ELL News Headlines

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.

When Lucia Ibarra was growing up in Las Mochis, Mexico, near the Gulf of California, she felt most at home running barefoot, climbing trees, playing in the ocean, and laughing with the sheep and horses on her mother's ranch. "Since I was a kid I loved nature. My culture was humans and animals. But I felt like we were all connected and everything had a domino effect," said Ibarra, who has lived in Asheville for nearly three years.

The Coalition for English Learner Equity (CELE), a group of national education leaders and organizations, working together to improve educational outcomes for linguistically and culturally diverse students, has launched a new national effort to help address the education disparities faced by English Learners across the nation. The COVID 19 pandemic exposed long-standing inequities and school systems are ill-equipped to meet the needs of EL students. This initiative addresses these challenges by providing guidance to district and state leaders as well as educators to reimagine the way this critical population is served in schools. 

With the ongoing pandemic, Hispanic Heritage celebrations are looking a bit different this year. Iowa's Latino Heritage Festival is a state wide event that celebrates the month and dates back to 2002. Organizers say it's a great way to celebrate the rich traditions and culture.

With several schools starting the year on remote or hybrid learning plans, several Latino families say they are hitting a wall when it comes to teaching their children.  One north Toledo mother says that the situation presents so many difficulties that she would rather have her kids go back to in-school learning than to see them fall behind.