ELL News Headlines

Desiree Tran talked about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with her seventh graders at McFarland’s Indian Mounds Middle School in the spring. A few months later, she was teaching English in a classroom near the Poland-Ukrainian border to a mix of 12-15-year-old Ukrainian and Polish students affected by the ongoing war. Tran’s trip last month was through the American Federation of Teachers, for which she filled out an application and was one of 15 teachers chosen to be part of the experience and the only one from Wisconsin.

During the summer, Larry Ferlazzo is sharing thematic posts bringing together responses on similar topics from the past 11 years. This post shares advice from veteran teachers to new teachers.

More than 1,700 colleges and universities so far are not requiring students to submit SAT and ACT scores when they apply for admission for fall 2023, only a slightly lower number of institutions than in the previous admissions cycle. 

Native American students are just a tiny fraction of all the college students in the United States. They come with different histories, confronting an education system once used to erase their languages and cultures. In this project, four Indigenous college students tell how they are using higher education to strengthen ties to their Native roots and support their people.

Javon May has tried radio ads. He’s planted yard signs. He’s made the rounds at community centers. Still, on his quest to find new bus drivers for the Houston school district, he sometimes comes up short. That’s because he’s up against stiff competition. Other local districts and big delivery companies, like Amazon, need drivers, too. 

Officials say new training for administrators and teachers on how to better integrate English language learners in the classroom is already paying off. Since the training last summer, officials say preliminary data shows significant improvements in English proficiency and graduation rates over the last year.

In-person English language classes resumed recently at the International Institute of Minnesota’s St. Paul headquarters inside a newly renovated and expanded building that will help them serve an additional 500 new Americans each year with services like English classes, workforce readiness programs and classes for those who want to pursue college.

The study of animals and their habitats was the focus of the English Language Learners (ELL) Summer Experience, a two-week summer camp for Westfield students that provides meaningful enrichment activities to help students continue their English language acquisition.

California could soon get a deeper understanding of how students at different stages of learning English are doing in school. A bill currently in the Legislature, Assembly Bill 1868, would require the California Department of Education to report standardized test scores in English language arts, math and science for subgroups of English learners, including long-term English learners, those at risk of becoming long-term English learners, and students who have learned enough English to be reclassified as proficient.