Working with immigrant learners

Be they recent immigrants or American-born, many of our students’ mother tongue is not English. Their families and neighbors may well speak that language instead of English. Furthermore, their families are likely to have experienced formal education differently from their children. As teacher librarians, we are uniquely positioned to provide a welcoming and personalized learning environment for these populations.

Californians Together. (2010). Reparable harm: Fulfilling the unkept promise of educational opportunity for California’s long term English learners. Long Beach, CA: Author.

http://www.californianstogether.org/

Festa, N. et al. (2014). Disparities in early exposure to book sharing within immigrant families. Pediatrics.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/05/27/peds.2013-3710.abstract

Hartshorne, J. K., Tenenbaum, J. B., & Pinker, S. (2018). A critical period for second language acquisition: evidence from 2/3 million English speakers. Cognition, 177, 263-277. http://l3atbc-public.s3.amazonaws.com/pub_pdfs/JK_Hartshorne_JB_Tenenbaum_S_Pinker_2018.pdf

Huang, M. et al. (2016). English learner students' readiness for academic success. San Francisco, CA: WestEd.
https://www.wested.org/resources/english-learner-students-readiness-for-academic-success/

Krashen, S., & Mason, B. (2015). Can second language acquirers reach high levels of proficiency through self selected reading? An attempt to confirm nation's (2014) results. International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching 10 (2): 10-19. http://sdkrashen.com/articles.php?cat=2

Sparks, S. (2016). Teaching English-learners: What does the research tell us? Education Week (May 11). http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/05/11/teaching-english-language-learners-what-does-the-research.html?r=1304688368&cmp=eml-enl-tu-news2-RM&preview=1

Summers, L. (2010). Culturally-responsive leadership in school libraries. Library Media Connection (Mar.), 10-13. http://www.librarymediaconnection.com/pdf/lmc/reviews_and_articles/featured_articles/Summers_March_April2010.pdf

Academic Library Services to International Students Interest Group  http://www.acrl.ala.org/international/

Socioeconomic Status and Children’s Vocabulary

In a study that provided a first-generation standardization of automated language environment estimates, validated these estimates against standard language assessments, it was found that the "word gap" between high-income and low-income groups was about 4 million by the time the children turned 4, not 30 million by age 3. Child vocalization frequency and turn-taking increased with age, whereas adult word counts were age independent after early infancy.

Lower socioeconomic status (SES) children produced fewer vocalizations, engaged in fewer adult–child interactions, and were exposed to fewer daily adult words compared with their higher socioeconomic status peers, but within-group variability was high. The results offer new insight into the landscape of the early language environment, with clinical implications for identification of children at-risk for impoverished language environments.

Gilkerson, J., Richards, J. A., Warren, S. F., Montgomery, J. K., Greenwood, C. R., Oller, D. K., Hansen, J. H. L., & Paul, T. D. (2017). Mapping the early language environment using all-day recordings and automated analysis. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 26, 248-265. http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/2016_AJSLP-15-0169

Bilingual Education in Argentina

This paper sets out to provide a preliminary descriptive account of an important subsector of the Argentine education system: those schools locally known as 'bilingual schools' or ' colegios bilingües'. As the authors will show, the label 'bilingual' has, at times, been applied rather loosely to a number of institutions. For current purposes, the authors limit this description to those schools that aim to teach through the medium of two languages. These schools may be characterized both in terms of the shared features that set them apart from other schools in Argentina, and in terms of the distinctions among them, which make this a diversified sub-sector. The authors also argue that these schools have been transformed since they were first founded in the 19th century, evolving from what were originally Heritage Schools to Dual Language Schools and, ultimately, to a new form of Bilingual school that the authors label the 'Global Language School'. Finally, the paper surveys some recent trends within this sector and suggests avenues for further research.

Banfi, C., & Day, R. (2004). The evolution of bilingual schools in Argentina. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 7(5), 398-411. https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13670050408667822