ELL News Headlines

Rocklin, a 12,000-student district located east of Sacramento, recently moved to a hybrid plan with staggered days of in-person schooling, per California’s tiered health department guidelines for schools. It is one of what is expected to be thousands of U.S. school districts that are moving a step closer to full in-person instruction this month, as school leaders reassess their responses to the coronavirus pandemic.

The share of children with health coverage in the United States fell for the third consecutive year in 2019, according to census data, after decades of increases. The decline occurred during a period of economic growth — before the coronavirus pandemic caused broad job losses that might have cost many more Americans their health insurance.

About one-fifth of students in California are learning English as a second language, and most of their classes are only in English. In order to learn to speak, read and write fluently, they need additional language classes and many opportunities to practice speaking and interacting with peers and teachers, which can be difficult remotely. Researchers and advocates for English learners say during distance learning, schools need to prioritize live instruction and small groups. They also need to work with families in their native languages to support learning at home and provide social-emotional support to ease anxiety and stress caused by the pandemic.

Note: This post shares the story of a teacher who recently lost her life to COVID-19.

After holding her hands as she took her final breaths, Olga Quiroga's family drove past a double rainbow last Thursday and felt her presence. A Chicago Public Schools teacher for two decades, Quiroga's career as a bilingual educator traces back to her childhood 1,400 miles away in Nuevo Laredo, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. Playing pretend with her siblings, Quiroga assumed the role of a teacher who could speak both English and Spanish.

Naibe Reynoso, multi-Emmy award winning journalist, has released her newest children's book "How to Fold a Taco." The book is bilingual, written in both English and Spanish, and promotes active imagination in children. Reynoso's first three books are more educational and focus on Latinx leaders who made history in the United States.

A study conducted at 19 universities found that a brief social belonging exercise boosts the performance and persistence of students who speak English as a second language in STEM disciplines: science, technology, engineering and math.

The closure of school buildings in response to the coronavirus has been disruptive and inconvenient for many families, but for those living in homeless shelters or hotel rooms — including roughly 1.5 million school-aged children — the shuttering of classrooms and cafeterias has been disastrous.

The new "question-of-the-week" is: "What are specific online strategies you have used to apply culturally responsive teaching in an online or hybrid environment?" Today's contributors are Shelly M. Jones, Ph.D., Gina Laura Gullo, Isabel Becerra, and Candace Hines.

A few days into the lockdown here in London, I noticed a surprising side-effect of the pandemic: My 3-year-old son was speaking more German. German is my mother tongue, and I have used it with him since he was born, but because everyone around us speaks English, including my British husband, we settled into a pattern typical of mixed families. I spoke to my son in German, and he replied in English. Then Covid-19 reshuffled our linguistic deck. As all of us quarantined at home, my son embraced German with unprecedented enthusiasm. Now, almost six months on, it has become his preferred language. In a complete reversal, he even replies to my husband in German.

The new "question-of-the-week" is: "What are specific online strategies you have used to apply culturally responsive teaching in an online or hybrid environment?" Today, Vivian Yun, Adeyemi Stembridge, Ph.D.,  Andrew Dryden, and Valentina Gonzalez offer their responses.