ELL News Headlines

In a class where almost half of the students are multilingual learners who speak Spanish at home, an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teacher and a classroom teacher working together should not be unusual. Co-teaching has proved an effective way to help non-English speakers become more proficient in the English language. But finding enough ESOL teachers to meet the growing demand has been a challenge. As of 2017, the number of multilingual learners in the United States had increased by 60 percent over the past decade, making the group the fastest-growing population in the nation’s public schools, according to a Brookings Institution report.

After witnessing their government fall to the Taliban in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal, being torn away suddenly from their homeland, families and friends, and then escaping — only to spend several weeks in limbo on American military bases — thousands of young Afghan evacuees are bracing for their first days of class.

Moving to a new country can be challenging for students who don't speak their new home’s native language. The Mercer County Technical School District hopes to help these kids chart a path to success with the Newcomer Academy, a countywide program that is the first of its kind in New Jersey.

While we bring the mental health needs of our students into laser focus this year, it’s still crucial that we keep the social and emotional world of our English language learners (ELLs) front and center. Just like their peers, ELL students come to our classrooms with the burning need to be seen and acknowledged for their unique personalities, life experiences, and talents. But language challenges can obstruct all these amazing facets of their personalities. Additionally, the social pressures of suddenly being in person again and needing to communicate may make them feel anxious, isolated, and embarrassed.

Native authors Cynthia Leitich Smith and Traci Sorell write, "We are the first storytellers on this continent. But despite the increasing visibility of Native and First Nations today, many readers are still new to our ways of making sense of the world through literature."

The latest data on how English-learners around the country fared in their language development during the pandemic are out. But there’s a major catch: About 30 percent fewer students took a widely used standardized assessment in 2021 than did two years prior, making the data difficult to analyze over time.

For years Lexi Henegar has been tutoring children in China. She’s never met any of them in person, but you wouldn’t know that from hearing her talk about it. This summer, Henegar and tens of thousands of other tutors across the U.S. started to get word that this fortuitous arrangement they’d stumbled into might soon come to an end. In fact, many of these Chinese tutoring companies have drastically scaled back their online operations because of new regulations from the Chinese government that effectively ban private tutoring with foreign educators.

Early Edge California and American Institutes for Research (AIR) released the Multilingual Learning Toolkit last month, an online hub of research-and evidence-based instructional resources and strategies on how to best-support multilingual learners (MLs), a broad term used to encompass both dual language learners (DLLs) and ELs, in grades PreK–3. This one-stop-shop is the product of a collaborative effort between local and national practitioners, researchers, and advocates committed to improving educational opportunities for MLs in early grades where a higher percentage of children are identified as ELs compared to upper grades.

Portland State University's College of Education will receive $3 million over five years to build on work from a previous partnership with Tigard Tualatin School District, which currently has 22 percent English Learner (EL) students. Dr. Julie Esparza Brown has spent the past 21 years of her career at Portland State University’s College of Education. In that time she has written or co-written grants that have allowed for 21 years of funding for bilingual/bicultural teachers in general and special education. DICE PLUSS was co-written with her colleagues and co-directors for Project DICE, Drs. Sheldon Loman and Amanda Sanford, who are associate professors in the school’s Special Education Department. 

Shelly McClanahan teaches middle school English as a Second Language near Nashville. She has been an ESL program coordinator in the U.S. and in international schools in Albania, South Korea, and England. She shares a few things she has learned by listening to, observing, and working with her students in this column.