Response to A Guide for ESL and Mainstream Teachers

While ESL students certainly do have special needs in the classroom, they are by no means cognitively impaired. They are simply special needs because of their lack of knowledge pertaining to the English Language. Student knowledge and intelligence can not accurately be measured when written in English, when a student’s first language is Spanish.

The article states that “staying up to date with current trends in education, such as technology and teaching strategies can lead to growth and stronger educators.” This idea is a powerful one. As the schools and the population of the United States grow, native Spanish speakers in the classroom are going to become more and more common. While it is not realistic to expect all educators to speak Spanish, or a second language, it is important and completely possible to stay up to date with the best practices and strategies for teaching ESL students. Acceptance is key. All students should feel comfortable in the classroom and be allowed to learn in a way that is effective for them. If I had no knowledge of Spanish I would be really nervous about ways in which to teach Spanish speaking students. How do you connect and teach students who do not understand you? In a perfect world and system, support will be in place in the schools… Until then, all teachers must learn strategies that work for these students.

My Dual Language Church Visit

This past Sunday, I had the pleasure of attending a mass at St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church in Holland, MI. Here, services are offered in both English on Spanish. There is a bilingual service on Saturday nights, Spanish services on Sundays and Wednesdays, and English services on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. The staff is a diverse mixture of people of both white and Hispanic decent.

While the church service that I attended was in English, I found it really interesting that church services right here in West Michigan were so diverse. I had no idea to what extent the Spanish speaking community was accomadated here. I know that Holland has a large Hispanic migrant farm worker population and I am really glad that there are places that they can easily celebrate and embrace their own language and culture locally.

What I Learned in Class Today.....

My group was asked to explore the Kalamazoo Public Schools website for information pertaining to Hispanic programs and students. I was excited to learn that KPS actually has a "dual language" elementary school called El Sol. (Which means The Sun in English - a fitting name I would say for a school that seems to be a bright spot in education.) At El Sol, all of the staff is bilingual. All parent letters and meetings are held in both Spanish and English. The school is fairly small - only about 220 students are currently enrolled. According to the KPS website, about half of the students are from Spanish speaking homes and about half are from English speaking homes.

What an awesome public school and program in general! I think that it is a great idea to begin students with speaking a second language at such a young age. This program also takes the heat off of Spanish speaking students as feeling out of place in an English speaking school system, as all of this school's students are struggling with the challenge of learning a new language.

An idea for further response and discussion:
What happens to students after they leave this school environment?
Do you think that Spanish speaking Hispanic students will succeed in their English-speaking Middle Schools?

Some Facts and Figures that I learned from Other Group Presentations:

I learned a new term: "Drop-out Factories" - a phrase that has to do with low income schools, primarily attended by students from low income families. There is a startling number of students who drop out from these institutions due to lack of opportunity, funding, community resources, etc. Sadly, even though these students and schools may need more resources they are not getting them - the cycle continues.

Detroit Public Schools:

Hispanics make up roughly 6.5-8% of the student population. (This is around the same percentage of Hispanic students in the Kalamazoo Public School System.)

Hispanic students (according to the district) have a 88% attendance rate (the highest of any ethnicity.) Despite this, only about 51% of these students are graduating...

Latino population of Detroit is only about 5%. The majority of the "Hispanic" population in the US is from Mexico.


National Hispanic Heritage Month
September 15- October 15

*began as a week long celebration, but was extended to a month in 1988.
This is the first time that I had ever heard of National Hispanic Heritage month...