To Teach English [TESOL]; To Touch Lives

by: Guest Author

Thu Nov 27, 2008 at 12:00:00 PM EST

We have been on message that the goal is to work for the students.  For the K-12ers, this is a matter of kids and their families.  We take this stance very seriously.  We may even jump on people if they even slightly blow us off.  And it's because we actually know children and families who contribute to our society by their being in our classrooms.  So, why shouldn't we be a little pissed off when others seemingly don't care about such or forget about such.  I'm right there with you.

And in spite of my first paragraph, I don't want to do it.  I need to light my fire.

Sometimes when I can't light my own fire, I can turn to the words of Elliot Judd, the 2006 TESOL president, who gave a plenary address in Tampa that spring on whether TESOL is a job or a profession.  He reminds us that in order to be there for our students, we do need to attend to our professionalism.  The plight of our students and our professionalism are tethered.  Without our attention to professionalism, we cannot attend to the students in the ways we prioritize.

Elliot's plenary was for the profession of TESOL, but I think his words apply to foreign language education in general.  Hence, where you see "TESOL," you might insert your own "foreign language education" alphabetization.

Elliot didn't publish his speech, but Mark Algren--the TESOL president next year--took these notes.  Together we've edited them.  Be sure, though, that in the paraphrasing, we give full credit to Elliot for these thoughts.  I turn to them often:

***
Elliot Judd, Associate Professor.  University of Illinois at Chicago
Elliot says:

The call!  I get a weekly call from someone who wants to get into teaching ESL with no training or experience: "Can you give me a short article about TESOL?  I just got a job and need to know what to do.  Give me a 10 page article and then I can go out and practice."

English Language Learners [ELL] at Risk; Florida State Bill [SB] 286

by: Guest Author

Fri Mar 14, 2008 at 21:00:00 PM EDT

On Thursday, SB 286 passed with little opposition in the Florida Senate. Legislators who voted for the bill either don't understand the English language and literacy learning needs of the .25 million English language learners (ELLs) in Florida schools, or they simply don't care. In either case, if this bill passes in the House of Representatives and becomes law, it will result in our failure to prepare Florida teachers to meet ELLs' very real needs to learn to read in English and to succeed in school. Whether SB 286 has been motivated and propelled by ignorance or by negligence, it represents a giant step backwards for our students.

The fact is that Florida teachers of reading to ELLs need more ELL-specific professional development than some apparently think. I use the case of "Holly" to illustrate. Soon after SB 286 was introduced in the Senate, a reading teacher named Holly wrote in to one of Florida's major newspapers to assert that, based on her experience, teachers do not need special preparation to teach reading to ELLs. Holly stated that she had not pursued the ESOL professional development required by the state because, she explained, "If I had wanted to become an ESOL teacher, I would have done so."

Indeed, Holly claimed that she was "proud to be a reading teacher." Holly went on to report that last year she had been assigned to teach reading to two classes of Haitian students. In spite of the fact that these recent arrivals spoke "almost no English," Holly noted emphatically that she "was NOT teaching these students English. We focused on phonics."