Quote:
Originally Posted by flamingreen
Of the 32 kids in my Grade 5 class last year, 28 were considered English language learners (now that had varying degrees too, several spoke no/minimal English). Ironically, math is probably the one subject where that is less of an issue (unless we are talking word problems), as they all can understand the numbers.
But where do those kids go? Several kids came to Canada, and two weeks later were in my classroom. Unless the answer is - no school for you - into the classroom they go.
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Good question. When my daughter was doing her Practicum down in Lethbridge she worked at a school specifically catering to new Immigrants and Refugees teaching English, do those resources not exist in Calgary?
I see what you're saying and I also see what Sliver is saying, you cant monopolize a teacher's time on a handful of students at the expense of the rest but nor can the kids simply be ignored.
Its less of a 'teaching' issue as much as it is a mis-allocation of resources.
Those 'English Language Learners' are essentially being shoved into the deep end and told to learn to swim. How? Figure it out. Thats a systemic issue that needs to be addressed because those students are essentially being setup to fail and simultaneously, so are the educators. Thats a seemingly impossible task.
But I dont see that the solution to that and/or disruptive kids is smaller class sizes or paying teachers more, lets put those issues aside momentarily, there has to be a systemic mechanism in place to help those students get to where they need to be educationally before just plunking them into Gen Pop.