ELL News Headlines

Celebrated musician Susan Aglukark is a Juno-award winning singer-songwriter, officer of the Order of Canada and a 2016 recipient of the Governor General's Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award. She's now published the first picture book in a planned six-part series called, Una Huna? What is This?, which follows a young Inuk girl named Ukpik.

The United States has a grim history when it comes to our indigenous people. For the most part, this history isn't taught in our public schools; neither is indigenous culture. But that's changing, and the Mountain West is on board. At a Colorado library recently, its Department of Education unveiled a brand new set of lessons for 4th graders. The optional curriculum was written and approved by the the state's two federally recognized tribes – the Southern Ute and the Ute Mountain Ute. It covers the gamut from the history of Indian Boarding Schools to arts, language and tribal governance.

The Smithsonian announced Thursday that it will open its first gallery focused on the U.S. Latino experience, in the National Museum of American History. Opening in 2021 on the museum’s first floor, the Molina Family Latino Gallery will feature bilingual exhibits exploring the history and contributions of American Latinos.

When applying to many of the nation's top universities, if you aren't accepted in that first, extremely competitive, round of admissions, you're not likely to get in. But some institutions are trying to change that. This fall semester, Princeton University offered admission to 13 transfer students, the first transfer admissions in nearly three decades. In reinstating the school's transfer program, they wanted to encourage applicants from low-income families, the military and from community colleges.

When Derrick Young and his wife Ramunda opened MahoganyBooks on Good Hope Road Southeast last year, it was the first bookstore to open in the neighborhood in decades. The bookstore, which focuses on African American literature, is one of several attempts to increase reading and literacy east of the Anacostia River.

In North Carolina, migrant workers pick blueberries, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and tobacco, work on Christmas-tree farms, or have other jobs that require them to move from county to county and state to state. North Carolina is a stop on a typical migrant-worker route. Workers might start on the East Coast in Florida, picking tomatoes, oranges, or any number of other crops; pass through to North Carolina, where they may work with tobacco or blueberries; and end up in Michigan, harvesting everything from arugula to zucchini before starting over again. Inevitably, some of these workers bring their families, which means migrant students are going in and out of school districts around the country as their parents move for work.

It may not be the typical white glove or laboratory experience, but students of history and science can find multiple opportunities to volunteer as citizen archivists or citizen scientists in a few important crowdsourcing efforts. The Library of Congress, the National Archives and the Smithsonian offer parts of their collections to be organized and made accessible by employing the services of citizen volunteers.

With immigration debate at such a fever pitch in the United States, you might think bilingual education would be stalled. The usual routine, experts say, is like a pendulum: When support for immigration drops, so do funding and policies that bolster multilingual classrooms. And vice versa. But despite some prominent anti-immigrant sentiment in the US, one form of bilingual education is actually gaining steam. Two-way dual immersion, which combines fluent English speakers with English language learners (ELLs) is taking off.

A celebration of Nickel Plate Nordic Centre's unveiling of new dual language, English and nsyilxcn (the Okanagan language) ski trail signs, took plan on Monday. The signage is a collaborative effort between the Sylix/Okanagan Nation, Spirit North and Nickel Plate involving the translation of 30 ski trail names. Nickel Plate plays host to Spirit North community programming where Indigenous youth from the Syilx/Okanagan Nation enjoy ski lessons throughout the winter months to help them stay active and healthy through sport. (You can see videos of the new signs from Global News Canada.)

From picture books to novels, the offerings in this week’s column explore war and its impact on everyday lives. Some of the books deal with events and people in past wars or present-day conflicts around the world, while others consider war and its aftermath in general terms. The books approach the experiences and effects of war from various perspectives and are rich resources for encouraging discussion in classrooms.