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News Archive - 2008

Because the direct links to these articles change as news organizations move articles to archives on their Web sites, we have provided links to the home page of the appropriate news outlet for those with inactive links. Many of these Web sites retain archives that can be accessed by visitors, some free and some for a small fee. If you are interested in any of the articles posted in our archive, please visit the appropriate news Web site for more details.

Des Moines Register
September 15, 2008
Encourage learning foreign languages
Despite growing awareness that students need a globally competitive education, only a little more than half of Iowa youngsters in high school, 51.67 percent, took a foreign language during the 2007-08 school year.

Wide variation among school districts suggests students in some places get much better preparation than others to thrive in a world where jobs and commerce flow readily across borders. While English is the language of business, learning a second language develops the ability to more fully communicate with and understand people from another culture.

Iowa's percentage may still top the nation's. Recent national statistics are hard to come by. One federal report showed 43.6 percent for 2000.

Iowa districts' percentages range from low double digits to more than 80 percent, according to Department of Education data.

Visit the Des Moines Register Web site.

 

Delaware Online
August 22, 2008
Education Key for Del. Latinos
More than half of Delaware's Latino residents speak little or no English, according to a new needs assessment of the state's Hispanic population.

The report to the Governor's Consortium on Hispanic Affairs, released Thursday, pinpoints education -- including making English classes more accessible to immigrants and higher education more affordable -- as the key area Hispanics feel needs most improvement.

Of the state's 56,152 Latino residents, an estimated 41 percent are living here illegally, compounding the education, income, transportation and health care barriers noted in the report.

Yet even those living here legally can struggle to find services.

Visit the Delaware Online Web site.

 

The Herald News (Joliet, IL)
June 8, 2008
Dual-ing languages Joliet school using languages to boost students' scores
Hiding an instrument behind a box, bilingual teacher Kaberi Chakrabarty played it so her students could identify it by sound.

The catch was they had to say the name of the instrument in Spanish.

For half the class, it was pretty easy because they were bilingual. But for DeAndre Heckhard, 8, it was a challenge, but fun.

"Tambor, tambor," the students said about the drum before singing in Spanish. "Uno, dos, tres ... chocolate, chocolate, chocolate."

DeAndre was one of 326 students instructed in the dual language enrichment program, with an emphasis on cultural studies, at Parks Cultural Studies Academy, 500 Parks Ave., which is part of Joliet Grade School District. The concept of dual language is new to the district.

This school year, DeAndre and half of his second-grade class switched places with half of the bilingual classroom for music. Meanwhile, teacher Jean Hubble would teach art and social studies while her students learned Spanish.

Visit the Herald News Web site.

 

The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR)
June 4, 2008
Immersion Conversion
A long-nurtured dream among the staff at Eugene’s 310-student River Road/El Camino del Rio Elementary School seems likely to come true by fall 2009.

The Eugene School Board on Wednesday is expected to endorse planning for Lane County’s first two-way Spanish/English language immersion program, to be housed at River Road.

The program would offer instruction in both languages to all students, with core subjects — reading, math, social studies and science — taught half the day in English, half in Spanish. It would probably begin as kindergarten-only, expanding as students ascend to the next grade level.

A key goal with two-way programs, which have taken root throughout the West over the past 20 years, is to attract equal numbers of native English and native Spanish speakers, who learn each others’ languages and culture together. At least 332 such programs exist in 27 states, according to the Center for Applied Linguistics.

Visit the Register-Guard Web site.

Prague Daily Monitor (Czech Republic)
May 4, 2008
Bilingual speech therapy
Despite warnings that each parent should only speak his maternal tongue to the child to avoid confusion, my husband and I often flop-flop between languages as quickly (although not as easily) as [our daughter] Anna does. While Radek's English is much stronger than my Czech, we do live in the Czech Republic, and I often find myself in a situation where speaking English to Anna Lee just doesn't seem natural. Mostly, during our regular visits with Radek's family, where Czech is spoken exclusively, or in a situation where I've already been speaking Czech with another mother and her child, my brain has often already formed the Czech response before the English. In these situations, Anna permits me the occasional instruction in Czech, and it seems to suit her to keep the flow of conversation smooth.
 
I found support for our seemingly unsystematic approach to bilingualism in an article entitled Raising Bilingual Children: Common Parental Concerns and Current Research published by the Center for Applied Linguistics by two scientists at Georgetown University, Washington D.C.) In contrast to parental fears and modern parenting literature which suggest that switching back and forth between languages leads to the child's confusion, current research indicates that "code-switching" (switching between languages in a socially appropriate way) is actually a sign of "mastery" of both linguistic systems and that bilingual children as young as 2 are capable of it. Furthermore, the article sites current research on bilingual families that indicates that using the one-parent one-language approach can actually result in "passive bilingualism" where the child understands both languages but uses only the "majority language" or the language of their larger community.

Visit the Prague Daily Monitor Web site.

 

York Daily Record (York, PA)
April 25, 2008
Arabic classes grow in popularity
Arabic-language students on college campuses numbered 5,500 before 9/11 and nearly 24,000 in fall 2006. The number of colleges offering Arabic instruction has nearly doubled since 2002.

Experts attribute the class sizes to curiosity about the Arab world and Islam, as well as geopolitical interest in the Middle East and jobs available to Arabic speakers in industries such as oil, national security and journalism.

"Arabic's become very trendy since 9/11," said Alexandra Jerome, a lecturer who last year began teaching the first Arabic-language classes at York College.

"The kids take Arabic because not only are they curious about the language and what the language represents, but also because it's got job opportunities attached to it."

Visit the York Daily Record Web site.

 

ArgusLeader.com
March 10, 2008
Language immersion works
Ken Laughlin's letter in the Feb. 23 Argus Leader, "Spanish program ill-advised," is based on a lack of understanding of what a language-immersion program is all about.

It is not for non-native speakers of English, and it does not deprive students of any of the experiences that regular students enjoy. In fact, research has shown that students who have an language-immersion experience do better on standardized tests than their peers. And those standardized tests measure all subject areas, including English.

There is a useful paper on foreign language immersion on the Center for Applied Linguistics Web site. The paper answers many questions for parents and others who are interested in the goals and design of the immersion experience.

Visit the Argus Leader Web site.

 

Los Angeles Daily News
February 17, 2008
LAUSD facing challenge of English at home, class
[This is] the heart of a growing urgency at Los Angeles Unified School District that after more than 15 years of quiet awareness, more now needs to be done to meet the challenges faced by students whose native language is English but who speak vernacular dialects at home.

"Until you tackle language, you will not have academic achievement," LAUSD Superintendent David BrewerIII said.

"I don't care about the politics behind this. I want to make sure children learn standard English."

Rough estimates indicate at least 100,000 of LAUSD's 695,000 students are "standard English learners," comprising the lowest-performing group in a district already struggling with achievement-test scores that lag far behind the state and nation.

Visit the Los Angeles Daily News Web site.

 

Austin American-Statesman
January 2, 2008
AISD looks to restart 'dual-language' program
In the Austin school district, [a dual-language] program hasn't been tried since a Spanish dual-language program at Harris Elementary School was shut in 2003.

Unlike one-way bilingual and English-as-a-second-language programs, which are aimed primarily at teaching English to non-native speakers and are found at many area public schools, dual-language programs serve English and non-English speakers by alternating the language used during the school day. The goal is have students become fluent in both.

"It creates an atmosphere where everyone is learning a language," said Martha Garcia, the district's executive director of bilingual education. "It becomes a situation where, if I'm a Spanish speaker, I can help my English speaking classmates as much as they can help me. There's more of an equality, and kids feel more empowered."

Visit the Austin American-Statesman Web site.

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