Should ESL students be allowed in Class?
By Laesy777
@Laesy777 (62)
United States
January 19, 2007 1:50pm CST
I know many teachers who struggle with their ESL students? It is very difficult to teach someone who just came from Mexico (the case here)and is in the 7th grade who maybe speaks 3 words of English. It is againist Ca law to supply work in Spanish yet some school districts do it. Having these kids in class hold back the other children from learning because they take so much time. Also they are usually paired up with someone who speaks english, so this student spends class time being a translator. Do you think this is right? They used to have seperate classes for these students but they said that was discriminotory. The majority in this school is ESL students who are failing class but are allowed to advance to the next grade. Do you think anyone is benefiting from this?
1 response
@theproperator (2429)
• United States
19 Jan 07
In the elementry school where my mom worked, ESL students spent part of the day in regular class and part with a specialist that would help them learn english and explain their school work to them, in english. The specialist usually did not use the childs native language, as there are children from many different countries that move into that area. As they learned more english, they would spend less and less time going to the specialist. Being around people speaking a language is the quickest way to learn it, so putting them in regular classes was very important, but the specialist helped take the pressure off the classroom teacher by doing more one-on-one work with the student.
