Title:
English and Spanish Speakers Learn Together, and
From Each Other
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
In the last ten years, hundreds of American schools
have begun to offer a new way to teach foreign
languages. This method is called dual or two-way
immersion. Here is how it works at London Towne
Elementary School in Centreville, Virginia, outside
Washington. In some classes, only Spanish is spoken,
even during the Pledge of Allegiance -- a morning
tradition for American schoolchildren. In one second
grade class the children learn math and other
subjects completely in Spanish. Later in the day
they learn only in English. Half of the children are
from families that speak Spanish at home. The other
half are native English speakers. Myra Olmeda is the
teacher. She says when both these groups come
together, they are learning from one another which
is very good. Helen Arzola teaches the youngest
children. She says a child before age eight is a
language-learning machine. So this is the best time
to learn a language.She says her kindergarteners
from English-speaking families may have never heard
Spanish before. And she says children from
Spanish-speaking families benefit from learning in
their own language.Helen Arzola says the goal of the
dual-language program is to teach low-income
Hispanic children English -- good English, social
English and academic English. But some people are
still not sure about these programs. They say
bilingual education has not always taught Hispanic
students enough English. London Towne Elementary is
in Fairfax County, Virginia. The county also offers
immersion programs in French, German and Japanese.
One sixth grader at London Towne says it's not like
traditional teaching. Another student says she likes
to learn other languages. But a national survey
found that in recent years foreign language teaching
decreased in public elementary and middle schools.
Fewer schools teach French, German, Russian or
Japanese. Some schools say a federal education law
from the last administration has hurt language
teaching. This law only requires testing of progress
in math and reading. Schools also face language
teacher shortages, and now budget cuts caused by the
economy. And that's the VOA Special English
Education Report. You can watch a video of this
report by Jerome Socolovsky at
voaspecialenglish.com.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
