I found the "More Immigrants..." article quite astounding. Coming from a school with little or no ESL students, I had no idea how many there were, and I did not know that the ESL classes/programs were so in-demand. It is unfortunate that the government keeps cutting the funds for such programs when it is needed. However, I do see a point in the mindset that taxpayers should not have to pay for other people to learn a language--there could be better use of the money.
I have a few thoughts on the following quote:
Teachers hand-picked students to be a part of the sheltered classrooms, in order to ensure that students would want to be in school, taking their classes seriously and doing their work.
Is it the best idea for teachers to hand select the students? What will this do for the students who are not selected? I think this could be detrimental to the success of the students not picked. The teachers pick the best students for the sheltered classrooms because the teachers believe the students are going benefit from being in that classroom as opposed to the regular classroom. Also in doing this, the regular teachers are left with students who feel as if they are insufficient. If anything, the students who do poorly should be in the sheltered classes with the focused content, while the hard-working and dedicated students could be kept in the regular classroom allowing them to show their dedication.
Driebusch, Corrie. (2012). More Immigrants, Fewer English Classes. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2012/01/20/more-immigrants-find-fewer-english-classes/
Skoczylas, Liz. (2012). JPS Uses New Strategy for ESL. The Post Journal. Retrieved from http://www.post-journal.com/page/content.detail/id/597164.html
No comments:
Post a Comment