Teaching in Babel
WALNUT CREEK, Calif. _ Children in Iris Belenson's first-grade class at Alisal Elementary School in Pleasanton speak six different languages at home: Farsi, Mandarin, Portuguese, Pilipino, Spanish and Tamil. Each week they learn about a different region of the world _ all in English like the rest of their school day. Last week it was China, and 7-year-old Eileen Jiang proudly showed her classmates how to use chopsticks to eat slippery egg-fried rice. "Put your little finger like this. It's hard to get it in, guys," she told a handful of children gathered around a wok. Tiny fingers fumbled with the long plastic sticks as Eileen took a few expert bites. Then she, like most others, asked for a spoon. Eileen is one of 1.5 million children in California _ one-fourth of all public school students _ who are still learning English. A new Census report shows California counties lead the nation in the percentage of children who don't speak English well or at all. Alameda County is 21st on the list. Contra Costa County comes in at 107. Although those students are concentrated in low-income neighborhoods of districts such as West Contra Costa Unified and Pittsburg Unified, they are increasingly found in every corner of the East Bay. In Pleasanton, the numbers have nearly tripled in the past six years. East Bay schools are struggling to adapt to meet the needs of this growing multilingual student population while satisfying the demands of 1998's Proposition 227, which restricted bilingual education in California. At Alisal, teachers started the school's first after-school program last week to help students learn more words and practice speaking English in a comfortable environment. Most of the 12 students in the program came to the United States within the past two years from Korea and China. "As a school we've become aware that our population is changing," said Belenson. "We need to make these kids feel included." About one-third of students in Belenson's first-grade class are not fluent in English. She said the first month is "sort of a white out" for students who don't speak English, but they pick it up fast. One Japanese student started out the year speaking no English and ended reading as well as her classmates, Belenson said. Jane Golden, coordinator of special projects in Pleasanton, said the district did not make any dramatic changes after Prop. 227, because immigrant students already were placed in classes with students who speak English. Recently, however, the district is getting more children who don't speak any English and are illiterate in their own language, a double challenge to teachers. That's a familiar challenge in the West Contra Costa Unified School District, a receiving ground for immigrants from around the world, where 8,700 students from 115 countries speak 82 languages. Although Prop. 227 aimed to curtail bilingual instruction, some districts with strong support for bilingual programs, such as West Contra Costa, have managed to keep them running by obtaining waivers from parents. The number of students instructed in Spanish at least part of the day in West Contra Costa schools has only decreased from a high of 2,200 students to 1,800. Since Prop. 227, many districts instead have turned to placing students in "sheltered English immersion" classes, where they learn subjects such as history and science in English, but with extra support. Luciano Caldera, a world history teacher at Helms Middle School in San Pablo, said students in his sheltered classes have a wide range of abilities in English, and the seventh-grade textbook they are assigned is often too hard. He finds and photocopies books and articles at a more appropriate level and pairs strong readers with weak ones. On an afternoon last week, he talked students through how to write an essay, explaining how to write a glossary and bibliography. He sent students flipping through worn dictionaries on their desks to find definitions of words they didn't understand. "I'm using history to teach them English," he said. "That's the challenge. You have to struggle and break your head to say, 'How can I get these kids to learn not just more but faster?" Communication with parents of immigrant students can also be difficult. At Coronado Elementary School in Richmond, teachers and administrators wanted to encourage non-English speaking parents to come to the school. So they took a lesson from the United Nations. They bought a translation system. If a presentation is made to a small group in English, a volunteer translates simultaneously into a microphone that is connected to headphones worn by parents. They also hired a Spanish-speaking parent liaison to translate for teachers, organize meetings and run a room where parents can come for classes, support, books, clothing and food. "It makes it much easier to get parents here when they know they will understand," said Principal Linda Jackson. "It has impacted Coronado's parental involvement so much so that during the day we have more Spanish-speaking parents than we do English-only parents." |