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Effective Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners

Learning English and Learning America

By: Karen Pellino

Learning English and Learning America: Immigrants in the Center of A Storm (Olsen, 2000)

This article considers the challenges faced by language minority children at school as they experience what is referred to as "language shock," a struggle to learn the English language and be accepted in a society that is not always accepting and not always willing to embrace diversity. These students are in a strange land trying to maintain a sense of identity related to their native culture and also become American. What a heavy burden for a young person!

Social and political issues surrounding immigration and diversity in our nation complicate the seemingly basic task of learning English. The role of schools in the Americanization of immigrant students is formally identified as making them fluent English speakers.

Hence, our schools label and serve these students based on their ability or inability to speak English. However, ESL students encounter many obstacles in their efforts to become proficient in the English language. They often come to realize that in order to be fully accepted, they must abandon their native language, surrendering an aspect of their identity. They are caused to feel they must either speak English or nothing at all. Thus, they become caught in a painful power struggle over the use of English and their native language.

As educators we need to realize that education occurs in the context of a social climate. The relationships between students and accompanying range of social behaviors have a major impact on how well ESL students learn English and how well all students learn overall. Children cannot achieve in an unwelcoming, hostile environment. Many children are made fun of when they try to speak English and also when they speak their native language; so they end up silent and withdraw from participation. This further interferes with their learning and achievement.

The English that ESL students are taught is academic English. They often lack the ability to interact in social settings with English speaking peers because they are in separate classrooms and often have limited opportunity to interact academically or socially. They often have great difficulty learning the "slang" and social English because they have no one to learn it from. These children come to prefer English out of necessity, often abandoning their native languages to fit in. They end up without comfort in either language and may end up losing the ability to communicate with family members and friends in their native land.

The author of this article concludes that our ESL students will remain torn between two worlds until society truly embraces diversity and the notion that biculturalism and bilingualism are assets. What is needed in the education of ESL children is the development of English and maintenance of their native language.

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