ELL News Headlines

Newark Public Schools and central office will be closed on Thursday as the smoke from Canadian wildfires continues to impact New Jersey and the surrounding areas. The district made the announcement on its Facebook page just after midnight on Thursday. Unhealthy air quality conditions are expected to continue Thursday, and as of 7 a.m., Newark and nearly the rest of the state were under a purple alert, marking very unhealthy air quality conditions for residents. 

Summertime is when we teachers can de-clutter our minds and decompress from the school year. It can also be a time for us to reflect on the bigger questions facing our profession. Today’s post is the latest in a series exploring what some of those questions might be.

Self-identifying mixed-race people make up the largest demographic among Americans under 18. These picture books and middle grade novels feature multiracial kids as heroes of their own stories.

More than 160 organizations, including UnidosUS, TESOL, NABE, CAL, JNCL, the NEA, and the AFT are calling on the Senate and House Appropriations Subcommittees for Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies to include $2 billion in the Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) budget for Title III of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) — the federal formula grant program intended to support English learners (ELs) in every state and territory.

Storytelling is a powerful way to develop community, to teach, and to empower. When teachers tell their students stories in which characters overcome challenges, we empower students. When classes gather and listen to stories, they develop a sense of belonging. 

The public schools in Sarasota County, Florida, continue to see an increase in their population of homeless students, particularly since Hurricane Ian hit the region last September and displaced many of the district’s families.

Nine students who participated in Wilkes-Barre Area School District's first "Education Experience Program" in Northeastern Pennsylvania offered a lot of positive feedback from their experience. The district designed the program to encourage high school seniors to consider entering the education field, and in turn to potentially produce a future pool of teachers for the area.

Cincinnati Public Schools is taking books right to the homes of English Language Learning (ELL) families in its district. It’s part of an initiative to continue literacy education in the summer and it’s meant to be fun and educational for everyone in the family.

It’s been a little over 80 years since President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, forcibly relocating all Japanese immigrants and their descendants into concentration camps after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Many of the prisoners were American citizens. These nonfiction and fiction titles will illuminate the injustices they endured and shine a light on their resilience to survive this betrayal.

English and health studies are 14-year-old Dilip Godiya’s favorite subjects. Unlike other subjects taught at his school in the city of Nepalgunj, they don’t require him to be effortlessly fluent in Nepali. Dilip grew up speaking Awadhi at home, the mother tongue of half a million Nepalis and millions more in northern India, so adjusting to Nepali as a language of learning was a major challenge. Until fourth grade, he found it difficult to read and hesitated from speaking up in class.