How Do Other Countries Teach a Second Language?

[Harold Schiffman]

Learning the Language

Mary Ann Zehr is an assistant editor at Education Week. She has
written about the schooling of English-language learners for more than
seven years and understands through her own experience of studying
Spanish that it takes a long time to learn another language well. Her
blog will tackle difficult policy questions, explore learning
innovations, and share stories about different cultural groups on her
beat.

How Do Other Countries Teach a Second Language?

Over at the Migration Policy Institute, some researchers have been
examining how other countries are educating children from immigrant
families. I'm not familiar with the work of the researchers who
produced these studies, and I learned about the studies a couple of
months after they were released. (Find the press release here.) But I
didn't want to miss the chance to report a bit on what's happening
with second-language learners outside of the United States.

The findings of a survey of school language policies and practices in
14 immigrant-receiving countries, not including the United States, are
particularly interesting. Gayle Christensen, a research associate at
the Urban Institute's Education Policy Center, and Petra Stanat, a
professor for educational research at the Free University of Berlin,
the researchers who conducted the survey, conclude that regions or
countries that have the most success in teaching students who are 1st-
or 2nd-generation immigrants have several factors in common.

They have systematic programs with explicit standards and
requirements. They have curricula that may be created at the local
level but adhere to language development frameworks and progress
benchmarks determined by a central office. The programs are
time-intensive, and offer support at both the primary and lower
secondary levels. Teachers who instruct second-language learners have
received specialized training. Second-language teachers tend to work
closely with mainstream teachers.

The researchers found that bilingual programs played a very minor role
in most country's school systems. In almost all the countries studied,
more than half of children in primary schools who weren't fluent in
the host country's language attended regular classes and received
supplemental support either within regular classes or through
additional periods of instruction focused on second-language learning.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/learning-the-language/2007/11/children_from_immigrant_famili.html

-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner
or sponsor of
the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who
disagree with a
message are encouraged to post a rebuttal. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)
*******************************************