In the News Blog

Program helps children conjure up technical skills

Texas: The new pilot program at Las Palmas Elementary, La Clase Mágica, which is bilingual, aims to be a gateway to success for some of the city's most at-risk students in an increasingly competitive job market, both now and in the future. Two groups of students benefit — about 20 University of Texas at San Antonio education majors are paired with Edgewood Independent School District elementary students who live on the West Side. They teach and learn the latest technology, using iPhones and netbooks to create videos and presentations and to enhance core subjects.

Read the full story

VCSU Adds ELL Concentration to Online Master of Education

North Dakota: Valley City State University (VCSU) announced availability of a new concentration in English Language Learners (ELL) for the university's online Master of Education program. Approximately 80% of the ELL teachers in North Dakota have completed or are pursuing their endorsement through VCSU.

Read the full story

The CCTV Cup English Speaking Contest wraps up

China: Twenty-three college students proved their eloquence and engaged in spirited repartee—and competed for supremacy in the final rounds of the CCTV Cup English Speaking Contest. The final competition, at the CCTV studios, was intense. Six finalists battled for the highest honor in China's ultimate test of English. The winners savored victory and reflected on the importance of mastering a second language—as a significant achievement along their chosen career path.

Read the full story

English is India's passport to economic success

India: Research commissioned by the British Council highlights the challenge for India if it is to sustain its growth and emerge as one of the world’s largest economic powerhouses over the next decade. Although most of the world believes “India speaks English”, the exact figure on the numbers of speakers is unknown, whilst China may already have more people who speak English than India.

Read the full story

$20K grant restores ESL classes

Massachusetts: SER Jobs for Progress has received a $20,000 grant to restore an adult basic education class that was cut when financing from the state was reduced. The Verizon Foundation presented SER Jobs with a check at the organization’s Bedford Street building on Wednesday. With the Verizon money, SER Jobs will begin a basic English class in January and should have enough funds to run the program for three semesters.

Read the full story

Quebeckers Protest Against Supreme Court Ruling On English Language Schooling

Canada: About 300 Quebec residents held a rally Monday night in Montreal to protest a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision declaring a law passed by the Quebec National Assembly as invalid. The protesters, led by Societe St. Jean Baptiste de Montreal President Mario Beaulieu want the Quebec National Assembly to go against the Oct. 22 decision of the court in a bid to have more Quebec youth schooled in the French language than English language.

Read the full story

Dueling over dual-language classes in the Yakima Valley

Washington: Teachers in the Yakima Valley see it every day: Spanish-speaking children running into an English language barrier. Many schools have provided dual-language classes to help them. But just how well these classes work remains a point of contention.

Read the full story

Bangladesh gets mobile lessons

Bangladesh: Bangladesh may be beset by widespread poverty and environmental threats, but an initiative launched this month to deliver English language lessons by mobile phone could see the country take a world lead in harnessing the latest communications technology for mass education. The Janala project aims to deli­ver English language lessons via ­mobile phones and the internet to up to 6 million Bangladeshis by 2011.

Read the full story

Changes to state assessment exam remove barrier for English Language Learners

Tennessee:Tennessee education officials want to remove the language barrier for English Language Learners on achievement assessments, and have modified the exams for the students, reducing wordiness and complexity of sentence structure and removing words with multiple meanings.Beginning in spring 2010, the English Linguistically Simplified Assessment, or ELSA, will be administered to English Language Learners during the same week the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP, is given to regular students in grades three through eight.

Read the full story

Site helps students build confidence in speaking English

Oregon: Armed with headphones, laptops and a little imagination, middle school students in Bend are using technology to get a better handle on the English language. It's part of a push to help students still trying to master English gain confidence in their speaking skills, and in turn improve their scores on Oregon's English Language Proficiency Assessment, which measures speaking and listening skills in addition to reading and writing.

Read the full story

National English Teachers' Conference addresses student transition to university-level English

Qatar: A one-day national conference co-sponsored by Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar and Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar (WCMC-Q) was held today at Carnegie Mellon. The program was designed as a networking event for English language teachers at the secondary and post-secondary levels in Qatar, with panel discussions and poster presentations focused on guiding students through the transition from secondary to university level English reading, writing and speaking.

Read the full story

Teachers blamed as English standards fall in Philippines

Philippines: English standards in the Philippines are slipping, according to the results of a major international testing system that also showed Malaysians have taken the top spot in English proficiency among South-East Asian countries. According to the results of the International English Language Testing System (Ielts) for 2008, Filipinos who were seeking overseas jobs in such professions as nursing or engineering scored an overall mean of 6.69 for listening, writing, reading and speaking English while Malaysians scored 6.71. Although the figure is a slight improvement on the 2007 figure of 6.58, it is still a worry for a country that prides itself on its English-language ability.

Read the full story

Primary students get bilingual education

Australia: Four schools will trial a state-funded bilingual program next year to boost the study of Asian languages. Students will be taught in a foreign language - Mandarin, Japanese, Korean and Indonesian - for 90 minutes a day. Kindergarten and Year 1 students will initially be given bilingual instruction, with plans for all grades to eventually be included, Education Minister Verity Firth told The Daily Telegraph.

Read the full story

Dept of Ed on the hunt for ELL and vocational high schools

New York: Principal wannabes hoping to open up new city high schools got marching orders from city officials last night: Try to focus on students still learning English or vocational programs. The advice came at a meeting held by the Office of Portfolio Planning, where more than a dozen people stood before an audience of community board members and parents and tried to sell their vision for a new high school. Most said they wanted to open schools that focus on English Language Learners or students who are older and are not on track to graduate.

Read the full story

Dunno English? No Job For You

India: A 23-year-old graduate would be eligible for most jobs in the country, you would think. But not if he has a degree in Bengali. Even in culture-capital' Kolkata, a BA in Bengali doesn't fetch a security guard's job. If you can't speak the Queen's language, you are nowhere.

Read the full story