By Ashley Hopkinson, EdSource
Teachers of English learners find it challenging to communicate in classrooms where students come from a variety of language and cultural backgrounds. Some children may speak Spanish at home, while others speak Vietnamese, Punjabi or Arabic.
However, learning can improve by incorporating students’ languages in classrooms, increasing teacher access to dictionaries and books in the home languages of their students and encouraging families to participate in class activities, such as parents recording themselves reading books in their home languages for inclusion in a classroom library, where students can listen to the recordings.
Read the complete story at EdSource.
For an in-depth look at bilingual education in California, read the San Francisco Public Press special report “Bilingual Schools: How California Is Following S.F. Language Education.”
