ELL News Headlines

A classroom full of toys, puzzles, costumes, books, flags from around the world and energized children is a place Clementine Gasimba gravitates toward. What makes this particular preschool classroom unique is the children — among them, they speak up to 10 different languages. Knowing half a dozen languages herself, Gasimba can speak and relate to many of the children, but still has a few she teaches who she doesn’t share a common language with. Gasimba is one of several teachers at The Little Village, an early childhood center part of an organization called The Village Institute. The Village Institute aims to serve refugee families from a holistic approach, providing housing, language resources, childcare, job readiness, and mental health services, all under one roof.  That includes a pipeline where refugee women, including Gasimba and Harriet Kwitegetse, can go through education and certification courses to help advance their careers. In this case, the training put Gasimba and Kwitegetse directly back into serving other refugee families by leading a preschool class. 

As North Carolina’s demographics continue to diversify, the state’s community colleges are also becoming more diverse. Colleges are finding ways to encourage enrollment among students from different backgrounds and represent their heritage, customs, and native languages in classrooms.

Rochester Public Schools English Language Learners, or EL Learners, got a chance to learn more about math and science in a fun, interactive way this past week.

For many teachers of English learners, working with students to build oral language skills has been especially crucial this year.  That’s because remote learning made those skills harder to practice last year. A report released this month detailed some of the common challenges: Students had fewer opportunities to talk with their classmates online, and teachers who specialized in language support often got pulled away to help with other duties. The charts and word banks that students rely on as they learn to speak a new language were harder to share in virtual classrooms, too.

In the last two years, Canada and several U.S. states have begun to recognize their histories with Native American boarding schools, institutions that set out to “assimilate” Native American children into westernized U.S. ways of life by stripping them of Indigenous tradition and culture. What would start with a small number of schools following the Indian Civilization Fund Act in 1819 would eventually grow to more than 350 “government-funded, and often church-run” schools across the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries, according to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition.

Fewer students are choosing language electives at school, but contrary to popular perception, it isn't purely a lack of interest causing the decline. My recent study suggests students want to study a language, but can't.

Managing a mental health crisis can be challenging for teenagers and their parents. It is often unchartered territory that needs to be navigated with the utmost sensitivity. This guidance may help.

From Title IX to a cure for malaria and anime to folklore, these 11 titles showcase the rich impact that Asian American and Pacific Islanders have had on American culture. 

Denver Public Schools has one electric school bus, solar panels in 46 locations, and 126 school and community gardens. But students are pushing the district to do more and become a national leader on climate action, sustainability, and environmental justice. "I really want to ensure a livable future for me and my generation," Amelia Fernández Rodríguez, a freshman at DSST: Conservatory Green high school, recently told the school board. She is a member of a group called DPS Students for Climate Action.

Latino/a adolescents who took on greater childcare responsibilities due to COVID-19 experienced a significant increase in symptoms of depression, anxiety and acting out behaviors such as aggression. They also experienced a significant drop in their grade point average, according to a study recently published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.