ELL News Headlines

Virginia Vasquez, 16, only started learning English five years ago when she and her family left Venezuela for a better life in the U.S. Like generations of immigrant teens before her, Virginia has become a crucial lifeline for her family as she translates invoices and bills and other information for her Spanish-speaking parents, who left behind careers as an elementary school teacher and a horse trainer and now clean offices in the Tampa, Florida, area.

Boston Public Schools anticipates an additional 2,000 students to enroll in summer learning programs this year compared with last year, thanks in part to the expansion of a program that combines enrichment activities with coordinating classroom lessons.

In February, Montana state Rep. Lola Sheldon-Galloway proposed a bill that would have banned social-emotional learning in schools, arguing that the lessons that emphasize regulation of emotions, healthy relationships, and empathy violated parents’ right to direct their own children’s upbringing. However, by the end of the Feb. 27 education committee hearing on the bill, during which educators, lawmakers, and parents lined up to speak in opposition, Sheldon-Galloway, a Republican, had changed her mind. The committee ultimately tabled the bill, but the discussion highlighted three intertwined themes: Confusion over what comprises social and emotional learning; the political backlash it’s generated in recent years, linked to other political lightning rods like critical race theory; and finally, how the opposition softens once it’s explained.

The State Seal of Biliteracy was adopted by California in 2012. High school graduates can receive the gold seal on their high school diploma or transcript if they demonstrate proficiency in English and another language. Yet many students, particularly English learners, don’t receive the state seal of biliteracy, even though they are bilingual, because there aren’t enough options to show students are proficient in English, according to some advocates and district and county officials. A bill currently in the Legislature, Assembly Bill 370, aims to change that.

Amanda Marie Rosas (she/her) teaches Spanish and Women's Studies at Visitation High School in Mendota Heights, Minnesota. She writes, "Working as a World Languages teacher, my job is to erase the pressures of perfectionism that impede our students’ progress toward language fluency and proficiency. I want to create a learning environment that embraces and affirms the humanity of each student and prioritizes our relationships with one another. Learning a new language is often challenging, and being vulnerable enough to make pronunciation, verb conjugation or listening comprehension mistakes can be embarrassing, especially for a student being evaluated based on their ability to learn it. Yet, if learning a new language is going to stick, being bold enough to take risks is essential."

or years, Suyapa Jaqueline Trejo watched her community dwindle as many of her neighbors looked for a better life in the U.S. When she was elected mayor in 2021, she began to think of ways to seek help from those who had left Macuelizo, a municipality of about 40,000 that's made up of several villages in northwest Honduras.

NPR' Sacha Pfeiffer asks Camille Hatcher, a nurse at Lake Nixon Summer Day Camp in Little Rock, Ark., about how she's protecting campers from extreme heat.

About 41 million urban residents experience higher temperatures because of the ‘heat island effect,’ according to an analysis.

A new national monument dedicated to the murdered teenager Emmett Till and his mother honors three sites critical to Till's story, and central to the birth of America's civil rights movement. The announcement comes in the middle of a heated debate over how best to teach children about race and American history. Laura Barrón-López reports.

Heavy precipitation caused epic flooding in the Central Valley earlier this year, causing catastrophic damage to homes and crops. Months later, the region is still recovering.