The Google Alerts that I received this week are of differing topics, but both articles intrigued me. The first article describes a social media policy that was put into place by a public school district in Wisconsin. The policy states that any teachers that want to communicate with students through social media need to make a separate, “professional” account to do so. The school district also stated that they advise teachers to not friend or follow any students on their personal pages until the student turns 25. I find that interesting because I have friended former students once they graduated high school. I wonder why the district suggests the age of 25, the article does not explain why. The school board did recognize that social media is a great way to communicate with students and create a sense of community.

The other article that I read discussed how technology is helping to improve the education system in Afghanistan. The article described how many schools have been rebuilt in Afghanistan, but technology is helping to fill the void in materials in the schools. Some schools are also promoting the use of technology by female students. The article does point out that many schools still have unreliable access to the internet, and many areas cannot afford adequate technology. This article was important because it serves as a reminder to teachers of immigrant students that not every student has had experience with technology. We expect that all of our students can easily navigate technology, perhaps better than the teachers. It’s important to remember that our students come from all sorts of backgrounds and experiences.

Last week I posted about two summer programs that help students avoid “summer slide”. This week I received an article about another summer program occurring in Wilkesboro that is sponsored by Wilkes Community College. This summer program is called SEEK (Summer Educational Enrichment for Kids) and its purpose is to continue ESL education for children of parents that attend the college adult ESL classes and the Current Events class for adult ELLs. The program also started teaching basic computer skills to the children and adults after a Chromebook was donated by a family that graduated from the program. Another difference between this program and the summer camps that I wrote about last week is that students are able to attend the program from ages 4-17. The other summer camps were only open to elementary age students. Dennis Johnson, the executive director of the program since 2011, stated, “We all need to read and we want to see our friends and neighbors succeed…” His passion for the program and his genuine caring for the families involved was definitely evident in this article.

In contrast to this positive article, I received an article about a change in legislation in Baltimore County schools that will affect their ESOL program. Officials in the State Department of Education have raised the standards for exiting the ESOL program. According to Brian Schiffer, the director of social services and fine arts in Baltimore County, this will translate to the exit of fewer than half of the students that would normally be able to exit the program. To make matters worse, this legislature was changed after most schools had approved their budget. Schools will have to make due with the teachers they have teaching almost double the amount of students. Students will not receive the level of individualized education that they need to succeed, allowing them to exit the program.

The state officials have said that they will look for “creative ways” to work together with schools to handle the influx of incoming ELLs and ELLs that are continuing in the program. Perhaps summer camps similar to the one I described above and in my post last week could help students advance quicker through the system. Possible introduction of some of the technology we have been discussing in this course could help as well, such as Mobile Aided Language Learning (MALL) due to the ability to use it at home and on the go. I hope that the State Department will actually consider these possibilities and provide funding to support the students.

References:

Bowie, L. (2017, June). New academic standards will keep more immigrant students in

English proficiency classes next year. Retrieved from:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/k-12/bs-md-immigrant-school-

test-20170623-story.html

Hayes, F. (2017, June). Volunteers and staff help SEEK make a difference. Retrieved from:
http://www.journalpatriot.com/news/volunteers-and-staff-help-seek-make-a-
difference/article_ca6e8d58-5813-11e7-af08-f35eb1aa5030.html

Both articles that I received this week from Google Alerts related to the inevitable “summer slide” that a lot of students experience. During the summer, students can often lose gains that they made over the school year. This loss can be especially devastating to ELLs. If an ELL doesn’t have any way to practice English at home over the summer, they could possibly regress in their English language proficiency level.

At a community center in Utah, several teachers host a summer camp that is open to all students, but is mainly populated with native Spanish speaking students. The program coordinator, Alyssa Escalante states, “Summer learning loss is real and is especially prevalent in low-income families.” This program provides educational support for students as well as feeding them breakfast, lunch, and snacks that they can take home.

In Georgia, an elementary school is running a summer camp just for ESL students. This summer camp uses a lot of technology to make the camp more interesting for the students. In one activity that the article explains, students use an App to scan a picture. The picture then “comes to life” and says a sentence in English that is using a sight word. The students then practiced that sight word by writing their own sentence using it. Students also learned basic coding to create a robot that will act out activities in a story that they wrote in English. The students in this camp were also given backpacks with activities that they can use at home to practice English when the camp ends.

Students in both of these summer camps not only are practicing their academic English through structured activities and technology, but they are also able to practice their social English. The low-pressure environment of a summer camp is a great setting for students to be able to take risks in the language. I hope that this review of these two articles might inspire some teachers to try to start their own ESL summer camp that can help prevent “summer slide”.

Resources:

Dodson, B. (2017, July). Program helping Boulder’s kids avoid brain drain. Retrieved from:

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/central/provo/program-helping-boulders-kids-avoid-

summer-brain-drain/article_69950417-1588-55b6-bbf8-dd61d916f4e9.html

Morgan, S. (2017, July). Knollwood elementary school hosts ESL summer camp. Retrieved from:

http://www.salisburypost.com/2017/07/04/knollwood-hosts-esl-summer-camp/