Trying to learn ? when you don’t know English
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School, to many students, is a challenge. But for the 160 students in Warren County schools with limited English skills it can, at times, seem almost impossible.
“You feel like you want to cry at first. You can’t understand anything,” said high school student Aldo Aparicio, through Rafaela Rodriguez, a bilingual teaching assistant. “You feel some people are laughing at you in class. It’s very sad then.”
During those first months and years after non-English speaking students arrive in the school system, their daily English as a Second Language classes, which usually last no more than an hour, are often the only times these students feel comfortable and are able to learn at their potential.
It is in these classes students learn the language and culture of America with other English language learners under the tutelage of specially certified teachers and bilingual assistants.
“It feels like home in here,” said high school senior Jaime Chavez, who has been in the U.S. and at the high school for four years and is now fluent in English. “At first it’s really hard in our other classes because you can’t communicate. But in here we are more comfortable because there are other students like us, who speak our language. It helps us learn.”
But Chavez, who learned English in a year and a half and is currently taking rigorous upper-level classes, is the exception rather than the rule, especially at the high school level. Here, where classes are more difficult than in earlier grades, not having a firm grasp of English can be a tremendous stumbling block.
While it is School Board policy all teachers in the system must modify their curriculum to make learning easier for these students, no modifications or exceptions are allowed on such state accountability measures as the TCAP achievement tests and the Gateway exams. Most educators agree elementary-age children have an easier time learning English and adjusting to the new culture than older students.
“They’re like little sponges. They just soak it up,” said Hickory Creek Elementary bilingual teaching assistant Tammy Mendez. “The younger they are, the faster they learn. And they really want to learn.”
The youngest, of course, are the kindergartners. And though they tend to pick up the language more quickly than the older non-speakers, they have an additional hurdle to learning in that they have never been to school before and thus are not familiar with the educational setting and the social skills needed to succeed.
As the younger students learn and assimilate our language and culture faster, it is also a fact they often lose much of their own language and culture. To combat this, the ESOL program encourages parents to teach the native language and culture at home.
“These students live in two different worlds, have different personas,” said Mendez. “When they’re at school, it’s their American selves. At home they’re someone different.”
For all the difficulties and frustration, however, the majority of students are happy to be here.
“We get a better education and have better opportunities here in the U.S.,” said Chavez. “Everything has changed for me when I learned English. I found I could go to college and be successful.”