Thread: Schools preparing for a bi-lingual world

Schools preparing for bilingual world

By Justina Wang and Tim Wagner
Staff WRITERS

AURORA — U.S. Census Bureau numbers released last week show that 44 percent of Aurora's residents speak a language other than English at home.

Those who have worked in Aurora's school districts for many years have long watched as surging numbers of bilingual students flowed into their classrooms.

Now, teachers say their English as Second Language programs are changing, and bilingualism may one day become the standard of education.

"I think there is a lot of parent interest in educating their children in both languages," said Sally Roig-Flores, a bilingual kindergarten teacher at East Aurora's Brady Elementary School. "I think, in the future, our whole society will be learning to be bilingual."

When Rosita Gonzalez, who team teaches with Roig-Flores, started teaching in the East Aurora School District in 1987, there was only one bilingual class in most elementary grade levels.

But at Brady last year, kindergarten and first-grade classrooms where lessons were taught predominantly in Spanish outnumbered regular English sections three to one.

East Aurora's director of bilingual services, Anne Benavides, said she's seen the trend repeat itself throughout the district during her career.

When Benavides left the bilingual program 13 years ago to serve in other district positions, there were only about 1,700 students in the program. This summer, she ended the school year with a count of more than 4,200.

In the West Aurora School District, almost 900 students partake in the English Language Learners program. The program has grown over the years, "but it's not unmanageable," said Cynthia Latimer, assistant superintendent for student services.

Of those students, nearly 700 are enrolled in the Self-Contained/Instructional Bilingual Program. It is a K-12 program where Spanish serves as the students' first language. The goal is to implement English into the curriculum and exit those students, especially the younger ones, through the program in three years, when they're mainstreamed into general education.

"But it's important to remember that students progress at their own rate," Latimer said.

More than 100 students are in the Itinerant Transitional Bilingual Program (K-, which means they're participating in general education taught in English, but still have one or two hours per week of bilingual study — used as a contact for support.



More needs


With tremendous growth comes surging needs. District officials often have a tough time finding enough highly qualified bilingual teachers to keep up with the growing number of classrooms and now they also need nurses, speech therapists, psychologists — "a whole gamut" of specialists — who know Spanish, Benavides said.
As part of his recently introduced Teaching and Learning Plan, West Aurora School Superintendent Jim Rydland has conducted audits on the entire district. Every program is receiving attention, and the Bilingual Program this school year falls in the evaluation stage. Should changes be suggested or required, based on student progress, they'll be developed and implemented in 2007-08.

"I'm excited about the growth we've had, but I'm also looking forward to making more improvements," Latimer said.



Preparing for a bilingual society


As more students enroll in the program, district administrators have redefined how to teach English as a Second Language.
Whereas teachers in the East Aurora School District used to focus on training the student to speak English as quickly as possible before teaching them to read and then write in the language, Benavides said they now take a "balanced literacy" approach where students learn reading, writing and speaking in English at the same pace.

Teaching bilingual education is often a tricky task, Benavides said, because students need to learn more than conversational skills and learn the "academic language" needed to study subjects like science and higher-level mathematics.

Critics have argued that self-contained ESL classes only hinder students who should be mainstreamed into regular classrooms in order to pick up the language rapidly, but many bilingual educators say there are significant benefits to teaching younger students predominantly in their native languages.

"The reason, I believe, we use a transitional program is because it works," Latimer said.

The current bilingual program coordinator at West Aurora's Hill Elementary School, Claudia Rubio, moved to Aurora from Mexico in 1985 before the start of her freshman year at West High School. She spoke limited English, "just enough to have a conversation," she said.

During her first two years at West, Rubio studied in the bilingual program, while partaking in ESL daily. By her junior year, Rubio was a member of the National Honor Society, taking general education classes taught in English, "but still had the support of the bilingual program," she said.

"My goal was to become bilingual," Rubio said. "It really worked for me."

Maria Ponce, now a first-grade teacher in West schools at McCleery Elementary, is a product of the system. She partook in the bilingual education program in seventh grade at Jefferson Middle School and emerged in just a year and a half.

"Our teacher not only taught us English, but also about the culture," Ponce said. "I had a good base in Spanish, I knew how to develop my first language in both reading and writing, and it helped me in being able to transition it to English."

In East Aurora, young pupils just entering the bilingual program are first taught to read in their native language because educators have learned that it helps pupils develop the same skills needed to read in English. It also gives their parents, who often speak very little English, a chance to get involved and help with their students' school work, said Roig-Flores.

East Aurora administrators also have talked about one day exploring dual-language programs that would teach both Spanish and English in one class to students who are native speakers of either language.

"It's becoming more important for all individuals to be bilingual," Benavides said. "A person who is bilingual and biliterate will have greater opportunities."

08/21/06

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/top/2_1_AU21_HISP_S10821.htm

Language diversity delicate matter for businesses


By David Garbe
staff writer


When it comes to the local business landscape, linguistic diversity offers an even more complex array of challenges and opportunities.

Of course, the fact that more than 44 percent of Aurora residents speak a language other than English at home is primarily a factor of local companies' vast hunger for low-wage labor, a hunger fed primarily by immigration from Latin America.

In many low-skill areas like restaurant kitchens and landscaping crews, Spanish simply becomes the language of use for workers and supervisors alike, while company owners accomplish what little interaction they need by learning Spanish themselves or relying on a bilingual worker.

In the manufacturing world, where communication on complex tasks is critical, language divisions among a staff can present serious challenges.

Local factory owners and managers said English remains the primary language of the workplace, with only the lowest-skilled positions available to workers who don't speak English.

Although many companies print some signs or other materials in Spanish for safety warnings, most companies said the burden for learning English and advancing to better jobs lies with the workers.

Companies are starting to be more flexible toward overcoming language barriers, though, said Robert Enriquez, who runs a bilingual manufacturing worker training program through the Aurora Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

"Managers need to be pragmatic to survive in today's world," Enriquez said. "Those that say 'we're going to speak English and that's it' might be losing their best workers."

"(The language barrier) is probably the single most important factor for job satisfaction," he said, "but also productivity."

In other words, employers have a vested interest in providing training and critical instructions in whatever language workers are best able to understand.

Failing to reach out to workers on their own terms leads to poor morale and lost productivity, Enriquez said. Extreme emphasis on English can even result in legal troubles.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission considers policies that require workers to speak English without demonstrating the business necessity of such rules to be discrimination.

In 1999, the EEOC sued a Batavia factory for "English-only" discrimination after seven workers were fired for speaking Spanish in settings other than the production line.

The company, Watlow Batavia, settled the case out of court with a payment of $192,500 to the workers.

Although such cases make up only about 1 percent of the EEOC's caseload, America's changing demographics are making such complaints more common, said EEOC spokesman David Grinberg.

He noted that most such cases are probably never reported, because recent immigrants tend not to know the law or are afraid to come forward, especially if they immigrated illegally. Equal opportunity laws apply to all workers, though, regardless of legal status.


08/21/06

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http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/top/2_1_AU21_HISP_S20821.htm

Brunswick County here in eastern NC is hiring two new ESL(English as second language) teachers using my tax dollars to teach the children of illegals.

TAXATION WITHOUT PRESENTATION ALL OVER AGAIN

The current bilingual program coordinator at West Aurora's Hill Elementary School, Claudia Rubio, moved to Aurora from Mexico in 1985 before the start of her freshman year at West High School. She spoke limited English, "just enough to have a conversation," she said.

Truth be known, she probably received an amnesty in 1986. Perhaps someone needs to send the mayor of Aurora a copy of Hazelton's ordinance.

Equal opportunity laws apply to all workers, though, regardless of legal status.

Is this true? If so....maybe it's part of another law or something.....but wouldn't that mean they have been getting fair wages as well? They've been working under the same conditions the rest of us has.....etc. Maybe they offered to do the job for less, but it hardley constitutes abuse , or that they were working for 2.00 an hour. I'm not refering to construction etc. More the factory end. Meat packing, etc. They weren't working in "unsafe" conditions because those places are still inspected by OSHA etc. The "nature" of the job might be more prone to injury but alot of jobs are, in their own way. You can get "carpel tunnel syndrome" if your a secretary, cashier, deli-person, any wrist repetative job. Not just chicken workers.

Does that also mean I am in competition with not only people of my country but anyone that comes here illegally? I know a boss may use a threat of deportation if an employee looks like they may rock the boat. But there are employers that threaten to fire you and give bad referals that can ruin your career and reputation if you "rock the boat". What's the difference?

Doesn't EOP mean that Latino businesses are under the same rule?
Isn't it discrimination to not hire a qualified person because they don't speak Spanish? Why are they getting away with the must speak Spanish when it knocks out a vast majority of American citizens? They use Canada as an example of a bi-lingual country. It's not really. They have just kept the French Canadians in a specified area. Everyone in Canada doesn't speak English and French. If you want a job in the French provence you better speak French. But you don't have to speak French to get a job in the others. If your from the French provence you aren't going to get a job in the other unless you speak English.

Sorry....just trying to get a grip on this. As with all the rest.....just doesn't wash.

I don't know where they come off thinking that Spanish is the only language that makes one bi-lingual. Why don't we teach kids Polish? Or Chinese? Or Arabic?

Why only Spanish?

I threw a fit just the other day when I discovered that my grand children are being forced to learn Spanish in NC schools in order to be able to communicate with kids who don't belong in their schools to start with!

I tell ya Junis.....about the only words I care to learn in Spanish.....I can't say here. Bi-lingual WORLD my butt. They think once they get everybody here speaking Spanish they are going to "rule the world"?

I want to slap them senseless when they say bi-lingual..2 languages is all it means an NONE are designated as #1 except for the country you live in. Ours happens to be English and there's a host of others out there to be the 2nd one.

There arrogance is getting on my nerves. I tell ya, my tongue hurts and my fingernail imprints are forever in my palms for the amount of control it takes me to just make it through the store.

I tell ya, my tongue hurts and my fingernail imprints are forever in my palms for the amount of control it takes me to just make it through the store.

Tell me about it! I can't go to Walmart on Sunday in any city in NC so it seems and where I live in TX there are many times when I am the only non-hispanic in a store at all. it kills me that we send their kids to school and feed them yet they are buying CD Players and a hundred bucks worth of movies. Or maybe those are the drug dealers.........

We need to get rid of ESL NOW!!! Make English the official language!

www.usenglish.org

Oh, I don't mind having ESL classes for people who want to pay for them on their own. All they are for is so that people whose first language isn't English can learn to speak English better.

It is just that we shouldn't be paying for people to learn English and we definitely shouldn't be teaching kids in two languages in grade schools or forcing them to try to learn two languages. All we are doing is making our kids dumber and dumber. We need to teach the kids the basics and let them expand upon their knowledge according to their interests when they are old enough to know if they want to learn some other language or not.