (NCELA), “An estimated 4,416,580 LEP students were enrolled in public schools, representing approximately 9.3% of the total public school enrollment of students in Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 12. The reported number of LEP students enrolled grew by 27% since the 1997-98 school year, and their representation as a percentage of total school enrollment increased by 1.6%. Nearly 70% of all LEP students were enrolled at the elementary level, where they accounted for more than 10% of the total enrollment.”
• The native language of the majority of LEP students is Spanish (77%). Other languages include: Vietnamese (2.3%), Hmong (2.2%), Haitian Creole (1.1%), Cantonese (1.0%), and Korean (1.0%). All the other languages groups each represented less than 1% of the LEP student population. http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/ncbepubs/seareports/99-00/sea9900.pdf
• A national study found that, of new clients in federally funded adult ESL instruction...

· 98% were born outside the United States
· 72% spoke Spanish at home
· 50% had completed high school (some also had completed additional education)
· 32% had fewer than nine years of education (of those, 9% had fewer than 5 years of schooling)
· 45% were employed; 18% were unemployed; 36% were not in the workforce
· 89% had not received public assistance in the past year
· 61% were under 31 years of age
· 85% lived in major metropolitan areas
· 72% lived in the Western United States

BE CAREFUL WITH TRANSLATION SITES
Read the following passages and see how differently the same letter can be translated!

Original Message:
Dear Parents,
We will be hosting an open house next Monday night at 6:00pm.  This is a wonderful opportunity for your child to show off his or her work.  Our classroom will be open for you to visit anytime between 6:00-8:00pm, so feel free to come in and see what we've been doing this year so far.  I look forward to seeing you.
Thanks,
Miss Morgan Vassey

www.freetranslation.com translation English to Spanish:
Estimados Padres,
Nosotros estaremos recibiendo una casa abierta próxima noche de lunes en 6:00pm. Esto es una oportunidad maravillosa para su niño de presumir su trabajo. Nuestra aula estará abierta para usted visitar en cualquier momento entre 6:00-8:00pm, así que se siente liberta para entrar y ver lo que hemos estado haciendo este año hasta ahora. Espero con ansia verlo.
Gracias,
Señorita Morgan Vassey

http://babel.altavista.com/tr translation:
Los padres queridos,
Recibiremos una casa abierta la noche próxima de lunes en los 6:00pm. Esto es una oportunidad maravillosa para que su niño demuestre el suyo o de su trabajo. Nuestra sala de clase estará abierta para usted a la visita en cualquier momento entre los 6:00-8:00pm, así que siéntase libre venir adentro y ver lo que hemos estado haciendo este año hasta ahora. Miro adelante a verle.
Gracias,
Srta. Morgan Vassey

www.freetranslation.com to translate http://babel.altavista.com back into English:
The dear parents,
We will receive an open house the next night of Monday in the 6:00pm.  This it is a marvelous opportunity so that its boy show its or of its job.  Our classroom will be open for you to the visit in any moment among the 6:00-8:00pm, so you be sat down free to come inside and to see what we have been doing this year to now.  I look at ahead to see him.
Thanks,
Miss Morgan Vassey

www.babel.altavista.com/tr to translate www.freetranslation.com back into English:
Dear Padres,
We will be receiving an open house next night of Monday in 6:00pm. This is a wonderful opportunity for its boy to presume its work. Our classroom will be open for you to visit at any time between 6:00-8:00pm, so it feels frees to enter and to see what there are been doing this year until now. I hope with anxiety to see it.
Thanks,
Miss Morgan Vassey
 

Resources


 




Dave’s ESL Cafe- http://www.eslcafe.com/ and http://www.eslcafe.com/search/Lesson_Plans/

TESOL (organization for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages)-  http://www.tesol.org/index.html

Activities for ESL Students- http://a4esl.org/

Interesting Things for ESL Students- http://www.manythings.org/

Karin’s ESL Partyland- http://www.eslpartyland.com/

ESL Lessons- http://members.aol.com/Jakajk/ESLLessons.html

ASK Eric Lesson Plans- http://ericir.syr.edu/Virtual/Lessons/

ESL Clipart- http://www.sla.purdue.edu/fll/JapanProj/FLClipart/

ESL Handouts- http://iteslj.org/links/TESL/Handouts_for_Classroom_Use/

ESL Lessons and Teacher Tips- http://iteslj.org/links/TESL/Lessons/

ESL Lesson Plans and Resources- http://www.csun.edu/~hcedu013/eslplans.html

Free Translations- http://www.freetranslation.com/
     *** Be careful with translation sites.  This is the best one I’ve heard of, but I’m sure it’s not perfect.   Refer to the above example of how differently the same letter can be translated.  Helpful hint:  Use vocabulary that can only be translated one way.   DO NOT USE IDIOMS!

http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/links/langcult/toplangs.htm
Educational, linguistic, and cultural web resources for the top languages/language groups of English learners in U.S. schools.

http://espanol.yahoo.com/
This website can be used by ESL students to do research.

http://www.csusm.edu/csb/english/
This website allows teachers or parents to search for books in Spanish or books in English written about Latinos. The website is available in English or Spanish.

http://www.eslflow.com/
This Web site includes extensive links to lesson plans and instructional materials for teaching natural science, health, business, and history lessons to ESL students. The lesson resources are indexed according to the English proficiency level for which they are most appropriate.

http://schools.monterey.k12.ca.us/~mainst/links/esl.htm
Soledad USD lists ESL sites for reading, writing, grammar, and general resources.

http://www.esl-lab.com/
This website has conversations that students can listen to and answer questions in order to increase their English proficiency. The site includes scripts for each of the conversations.

http://www.eduhound.com/espanol/bilingual_links.cfm
Links to tutorial sites for learning English.

http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/
An extremely valuable website! NCELA collects, analyzes, and disseminates information relating to the effective education of linguistically and culturally diverse learners in the U.S. Has success stories from schools, databases, lesson plans, and much more.

http://www.ed.gov/offices/OCR/ELL/glossary.html
An online glossary of terms, court cases, and programs associated with ESL.

http://www.hmongnet.org/
Hmong information page

http://www.uwsuper.edu/library/hmong/hmong.html
Resources about the Hmong for Teachers

Centro Latino of Mitchell, Avery & Yancey Counties
Director, Vicky Ferradaz (828)284-2164 (day) (828)688-6714 (evening)
This organization serves the Latino community in many ways. Services include: volunteer interpreters, free seminars on topics such as immigration law, limited financial assistance, and general information, such as where adult ESL classes are available and other resources available. This particular group serves the three counties listed, but there are similar groups throughout the state.