ELL News Headlines

Because of significant labor shortages, Pennsylvania's dairy farms rely on Spanish-speaking immigrants as a key source of labor. However, cultural differences and language barriers can leave employers and workers lost in translation, affecting workers' well-being and community connection, and ultimately, farm viability. A new, innovative community service-learning course — "Service-Learning with Pennsylvania Farmworkers" — offered by Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences is aimed at breaking down those barriers.

New resources will be available for nurseries, schools and colleges to benefit 6,500 deaf children using English as an additional language. A new booklet and video are being launched with practical advice and strategies for teachers and education professionals to help children overcome these challenges and learn at the same pace as their hearing classmates. These resources are free of charge and the National Deaf Children's Society is urging all schools who work with these deaf children to use them.

Jeff Buck was the very first teacher to sign up for Denver's revolutionary pay-for-performance system in 2005. More than 13 years later, he is one of a dozen teachers sitting in a conference room at an obscure school district building, trying to unravel what the system has become.

Samuel Getachew is an Ethiopian-American high school student and poet, and a delegate to the International Congress of Youth Voices. In this commentary about the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest of rapper 21 Savage, who is a British citizen, he writes, "In the legal saga surrounding 21 Savage, I found unexpected validation. Here is a public figure who is very much black, and also an immigrant — an image that we don’t see enough and that I could have used when I was younger and grappling with my identity. It’s clear to me that 21 Savage is an immigrant and a black man, and neither invalidates the other."

A handful of pre-K locations in the Jackson Heights, Corona and Elmhurst neighborhoods will begin to offer instruction in Spanish as part of an expanded dual language programs initiative announced by the city earlier this week.

Children with Down syndrome can and do become bilingual. Initial findings of a research study at Bangor University suggest that speaking two languages is not in any way detrimental to the language development of children with Down syndrome.

Abigail Rubio, 16, was eating lunch in the cafeteria of Honey Grove High School when she found out ICE was raiding the trailer factory where her dad worked. "Did y'all hear about what happened at Load Trail?" a friend asked. Abigail, or Abby as friends and family call her, went on social media. On Snapchat, a friend asked if she'd talked to her dad yet. The friend said buses and helicopters were outside the plant. "That’s when it hit me," said the shy junior who runs cross country and plays tambourine in her Pentecostal church band. "I broke down." When The Hechinger Report visited six weeks later — long after the choppers had left and most of the workers had been released on bail — fear and anxiety remained high, with entire families swept up in the emotional, legal and economic insecurity. But in this small Texas town where Friday nights belong to high school football, Superintendent Todd Morrison decided these weren't struggles families should deal with alone.

Instructional expert and esteemed blogger Larry Ferlazzo wants you to know: Differentiation isn't as hard as you might think.  Ferlazzo and veteran teacher Katie Hull Sypnieski are featured in a new video series about differentiating for English language learners on Education Week.

The Arizona House gave preliminary approval Thursday to a bill that gets rid of requirements that English language learners spend a four-hour block each day in language classes.

A recent study published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly delves into questions around the use of young children's home language in the classroom with a focus on Spanish-English dual language learners. Drawing from existing data of high-quality Educare programs (a research-based full day, year-round early education program that serves low-income children ages birth to five), the researchers explore how teachers' use of Spanish in the classroom is related to students’ growth in English and Spanish.