ELL News Headlines

A visually impaired Bronx high school teacher who immigrated to this country from West Africa and entered teaching because he wanted to transform the lives of young people — all while commuting four hours round-trip each day from the Hudson Valley to do so — today was named the state’s 2019 Teacher of the Year.

After two Guatemalan children died in its custody, US Customs and Border Protection is changing how it handles health care for migrant detainees. CBP Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan announced the changes Tuesday, the same day his agency reported the death of an 8-year-old Guatemalan boy late Christmas Eve.

It's a familiar scene: a family gathering on a Sunday afternoon, the kids off playing somewhere in the house. But in the kitchen, conversations in Swahili fill the room. Cecil Furaha, 30, uses a rolling pin as a pestle to crush ginger for her version of pilau, a popular rice dish. She is joined by Sharon Fine, one of the first people she met when she arrived in America. Furaha, her husband, Saidi Roger, 33, and their seven kids have been in the U.S. for three months. Their home in Silver Spring, Md., is a cozy three-story condo at the end of a cul-de-sac. The inside is fully furnished with donations from volunteers. A homemade sign with the word karibu hangs prominently on the wall at the end of their dinner table. It means "welcome" in Swahili. Furaha says she feels safe here. But life was not always that way.

It's a Weekend Edition Saturday holiday favorite: "A Visit from St. Nicholas" with a Latin twist. Claudio Sanchez reads the poem. "I ran to the window and looked out, afuera. And who in the world do you think that it era?"

More than 2,500 migrant children were taken from their parents at the border earlier this year under the Trump administration’s now abandoned “zero tolerance” immigration policy. After months of court orders and administrative chaos, the majority of these children have been reunited with their parents — some in Central America but most in the United States. In more than 200 cases, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, deported parents have made the painful decision to leave their separated sons or daughters behind in the hope that they will have a better life in America.

A 7-year-old girl from Guatemala died of dehydration and shock after she was taken into Border Patrol custody last week for crossing from Mexico into the United States illegally with her father and a large group of migrants along a remote span of New Mexico desert, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Thursday.

Driven by rapidly increasing linguistic diversity in public schools, districts throughout the country are scrambling for ways to meet the needs of ELLs, who now total nearly 5 million U.S. students—an increase of over 1 million since 2000. But instead of seeing ELLs as a costly challenge — requiring remedial support or additional staffing, for example — many districts are acknowledging the assets these students bring to school, and in response have created dual-language immersion programs where English learners and native English speakers learn together.

It's a Monday night at Fairview Elementary, and a small group of Hispanic parents sit around a table joined by teachers from Carthage's dual language and English Language Learners programs. It's the first of many meetings to come in an effort to increase engagement with immigrant families, one component of a larger grant project that seeks to bolster English Language Learners programs in four Missouri school districts, including Carthage. The $2.6 million five-year grant, dubbed Strengthening Equity and Effectiveness for Teachers of English Learners, will provide ELL training to teachers in the Carthage, Kansas City Public, Bayless and Columbia public school districts.

Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza has named a veteran New York City educator as the new head of its department that oversees students learning English as a new language. Mirza G. Sánchez-Medina, the founding principal of Manhattan Bridges High School, will be the new deputy chief academic officer of what will now be the Division of Multilingual Learners, the city education department announced in a news release. It was previously called the Division of English Language Learners and Student Support.

Nuam San, 20, recalled last month how much her life had changed since she moved to the United States five years ago. At the time, she spoke no English and came from a country where women are expected to stay at home. Now she is a freshman at Agnes Scott, a small, private women’s liberal arts college outside Atlanta.