Immersion program

Immersion program
Oct.8 MCPS bulletin of 2007.Vol 50 of no 7
This week I attended a training that on how to reach our second language learners. It was very interesting to note that some of educators do not appreciates that partial immersion will be helpful to them. Many of them believe that it was a waste of money, however, and they fail to recognize the fact that many of these students that their parent pay taxes and they are entitled to learn as other students in an environment that will help them learn better .I was happy that the instructor was able to lay it flat on the table about the need for bilingual education and partial immersion.

There is a need to make all students that English is there second language to master English so that they will be able to integrate into the main stream classes. There are so many problems and a lot of issues facing immersion program, its objective and outcomes. The article was very interesting to me as it touched a lot of aspect about how to reach them and make them learn. A lot of research has been done and is still ongoing about this issue in many of our school district all over the country. The story continues to unfold about immersion, is it effective? Has it worked? And if it has worked to what extent?Many of our students that English is their second language has made it without bilingual education, however, the environment has a lot to do about it.

This partial immersion program teaches math, science, reading/language arts and social studies in Spanish to kindergarten students. Students in Grades 1–4 are taught math and science in Spanish, and fifth graders receive science and social studies instruction in Spanish. Culture classes also are integrated at all levels. Enrollment in the program is 235, a little more than a third of the school population.

The issue is do we like to have total immersion or partial one where the student will have another class to connect with his language to understand the material. The article talks about total immersion as the students start school, these students are not given instruction to help them cope with the problem of language barrier. To me there need to me classroom or a program that will act as a bridge between their mainstream class and their first language in the first and second year, of the students schooling in this country depending on the individual students’ need. However as time goes on the student will start dropping the bilingual program or classes depending on the Standard English proficiency of the student. The exit need to be gradual, the students need to receive some of his/her instruction in the primary language as well as English during the first year of their school, later changes can be made on how instructions are given depending on the students .Immersion can then follow at this time as the student can read, write and communicate to some extent in English.

I read another article by Stephen Krashen Education?” in it I think this is good in the sense that the research orientation is combination of both interpretive and critical, it touches various ways our bilingual students must be reached and also stresses on the implication of each method. It impacts education because if our bilingual students are not reached it will affect our schools and the society as a whole. The teachers will have a high time with them and they, the bilingual students will be struggling in schools and this might eventually lead to their dropping out of school and eventually become a nuisance to the community and the society as a whole. The author’s theoretical framework is that of developmental as these students need to receive the write education in order to be integrated in the main stream class room. There is also a relationship between the theoretical and research perspectives here as he said that research is ongoing. In this country bilingual education has been an issue .Every state operates a different bilingual education program rang from ESL instruction, sheltered subject matter teaching, immersion and instruction in the first language. Many researches have been done and are still on going research to see the importance and how effective it is going.

This article contribute to my understanding of the problems as it made me to think about how I will be able to reach all my students and make them move further and be successful in school and in the society. This will affect my instruction in the sense that I will diversify in my instruction and integrate it in my curriculum; one can explore different customs and teach students. I can teach them basic languages of their peers like greetings. This will make the students interested in learning. I can ask the students to bring something from their culture and explain its importance to other students in class. I will create a classroom environment the same as what they are use to. Celebrate the different cultures and countries festivals, dress and music’s. As an educator I will embrace all cultural, I will inquire about the different cultural and include the different customs in my warms ups. Partial immersion is very good as it include some good bilingual educations that have yielded good result in different states .

High school dropout crisis' continues in U.S., study says
According to WASHINGTON (CNN) Tue May 5, 2009, Nearly 6.2 million students in the United States between the ages of 16 and 24 in 2007 dropped out of high school, fueling what a report released Tuesday called "a persistent high school dropout crisis." There is more to high school drop-out than meets the eye. There are a lot of outside influences that causes a student to drop out of school: Race, ethnicity, academic factors, school violence, grade retention, poor academic performances, relocating, behavior, absenteeism and feeling of insecurity.
Many students drop out of school for different reasons. Many think high school drop-outs are students who chose to give up but there a reason to their failures in school. Students, who feel like failures, have low self esteem and mental health issues are likely to drop-out because school seems to be too frustrating and stressful to try. One out of four high school students are likely to drop-out .There are many risk factors to possible high school drop-out which are low academic achievement, mental health problems, truancy, poverty and teen pregnancy
Students with mental health problem, disabilities and depressed are at risk of dropping-out of high school because many of them have been in and out of school because of their sickness. When they come back to school they have a lot of catching –up to do and this leads to frustration. Most time they start acting up simply because they do not understand the material. When this continues it can lead to depression then drop-out of school. This frustration and stress overwhelms them and they may begin to give-up on their education. High school students with symptoms of truancy, retardation and low intelligence are at high risk of dropping out of school. Truancy is a symptom that comes from mental health problems and learning disabilities. This makes them to feel like a failure, act out and get them selves thrown out of school. These Students are labeled as lazy because they do not know how to function in school and school frustrates them and act out on their frustration.
The Socioeconomic Background of the parent affects some students and eventually they drop out to get a job to support the family. Many students from low income family drop out more because of the economic problem and their parent not meeting the demand of their schooling.
Some student skips school a lot of times for reasons that is not sickness or family emergency and there by leading to poor attendance in school. They will always be behind in class work and home work getting poor grades and this will lead to failure causing them to repeat a grade or that course .This will make them to fall behind their counterparts being in a lower grade. Causing them to feel bad about it, causing low self esteem and eventually dropping out. An analysis, conducted by the school board's division of testing found out that many students were dropping out of school because they were demoralized in their school performance by being held back and attending classes with younger students or because they were fearful of not passing stricter Regents tests.
According to Colleen Wilber, a spokeswoman for the alliance, dropouts are not only a school problem; however, it also affects the community and society in general. The students that drop out of school will become a nuisance to their community and society, a burden to the government and relative, ending up in jail, be coming single parents, stays on welfare for ever, will not have health insurance and with all other things going on around them. According to the group’s research, dropouts from the class of 2007 will cost the nation more than $320 billion in lost wages, taxes and productivity over their lifetime.
Something needs to be done to make sure that students are not dropping out of school. Teachers needs to be more caring and not biased, government need to provide money to make sure that students from low income homes gets the supply they need to be able to be in school.

CLOSING THE LEARNNING CENTERS IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY

In his article, published in Gazette Net, Mr. Moore reported that Maryland Superintendent Jerry D. Weast has accelerated the time line for closing the special education centers. Montgomery county public schools have eight learning centers that move and teach students at a slower pace, it has small class sizes to make sure that high and middle schools students with special need receives extra attention to master the curriculum and do well in school. It was noticed through many years of research and monitoring that the students in these centers are not doing well academically compared to their pairs in a regular classroom. In the light of the above, the superintendent of schools proposed to close down these centers and move the students to regular classrooms over a six-year periods to give room for successful transition. However, closing these centers will affect the teachers, students and parents.This move will help the special needs students to integrate in a normal classroom and learn with them, but the intention is very much to make the student fit the program rather than adapting the program to suit the student. Integration in the mainstream enables students with disabilities to benefit from the stimulation of mixing with relatively more able students and having the opportunity to observe higher models of social and academic behavior (Elkins, 1998). Students from both groups will have social interaction: mealtimes, playtime, and extracurricular activities. For this program to be successful there will be many interventions given to both the teachers and the students involved.Attitude of the teachers and the other students is very important for the success of the integration. Many teachers have negative attitude toward students with special needs and will not like to help them or have them in their classroom. The regular ED students need to receive lecture on the need to accommodate the special need students. They all need to tolerance and respect for each other.Another intervention will be training the regular Ed teachers on how to guide these students. Many teachers do not appear to have had any training in guidance and as such do not know how to help them For this to be effective teachers need to go for training especially paid training will motivate them and afterwards they need to be given time to learn and implement what they have learned.For this to be effective teachers need to use differentiated instructions, teaching methods and curricula will need to change in order to accommodate the diversity of students to be included in the regular classroom. Teachers need to tailor instructions to meet the learning needs of all the students in the classroom. However, according to the article this will be another burden on the teachers, who already have a lot of work at hand. Teachers will now start learning a lot about individual students and how to reach them.The report they are getting is that academic of the students that have been integrated has not improved or worsen, however, this is something that will take a gradual process .We, as educators must have a desire to teach all children. Although there is extra time in planning but it requires dedication from teachers to make sure that this students receive the education. We as educators need to have the interest of all students at heart and do everything possible to reach them for if the special needs are integrated successfully in regular classrooms the success is largely dependent upon positive attitudes of the teachers.

CLOSING OF LEARNING CENTERS.

SCHOOL BOARD WANTS ANSWERS ON CLOSINGS OF LEARNING CENTERS By JohnL on Jul. 19, 2007. and Marcus Moore on Wenesday,April 22,2009
http://spedpro.org/2007/07/19/closing-centers/

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:VkCk4fhkGdcJ:spedpro.org/2007/07/19/closing-centers/+CLOSING+OF+LEARNING+CENTERS+BY+MARCUS+MOORE&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Montgomery county public schools have eight learning centers that move and teach students at a slower pace, it has small class sizes to make sure that high and middle schools students with special need receives extra attention to master the curriculum and do well in school. It was noticed through many years of research and monitoring that the students in these centers are not doing well academically compared to their pairs in a regular classroom. In the light of the above, the superintendent of schools proposed to close down these centers and move the students to regular classrooms over a six-year periods to give room for successful transition. However, closing these centers will affect the teachers, students and parents.
This move will help the special needs students to integrate in a normal classroom and learn with them, but the intention is very much to make the student fit the program rather than adapting the program to suit the student. Integration in the mainstream enables students with disabilities to benefit from the stimulation of mixing with relatively more able students and having the opportunity to observe higher models of social and academic behavior (Elkins, 1998). Students from both groups will have social interaction: mealtimes, playtime, and extracurricular activities. For this program to be successful their will be many interventions given to both the teachers and the students involved.
Attitude of the teachers and the other students is very important for the success of the integration. Many teachers have negative attitude toward students with special needs and will not like to help them or have them in their classroom. The regular ED students need to receive lecture on the need to accommodate the special need students. They all need to tolerance and respect for each other.
Another intervention will be training the regular Ed teachers on how to guide these students. Many teachers do not appear to have had any training in guidance and as such do not know how to help them For this to be effective teachers need to go for training especially paid training will motivate them and afterwards they need to be given time to learn and implement what they have learned.
For this to be effective teachers need to use differentiated instructions, teaching methods and curricula will need to change in order to accommodate the diversity of students to be included in the regular classroom. Teachers need to tailor instructions to meet the learning needs of all the students in the classroom. However, according to the article this will be another burden on the teachers, who already have a lot of work at hand. Teachers will now start learning a lot about individual students and how to reach them.
The report they are getting is that academic of the students that have been integrated has not improved or worsen, However, this is some thing that will take a gradual process .We, as educators must have a desire to teach all children. Although there is extra time in planning but it requires dedication from teachers to make sure that this students receive the education. We as educators need to have the interest of all students at heart and do every thing possible to reach them for if the special needs are integrated successfully in regular classrooms the success is largely dependent upon positive attitudes of the teachers.

The article in the New York Times written by REBECCA CATHCART on May 30, 2009 said that the latest casualty of California’s widening budget gap is to “Cancels Most Summer Schools” LOS ANGELES school district is considering cutting down on summer schools programs and recreational activities. This will have a major impact on students, parents, teacher and community in general. Summer school is good for our students as it keep them busy and out of trouble throughout the holiday Many of the students also requires summer school for them to be able to catch up with their school work. The state of Los Angeles is saying that this summer, will be different from any other summer. Most of the summer classes and recreational activities will be canceled because they are trying to save money. It is good to save money, but are we doing it at the expense of our students? Many of these students will be rooming along the street, entering one problem or the other as they do not have any thing that is engaging them. Many of the students will be frustrated and this will lead to their getting associated with bad groups in the community.
Without the summer schools, students will have less opportunity to improve on their learning and this will have an adverse effect on students that need to catch up in their school work. “I think that we have not done a good job in this city of coming together as a community to look at how do we provide for our children and young people in the summer,” the superintendent said. “They are vulnerable to gangs, narcotics and mischief activities that lead to minor crime and some major crime.” In some cases when students are away from school, they are away from their learning and many of the students forget what they have learned during this period. When they come back to school teacher will do some extra work in helping them to catch up with the rest of the class. Any child that did not read over the summer is apt to forget or lose literacy skills, they develop significant lose after the summer , however, children that read over the summer always improve in their reading and do much better when schools starts after summer. Summer learning for our student is a very important contributor to the achievement gap. To prevent achievement lose our students need to go to summer school
Cancellation of most summer classes, activities and recreational programs will be hard on families leading “leaving many whose parents work at loose ends.” Parents will be looking for a place to keep their children and they will go out of their way to look for a nanny or private recreational classes for their children. This will affect their budget that is already tight because of situation in the economy
On the part of our educators many of them have sacrificed their pay increase; Cola in order to make sure that they keep their job. If there is no summer school many of the teachers that hope on using summer school to make up and still remain OK in this day of our economic woes will be drastically affected. Many of the teachers that use summer school to supplement their income will be without jobs “The decision also affects thousands of teachers. Many count on income from summer teaching jobs” and this will make many of them to go out and look for jobs, and as such some of them will get a better paying jobs causing them to give up their teaching position leading to the loss of some good teachers in the district. Also “come fall, teachers will have the added burden of helping students who did not get the academic instruction they needed over the summer to catch up.”
As students are at home during summer Holidays with nothing to keep them busy and no one to supervise them, they will join bad groups and this will increase the crime rate threatening the peace of the community. Many of them will be arrested and sent to correctional facility and the money the district think they are saving will be used in a different way and place .During this summer vacation many of the students will learn a lot of bad behavior that they will bring in to the school system.
The decision of Los Angeles district to cut down on summer school programs and recreational activities is a high risk that will affect many people. The best option is to keep the program and not to destroy the well being of the community, teachers, students and parent. They should look for another option.