English as second language classes boom By Carolyn
Bower
Of the Post-Dispatch Thursday, Sep. 16 2004
As students debate their
favorite Yu-Gi-Oh cartoon character or the best way to play ball, it
is hard to tell that one in six students at Bierbaum Elementary
School
in south St. Louis County speaks English as a second language.
Since the number of English language learners has quadrupled over
six years, Bierbaum, in the Mehlville district, now sends information
to parents not only
in English but also in Bosnian. And school
officials plan to translate parent information this year into other
languages such as Spanish.
The situation is much the same in other
districts in the St. Louis region, where the number of students who
speak limited English has risen dramatically.
In a few months
Hazelwood will send families information in Spanish, Arabic and
14
other languages on issues such as testing, report cards and behavior
guidelines. Parkway serves students speaking 43 languages.
As
the number of English language learners increases, so does the number of
languages spoken. Missouri students speak 98 languages. Students speak
400
languages across the nation, although the predominant language
after English is
Spanish.
"We are becoming more diverse," said
Maria Hernandez Ferrier, a deputy undersecretary at the U.S.
Department of Education.
Although born in the United States, Amira
Alhiyari, 14, lived in Jordan and spoke Arabic in schools there for
most of her life before returning to this
country five years ago. Now
she attends 10th grade at Hazelwood West High
School, takes tests and
does homework in English and plans to become a
pharmacist.
Amira said it took several years to learn English, and she still
seeks help at the school's English language learner center.
"It was hard in the beginning, but my teachers helped me," she
said. Having more English language learners in the district makes it
easier, Amira said. "I
know there are other people going through what
I went through."
While the United States falls short in the number
of adults able to speak languages such as Farsi, Urdu and Kurdish and
locate the countries where those
languages are spoken, (Iran and
Afghanistan; Pakistan and India; Iran, Iraq,
Syria, Turkey and parts
of the former Soviet Union) such expertise among schoolchildren
improves understanding of other countries and cultures, teachers
say.
At the same time, the demographic changes also have brought
additional work for schools seeking to meet state and federal
accountability requirements for all
students. The federal No Child
Left Behind law requires students who speak
limited English to take
state math tests the first year they enter a US
school and state
reading and writing tests the next year. States have the
option of
offering students the tests in their native language for up to three
years, Ferrier said.
As of last fall, Missouri reported 14,855
students learning English. The number has grown by about 10 percent to
14 percent in each of the past few years. The number is nearly 2
percent of the state's public school enrollment.
In Illinois
nearly 129,000 of the state's 2 million public school students speak
limited English, with the highest percentage in the Chicago region.
Nationally, 5.5 million of the country's 48 million schoolchildren
need help learning English. About 80 percent of them are
Spanish-speaking.
"We think of this happening in California, when
the numbers are growing fast in the Midwest," said Kathie Poe, an
English language teacher at Bierbaum. "This is why we are scrambling
for money and teachers. A lot of districts were not prepared."
In the Kansas City School District, enrollment of English language
learners has nearly tripled over five years to 3,102, with two-thirds
of them Spanish speakers.
Enrollment grew less slowly in St.
Louis city schools, to 2,768 from 2,675. But enrollment has more than
doubled in some school districts in neighboring St. Louis County and
St. Charles County.
People from other countries have moved to the
St. Louis region because of resettlement programs, affordable housing
and jobs.
Ritenour Assistant Superintendent Jack Williams said
that while everyone knew schools would enroll more language minority
students, "five years ago I would not have guessed that we would have
had this influx." There, the number of
students with limited English
rose to 233 last year from 117 five years earlier.
In
Hazelwood, the number of students who speak English as a second language
rose to 409 last year from 220 five years earlier. The number now is
closer to 500, and 400 more students in the district speak English as
a second language
but receive no services, said Patrick Lane, who
oversees the English language learner programs. The district has
received a $450,000, three-year grant for translation, parent
involvement and teacher training programs.
Hazelwood West students
Annais Padua, 15, and her brother, Robin Llanos, 16, moved to the
United States five years ago from Puerto Rico.
Robin, who plans to
become an engineer, said he thinks it works best to take classes and
tests in English. His sister, who wants to work as a crime scene
investigator, would prefer to learn from teachers who speak English as
well as a student's native language.
The federal government
requires schools to provide services to students with limited English,
but school districts decide how.
Some schools pull students with
limited English out of class to work on their language skills. In
other schools, teachers go into regular classes to help those
students. A few schools teach students in English as well as their native
language.
Parkway pulls students out of class for English
instruction and also sends English language teachers into classes,
said Laura Terrill, who oversees the district's program.
A
student may become fluent enough in English after two to three years to
talk with their friends and teachers, but some may take seven to nine
years to understand the language of academics such as physics or
biology, Terrill said. Students who learn English in younger grades
have an easier time than those who start in high school.
Bierbaum has two teachers and a teaching assistant to work with
students who come to school fluent in a language other than English.
Poe has spent most of the first two weeks of school testing the
English ability of her students.
One, Bakir Vehabovic, 9, a
fourth-grader, arrived in this country from Bosnia three years ago.
Seven of the 25 students in his class know English as a second
language. At lunch, Bakir discusses Yu-Gi-Oh monsters with both
Bosnian- and English-speaking friends.
While Terrill applauds
the intention of the No Child Left Behind law to hold schools
accountable for students with limited English, she said it is unfair to
expect children from another country to take the same state test as
their English-speaking peers.
In Mehlville, Bierbaum's
principal, Steve Langhorst agrees.
"People are not all the same
height," he said. "They don't all have the same color of eyes. So why
do we expect them all to learn the same thing at the same time?"
Multiple languages spoken here
In Missouri, 14,855
students are learning English as a second language. Statewide, at
least 90 different languages are spoken in the districts. Here are
some local school districts with at least 10 English as a second language
students, and the languages spoken.
Affton:
Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian 96 Bayless: Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian
139, Vietnamese 26, Spanish 19 Clayton: Chinese 40, Korean 27,
Japanese 12 Ferguson-Florissant: Spanish 50, Swahili 10
Fort Zumwalt: Spanish 31 Francis Howell: Spanish 71,
Chinese 12, Punjabi 11 Hancock Place: Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian
66 Hazelwood: Arabic 127, Spanish 122, African tribal 14,
Vietnamese 14, Yoruba 14, Chinese 12, Mandarin 11, Swahili 11,
Cantonese 10, Hollister: Spanish 29 Kirkwood:
Spanish 10 Lindbergh: Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian 55
Mehlville: Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian 218, Chinese 19, Spanish
15, Vietnamese 13, Arabic 12 Normandy: Spanish 10
Parkway: Spanish 77, Korean 75, Urdu 42, Chinese 29, Japanese
11, Bulgarian 17, Mandarin 16, Russian 12, Arabic 12,
Pattonville: Spanish 112, Arabic 19, Chinese 12, Vietnamese 10
Ritenour: Spanish 144, Vietnamese 18, Arabic 15, Punjabi 10
Riverview Gardens: Spanish 15, Amharic 11 Rockwood:
Spanish 56, Chinese 31, Russian 24, Korean 16, Urdu 16, Vietnamese 13,
Arabic 11, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian 10 St. Charles: Spanish 95
St. Louis: Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian 1,345, Spanish 414,
Vietnamese 317, Farsi 162, Albanian 105, Somali 103, Arabic 82, French
49, Kurdish 49, Laotian 23, Persian 23, Amharic 14, African tribal 13
Valley Park: Spanish 21 Wentzville: Spanish 11
Wright City: Spanish 37
Reporter Carolyn
Bower
Full
story at SLTtoday
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