April 15, 2011
Imagine, you are sitting in a classroom looking at the teacher watching his or her mouth move but you have no idea what is being said. You try to piece together little words or phrases here and there but cannot come up with the right idea on your own. This is the case for many English Language Learners within classrooms today; the only difference is many do not even know enough English to piece together a phrase leaving them completely clueless. The controversial discussion of English Language Learners and their education can become quite heated. There is much discussion on these students and countless action plans, that we tend to forget this issue cannot only be talked about, but needs to be dealt with in the best way possible addressing all of the problems and providing ways to fix them. Two of the major ideas are English Immersion and Bilingual Education; both sides bring valuable solutions to the table, but I personally find myself torn on which will most benefit the ELL students. I have decided to look at both possible solutions, increase ones knowledge about these students education, and provide a good basis of information about the overall subject of English Language Learning.
In English immersion, the main focus is for ELL students’ to gain their education solely through the English language. All instruction provided for their education is in English and students are spoken to and expected to speak in English. It is often referred to as the “sink or swim” approach in that it does not provide the ELL students with the amount of needed help to engage them further into their education. The students both understand the language and continue to grow with it, or become loosed at the idea and “sink”. Students spend so much time learning how to speak the language, that there is rarely enough time spent on learning about the English grammar piece of the language. In Robert Slavin and Alan Cheung’s article on “Language of Reading Instruction...