Week 2

Report Reveals Eye Opening Data on English Learners in Philadelphia Schools
Link: http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/education/104651-new-report-reveals-eye-opening-data-on-english-learners-in-philadelphia-schools

The purpose of this article is to reveal the trends in how quickly immigrant students learn English in Philadelphia schools. The study was concentrated on students who started school in kindergarten and tracked them through the third grade. Within 4 years 60% of students became proficient in English. This was mainly in the field of speaking and reading English, however, most could not write English proficiently. Researchers also found socioeconomic status and exposure affected the rate at which students learned English.

In recent years, the immigrant population has significantly increased in Philadelphia. Most ELL students entering the public school system are kindergarteners. Teachers are then responsible for having them hit the benchmark by third grade. By 4th grade, students should be using reading as a tool for learning not learning how to read still.

This study was a wake-up call to Philadelphia schools that there is no easy way to teach a student how to learn English. Just because a student is strong in one regard, such as reading skills, doesn't mean they will be proficient in oral and writing skills. With such a gap in students being able to write in English, this may be an area of focus for major improvement in Philadelphia schools as well as other schools in the US. Studies like this may be useful to be done in all urban schools to see if there is too much emphasis on one area of learning English and not another. However, I also look at a study like this and feel there are way too many variables to pinpoint one easy solution. It made sense to bring up socioeconomic status as that most likely plays a major role as to why certain cultures learn English faster than others. Overall, the article mentions that learning English does not come in a neat package and does require time and specific instruction, which I think most everyone can agree with.