Sam Anaya has vivid memories of starting kindergarten as one of the few children who only spoke Spanish. He remembers being thrown into the English-speaking environment without any special help. Fast forward to today, Sam Anaya is now a 1st-grade teacher at Hennessey Elementary School, having graduated from Hennessey High School in 1995. Times have certainly changed.
The Hennessey school district has experienced a significant demographic shift, with Hispanics now making up nearly 27 percent of the student population, compared to 18.2 percent in the 2000-01 school year. Hennessey Elementary in particular has seen the greatest change, with 35 percent of students being Hispanic this year.
In response to this shift, the district has revamped its approach to teaching English-language learners. They have done away with the sink-or-swim method that Sam Anaya experienced, and instead implemented a two-way language-immersion program. This program, known as Dos Amigos or Two Friends, brings together students from English- and Spanish-speaking backgrounds to learn both languages.
According to Mr. Anaya, the two-way immersion program has made his students feel more comfortable. Not only have English-language learners in the district surpassed state and federal English proficiency goals, but they are also outperforming other language-minority students in reading, language arts, and math on standardized tests.
Lynore M. Carnuccio, an English-language learner consultant, believes that two-way immersion is a beneficial approach because it capitalizes on students’ literacy skills in their native language. However, she acknowledges that the lack of bilingual teachers in many areas of the American heartland makes it unrealistic for most schools to adopt this approach.
Hennessey, a small town located 60 miles north of Oklahoma City, has a long history of enrolling students with limited English skills. Mexican families have been coming to the town for decades to work in various industries. As the Hispanic population grew in recent years, school officials in Hennessey began prioritizing effective strategies for teaching English-language learners. Ultimately, they concluded that two-way language immersion is more advantageous than traditional English-as-a-second-language instruction, which is widely used in Oklahoma and other states in the region.
Ms. Popplewell stated that the district has set a long-term objective of providing training to all mainstream teachers to effectively work with English-language learners. However, she noted that while some teachers in regular classes make an effort to assist these students, others do not.
Dos Amigos Elementary School
During a class in February, the children at Dos Amigos showed consistent engagement. Out of the 70 children in the program, 47 of them come from Spanish-speaking households, while the remaining 23 come from English-speaking households. Dos Amigos enrolls 48 percent, which is 117 English-language learners at the elementary school. The remaining students receive instruction from a knowledgeable teacher who specializes in reading but lacks an ESL endorsement. English-language learners spend 15 to 30 minutes per day in these pullout classes, depending on their skill levels. In Ryan Schenk’s 2nd-grade class, the students spend the first half-hour reading to themselves in Spanish from books with titles like "Polita Chiquita—Henny Penny" and "Si le das una galletita a un ratón," which translates to "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie." The students are initially taught to read in Spanish, and formal instruction in reading English doesn’t begin until 3rd grade. On this particular morning, Mr. Schenk introduces a list of vocabulary words. He announces, "Vamos a estudiar palabras que tienen diptongo," which means "We’re going to study words that have diphthongs."
The students repeat the words in Spanish but discuss them in English. Skylar Holder, who speaks English at home, asks, "Cuarto, is that your back or your neck?" Abraham Ortega, who speaks Spanish at home, responds, "It’s a room." Skylar and the other students who speak English at home seem to understand most of what Mr. Schenk says in Spanish, although they typically use complete sentences only when prompted by the teacher or when reading aloud. Most of the students who speak Spanish at home choose to speak English with their classmates. When asked why she chooses to speak English with her peers at Dos Amigos, 2nd grader Karina Orozco, who was born in the United States and speaks both Spanish and English at home, explains that English is "cool" and "I’m more used to it." However, she also acknowledges the importance of knowing Spanish, stating that it allows her to communicate with people in different towns.
Achieving Goals
Thanks to Dos Amigos, the Hennessey school district had no trouble meeting the requirements set by the state under the federal No Child Left Behind Act for teaching English to children with limited English proficiency, according to Uwe Gordon, the superintendent of the Hennessey schools. In fact, during the previous school year, the Hennessey district, which has a total of 160 English-language learners across its elementary, middle, and high schools, successfully met the goals for English proficiency under the federal law solely at the elementary school level. Additionally, the middle and high school students with limited English proficiency easily achieved the state’s goals. The state had mandated that at least 40 percent of such students in every school district show progress in English, and at least 10 percent reach proficiency in the language, thus graduating from special services. Nearly half of the 107 Oklahoma school districts with federally funded programs for English-language learners did not meet these goals. Hennessey received assistance in establishing its two-way language-immersion program when the federal government granted the district a five-year, $1.49 million grant in 2001. However, the grant is set to expire next year.
Your assignment is to rephrase the entire passage using improved vocabulary and natural language, while ensuring uniqueness. The rephrased version must be written in English. The input text to be rewritten is as follows:
"Your objective is to rewrite the whole text using better words and create a unique version with a natural language. All results must be presented in English."
