ELL News Headlines

Mina Stanekzai, 8, strapped on a princess backpack, slipped on her pink shoes that light up when she walks, and — her leg still injured from a suicide bomb — bounced out of her aunt’s Northern Virginia apartment for her first day of school in America.

Stephon Sanders is a soft-spoken 16-year-old Black teenager in Tampa, Florida, who loves playing basketball and video games like Fortnite and Apex Legends, and who can often be found in an athletic jacket and basketball shorts. He also happens to be the founder and chief executive officer of a successful mobile entertainment business, Street Gamez, that can amp up any party with a 32-foot, $55,000 trailer full of video game consoles for up to 28 players. He plans to add a $45,000 mobile gaming bus staffed by a second crew and move beyond the Tampa area to serve North and South Carolina.

Georgeanne Warnock knows what it’s like to be a teacher but, until recently, she didn’t know what it was like to be a teacher working during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Terrell, Texas, superintendent, a former English teacher, recently added herself to her district’s pool of substitute teachers, and she’s taken to TikTok to share the challenges, frustrations, and fresh ideas she’s encountered.

It's 4:30 in the afternoon, and the fall colors in the trees are glowing as the sun drops low over the sprawling, historic campus of Grimsley High School in Greensboro, N.C. Dozens of students are waiting outside the cafeteria. One of them is sophomore Dreshon Robinson. He wants to be a music engineer someday. He loves Adele and Bruno Mars. But right now, he's working evenings in a restaurant. And Monday through Thursday after school, he comes to Grimsley High school's "learning hub."

Guillermina McLean loves working with her kindergarten students who don’t speak English, because, she said, she can relate to them. McLean came to the United States from Mexico not speaking English and had to jump back into her education years after trading school for work as a child. McLean, who turns 75 in a few months, was recognized as para educator of the year by the Colorado Association for Bilingual Education. She’s worked in Aurora schools for more than 20 years.

Friday's tornado decimated several neighborhoods in Bowling Green, Ky. Schools remain closed, so bus drivers are using the opportunity to check in on students and deliver meals to their families.

Lodi Unified, a diverse, mid-size district in the Central Valley, typifies what most districts in California are experiencing as they ponder how to spend their unprecedented funding windfall against a backdrop of dire and escalating needs. Last year, more than 70% of the district’s students were low-income, English learners, in foster care, homeless or in the migrant program. With a growing percentage of Latino and Asian students, Lodi’s demographics closely mirror those of the state as a whole.

As the number of linguistically diverse children nationwide continues to rise, it is no surprise that education leaders are interested in investigating instructional models that can be replicated to better serve this population. In California, nearly 60 percent of children zero to five live in a home where a language other than English is spoken. Yet the same programs and policies that were intended to support these students often end up holding back and stifling their potential. Since 2008 the Sobrato Early Academic Language (SEAL) model, which started out in three elementary schools and feeder schools and now reaches 50,000 students in over a hundred preschool and elementary classrooms, has been working to address these gaps by providing a research-based approach to meeting English learners’(ELs) linguistic and academic needs by capitalizing on their assets.

After months of deliberation, the editors of School Library Journal and their insightful reviewer committee members have selected 139 titles addressing topics — such as climate change, racism, and history — that are more relevant than ever. They also include a balance of fantasy, historical and realistic fiction, and, for the first time in years, a breakout list of poetry. There’s a nice sprinkle of story time picks and slice-of-life tales.

American Indian storytelling has enjoyed a major resurgence over the last 20 years. It has survived several attempts at eradication, largely by external forces. Here are some of the incredible difficulties it’s been through in the past 100 years or more, followed by a closer look at some of the traditions of American Indian storytelling.