Letter from Editor-in-Chief Toby Brody   Dear Readers, In K-12 educational circles, it is a common precept that honing the skills of Reading and Writing will lead to academic success. Acceptance of this precept is evidenced as end-of-the-year exams approach and students are in test preparation mode. Recent research with English learners has begun to recognize the importance of Oral Skills as a foundation of academic growth. Oral Skills are comprised of a number of components: pronunciation (segmentals and suprasegmentals), chunking, vocabulary, syntax, sentence complexity, cohesion, coherence, fluency, extended discourse, and circumlocution, to a name a few. In addition, it is necessary to consider differences between conversational fluency and academic proficiency. Conversational fluency is acquired early and swiftly. Academic language requires a longer track of time, deliberate and intense. A focus on Oral Skills, in particular ACADEMIC oral skills, can accelerate growth. What does that mean for instructional practices? It means requiring that student oral responses and oral presentations be given in comprehensible, complete sentences, with consideration to the components named above. This Globe edition offers perspectives to consider when integrating Oral Skills into all aspects of content instruction. I hope the information will inspire you to emphasize Oral Skills with an eye on seeking better student performance. Happy reading! Toby

Pronunciation Expert Shares Teaching Strategies that Work

Linda Grant, author of Well Said: Pronunciation for Clear Communication, one of the best-selling pronunciation textbooks in the United States, discusses how teachers who have little time to devote to helping students with oral skills can integrate pronunciation into communicative listening and speaking activities. She provides suggestions and resources for teaching pronunciation skills and lists key components in this skill area that teachers should address. She looks at reasons why students may resist pronunciation change and advises telling students that they can retain their accents and still be clearly understood.
Read interview


New York Times Looks at Impact of Immigration on Education

In March the The New York Times launched Remade in America, a series about the newest immigrants and their impact on American institutions. Part 1 focuses on schools, featuring the article Where Education and Assimilation Collide. Times staffer Ginger Thompson reports on a Virginia school district that segregates students who are the children of immigrants, and who don’t speak English well, to make it easier to give them intensive support. Ms. Thompson visited Cecil D. Hylton High School outside of Washington, DC.  She writes: "Walk with immigrant students, and the rest of Hylton feels a world apart. By design, they attend classes almost exclusively with one another. They take separate field trips. And they organize separate clubs." Hylton’s program stands out for its students’ high test scores and graduation rates. However, those achievements may come with considerable costs. “This is hard for us,” said Carolyn Custard, Hylton’s principal. “I’m not completely convinced we’re right. I don’t want them to be separated, but at the same time, I want them to succeed.”
Read article

A related Times site, Room for Debate, has links to several Times blogs in which experts in the education of children learning English discuss the best ways to teach young newcomers.


Scholars Mull the "Paradox" of Immigrants

The academic success, tendency to stay out of trouble, and physical health of children of immigrants to the United States tend to decline significantly from the first to the third generation. That troubling pattern, which does not seem to exist in other countries,  brought researchers together recently at Brown University to examine a provocative question: Is becoming American a developmental risk? One of the goals of the conference was to nudge researchers toward finding solutions that could help the children and grandchildren of immigrants have as much success as the first arrivals in their families.

While researchers cannot explain satisfactorily why this phenomenon occurs, professor of education, psychology, and pediatrics Cynthia Garcia Coll noted that the more acculturated students speak better English but do less homework and “they are starting to buy in to the notion of minorities here that even if you work hard and play hard, discrimination is going to get at you.”
Read article


Point of View...
Education Stimulus Money May Not Achieve Desired Reform

President Barack Obama is seeking to use his economic stimulus package to leverage education reform. But his reform aspirations may be on a collision course with competing realities. One purpose is simply to stabilize the education sector and save teaching jobs. At the same time, however, the law asks that states invest in reforms that advance long-term educational goals.

Allison Armour-Garb, Director of Education Studies at the Rockefeller Institute, concludes that it remains to be seen whether the stimulus will succeed in driving meaningful education reform at the state and district levels. She says: "Given the economic pressures they face in the recession, the temptation for school districts will be to pay lip service to reform and use the new federal dollars merely to replace declining state and local revenues."
Read article


On the Lighter Side....
Name That Law! What Would You Like to Call NCLB?

According to The New York Times, two years ago an effort to fix No Child Left Behind provoked a grueling slugfest in Congress, leading Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, to say the law had become “the most negative brand in America.” Education Secretary Arne Duncan agreed. “Let’s rebrand it,” he said. “Give it a new name.” A former Clinton administration official, is now sponsoring a rename-the-law contest at eduwonk.com.

Check out the website and try your hand a re-naming NCLB. The winner even gets a prize!
/