ELL News Headlines

As on other campuses, students at the University of Utah have been calling for the school to declare itself a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants, including those enrolled there. While the fate of undocumented students is still up in the air, and the effectiveness of promises at other universities to provide them sanctuary still untested, the attention to the issue in Utah and elsewhere has resulted in something much less widely noticed that could also have a big impact: Long-sought additional support is finally being added on campuses to help these students succeed in college.

There's nothing traditional about this math classroom at Oakland Mills High School in Columbia. For starters, it has café-style seating, where students get to solve problems on their desktops. It seems evident, students are already sold on the makeover. This is also a classroom where teachers make the rounds assisting students where needed, and on their individual learning level and language.

Bowen Elementary teacher Katie Lett artfully weaved a middle school field trip into a lesson on citing sources for her fifth grade English language learners to ensure optimal engagement. Gathered around the table for the small-group intervention were students eager to learn from several countries, including Bosnia, Tanzania and Myanmar.  Thirty-three percent of Bowen's 340 students are immigrants or refugees.

Pittsburgh Public Schools has been faced with an increasing number of students who come into the school system lacking a formal or consistent education. In response, it has launched a pair of new pilot programs at Brashear and Pittsburgh Arsenal PreK-5 that offer "a much more focused approach [for] kids that have had interrupted school or no formal school," said Jonathan Covel, the director for the district's English as a second language program.

College is the great leveler of American life, and the great divider, too. College graduates typically earn more money, are more satisfied with their jobs and are less likely to be on public assistance than people with only high school degrees. Students understand this; the aspiration to go to college is now almost universal. Getting there, though, is another matter, especially for working-class students. The alternatives to higher education — joining the military, working for $13 an hour at the local factory or getting a cheaper, faster trade-school certificate — are alluring. The cost of college may seem formidable.

In the U.S., roughly one in 10 students is an English language learner.  Many schools struggle to help them feel comfortable with their new language. Helping them get ahead and to college is another challenge entirely. But East Allen University, Laing's high school in Fort Wayne, Ind., has developed a unique program to do just that: English language learners there can graduate with a diploma and an associate's degree. It's a public high school — anyone can enroll — but the focus is on college prep and college credit.

An early lesson in empathy inspired Gene Luen Yang. In an original comic for School Library Journal, the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature depicts the inspiration for his Reading Without Walls program, which challenges readers to read beyond their comfort zone.

A public library is often the first stop for many people new to the U.S. who are looking for information on their city as well as ESL and other classes. For these reasons, the BPL has set up Immigration Information Corners in each of their 24 branches. The corners were created through the collaborated efforts of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), BPL, and the City of Boston, as well as community partners.

These titles shine a spotlight on immigrant experiences and present autobiographical or fictional stories based on childhood memories or drawn from work with immigrant children. A wordless graphic novel, a detailed foldout codex, a few bilingual books, and an easy-to-read photo-illustrated informational text augment this selection of picture books, novels, and memoirs, loosely divided into grade level categories. The websites provided complement these books with information on immigrants and refugees in the U.S., and are useful for educators and older students alike.

Authors, scholars, librarians, educators and artists are among the many who are converging upon San Antonio this week to discuss the latest and best in Latino children's and young adult literature. The eighth National Latino Children's Literature Conference, "Connecting Cultures & Celebrating Cuentos," is scheduled on Thursday, March 23 through Saturday, March 25 at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) Downtown Campus.