The language of learning

This is an interesting article explaining how children with so many different languages (105) learn English in the classroom and playground. DP

By Margo Horner, The Mirror

fedwaymirror.com: How does a person teach social studies to a student who speaks only Taiwanese?

Or a student who speaks Sinhalese? Or Haitian Creole?

How about teaching social studies to a classroom including all three, as well as English- and Spanish-speaking students?

It's a question Federal Way teachers ask themselves more and more.

The minority population in Federal Way classrooms is growing. And with that comes the added challenges of teaching immigrant children, many of whom don't speak English.

There are currently 105 different languages spoken by families in the Federal Way School District. The most popular languages after English are Spanish, Korean, Russian and Ukrainian. Many students speak rare languages spoken only in small villages or islands. Two students, for example, speak Yapese, a language spoken by 6,600 people on the island of Yap in the western Pacific Ocean.

Thirty percent of Federal Way students come from non-English-speaking families, said school district spokeswoman Diane Turner.

At Woodmont Elementary, where more than 60 percent of students are minorities or immigrants, many students arrive for their first year of school not speaking any English at all. Nearly one quarter of Woodmont students are enrolled in the English Language Learners (ELL) program, meaning they need extra help to be able to complete their regular school work.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.