Reading all of the pieces regarding English Language Learners I began to reflect on an experience I had with such students this summer that seems to contradict all of the positive strategies that the readings espoused. \u00a0This past summer I worked on the residential staff at a summer boarding school with a student body of roughly 200. \u00a0A large number of these students were ELL. \u00a0I had three ELL students under my direct supervision, one from China and two from South Korea. \u00a0Additionally there were massive Arabic and Spanish speaking populations among the students at this school. \u00a0Looking back on that experience what really strikes me is how oppressive the school was of these students using their first language among themselves in conversation. \u00a0As a member of the residential staff I was told to both monitor and stop any and all conversations taking place in any language other than English. \u00a0The idea was that these students were here to learn English and speaking their native language was nothing but detrimental. \u00a0It seems that the school felt a greater responsibility to the parents’ paid tuitions than to the students themselves.<\/p>\n
Unlike what was suggested in the readings, these students were not able to use their primary language as a scaffold for learning English. \u00a0They were discouraged from speaking in a language that made them comfortable when many of them were thousands of miles from home in a strange place. \u00a0How alienated they must have felt and the school’s policy of oppressing primary language use did nothing but enforce this alienation. \u00a0Following these readings I am frankly disgusted and very concerned by the oppressive policies I was tasked with enforcing. \u00a0Why not allow a student to use any tool at their disposal when trying to learn an unfamiliar language? \u00a0This response may have become more of a rant but I believe it gets to the point that there is absolutely no reason to discourage primary language use by ELL students, as literacy arises from any language not only from English.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reading all of the pieces regarding English Language Learners I began to reflect on an experience I had with such students this summer that seems to contradict all of the positive strategies that the readings espoused. \u00a0This past summer I … Continue reading