ELL News Headlines

Birmingham has a vibrant (and growing) Latinx community. In these interviews, four Birminghamians talk about what their Hispanic Heritage means to them.

Authors Nicola Yoon (The Sun is Also a Star) and David Yoon (Frankly in Love) are launching Joy Revolution, a romance imprint that will be written by people of color and feature the stories of people of color. The first titles will be released in 2022.

In many parts of the developing world, school closures put children on the streets. Families are desperate for money. Children are an easy source of cheap labor. While the United States and other developed countries debate the effectiveness of online schooling, hundreds of millions of children in poorer countries lack computers or the internet and have no schooling at all. United Nations officials estimate that at least 24 million children will drop out and that millions could be sucked into work. Ten-year-olds are now mining sand in Kenya.

While almost 7 in 10 Latino parents prefer to start the school year remotely because of the coronavirus, over 80 percent worry their kids will fall behind.

Three years ago, teacher Kerri Landry found a hole in the wall of her middle-school classroom in Coventry, Rhode Island. It looked strange, so Landry took a flash photo of the inside of the hole — and captured a troubling image. "The entire inside of that wall was all black mold, the entire thing," she told Business Insider. Landry's school isn't exceptional: Research shows that air quality is a major issue in tens of thousands of schools across the US. A June report from the Government Accountability Office estimated that 41% of districts nationwide, or 36,000 schools, need major upgrades to their HVAC systems. Before the pandemic, poor air quality in schools was problematic because it impeded kids' learning and lowered their test scores. But now, faulty HVAC systems are even more concerning since they could facilitate the spread of the coronavirus. 

NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks with former U.S. poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera about his latest collection, Every Day We Get More Illegal.

During a time of uncertainty, a Duluth woman is hoping to offer some sense of relief and relaxation with a cultural twist. Pelayo is a proud Latina from Mexico who has been teaching yoga for 13 years. This month she is offering 'Bilingual Yoga' classes for the remainder of Hispanic Heritage Month.

Students studying to become teachers at Texas A&M University are helping preK-12 students with their online classes and homework through a new homework helpline launched last week. The Aggie Homework Helpline not only gives university students the opportunity to gain experience teaching and understanding curriculum, but also helps younger students who are struggling with school, especially in the new online format widely adopted during the pandemic. Lessons available to students include read-alouds, mini lessons, guides to skill development, and resources will also support English language learners and students with special needs, university leaders said.

As most of the city’s 1.1 million students started their first full school days online this week, many still lacked proper devices to log on — and may not have them for several weeks, according to parents, advocates and educators.