Some people assume that acquisition of English is “easy and natural” for nonnative speakers (Kubota & Abels, 2006, p. 84) whatever its source might be: monolingualism, Anglo-conformity, or individualism. Or it might be simply because they have never learned any foreign language in their entire lives. In this case, it’s not surprising that they don’t know how hard it would be to write a complete sentence with voice or to speak in a second/ foreign language.
But if you are one of the decision makers about the policy on international students who need support, you should try to understand the challenges international students face. Among the efforts are rejecting prevalent attitude that views language support to nonnative speakers as “remedial rather than developmental”(p. 85). This can be traced back to the deficit model which regards foreign students as having some problems to be fixed. But as the authors point out, when Americans learn a foreign language, people rarely call it remedial.
Of course, how to provide developmental support is tricky. Various factors should be taken into account: how many international students or 1.5 students need support, how much existing resources the school has, or how much financial resources the school has etc.. Some schools might not have enough students to develop a program for support. So, decision makers and educators need to consider specific contexts in terms of the institution and their students. This would be easily said than done, though. As this is a difficult task, it is valuable to refer to a lot of real cases by reading an article or a book.
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I definitely agree with you Kay. Providing support to foreign language learners should be considered as reinforcing their development and not as fixing it as if it is a deficiency. According to Kubota and Abels many institutions of HE in the U.S. lack English language support programs (2004 SLW Symposium). This is the case on the macro level, and I'm always thinking as an English teacher about what we can do on a micro level in our classrooms especially those of us who work with diverse, or multilingual students but also EFL learners.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with you Kay! It is important to have language programs to help multilingual students or 1.5 generation students in school. However, not every decision maker sees the importance of language development for foreign students. Does Indiana High have language programs for foreign students? I was just wondering if Indiana High provides this kind of program since you have a 10-year-old-daughter. Is every foreign student required to take ESL class?
ReplyDeleteBen Franklin Elementary that my daughter attends have few foreign students. I heard that because of the small number of students in need of ESL instruction, the district provides ESL program for all the schools in the district. But when we lived in NYC, my daughter's school had ESL program. She took ESL class several times a week (pull-out class) and the ESL teacher also came in mainstream class to support ESL students two or three times a week. After a certain period of time, if students take a test successfully, they are fully mainstreamed.
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