School of Education

National advocate for English language learners and immigrant student rights headlines School of Education program

Keynote highlight of annual retreat for teachers of English as a Second Language

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

A national advocate of immigrant students who says everyone can do better for the English-as-a-Second Language (ESL) population in U.S. schools will address an Indiana University group completing certification for ESL teaching. Roger Rosenthal, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Migrant Legal Action Program, Inc., will address the Annual Tandem Certification of Indiana Teachers (TACIT) Summer Retreat on Friday, June 27.

For more than 22 years at the Migrant Legal Action Program, Rosenthal has worked extensively on public school access and social services for immigrants. He’ll speak to the latest class of graduates and others who work with the TACIT program, a five-semester program funded for five years by federal grants leading to Indiana certification as a teacher of English-as-a-Second Language. The program teams with Indiana school corporations that have significant populations of ESL students.

Rosenthal cites a 2006 study done by the Migration Policy Institute to emphasize how Indiana, like many other states, is seeing a massive shift in its demographics between 1994 and 2004. “Indiana showed a 438% increase in the English Language Learner population,” he said. “So that presents issues for the public schools. It presents opportunities as well as challenges.” Rosenthal also notes that most English language learners are not immigrants. "Eighty percent of elementary school children who are English language learners are actually U.S. citizens," he said. "It's a myth that most are non-citizens."      

During his presentation, Rosenthal will take questions from the teachers, but also address what he said should be a major point of emphasis throughout school districts experiencing major student demographic change.  He said that the greatest problems come from school administrators, teachers, and other personnel not understanding the law. “I think people can do a much better job for this population and also assist their local districts in understanding how to fulfill those legal obligations,” Rosenthal said.

The director of IU’s TACIT program said understanding of such legal nuances is increasingly important. “One of the things that remains largely unknown generally is that a substantial portion of English-as-a -Second or New Language teachers work is student advocacy,” said Faridah Pawan, assistant professor of Language Education at the IU School of Education. “Understanding the legal rights surrounding the education of these students would enable the teachers to undertake the advocacy effectively and influentially.” Teachers who complete the TACIT course spend 9 hours on coursework that incorporates aspects of legal issues, study the issues in retreats such as this one, and are provided opportunities to work closely with officers from the Indiana Department of Education who update them with the latest rules and regulations.

Despite what he said are significant problems with the “No Child Left Behind” law, Rosenthal said the federal regulation has helped awareness of legal issues surrounding ESL students. “The core concept of accountability has improved the playing field for them,” Rosenthal said, “because it is harder to do what some districts used to do and just not pay enough attention to them.”

On Friday, Rosenthal said he will try to promote more awareness to ensure that educators are thinking of such issues before they arise. “The bottom line is that, number one, we properly educate all of these children. But also, two, make sure that your district doesn’t waste resources that are so precious these days in defending actions which violate the law,” he said.

The Indiana University School of Education began the TACIT partnership four years ago to address the shortage of ESL teachers. TACIT continues the work of the Interdisciplinary Collaborative Program (ICP), another federally funded program under Pawan’s direction aimed at supporting Indiana teachers working with ESL students who are also known as English language learners (ELLs). In the ICP, in-service teachers across content-areas are funded to take three courses to develop collaborative curricula for students to learn subject matter as well as English. ICP courses form the pre-requisite courses for participants to complete TACIT and jointly both programs have involved over 200 teachers in Indiana in ESL training. Although federal funding for TACIT runs out after next year, Pawan said the waiting list for teacher participants stretches over the next three years.

Limited space is available for members of the Indiana University community to attend three free workshops which are part of the retreat, including Rosenthal’s address, on Thursday and Friday:

THURSDAY, JUNE 26TH, 2008

“Sheltered” Instruction for English Language Learners: Interweaving language 
 and content instruction in the curriculum. (Practical and hands on teaching workshop)

Presenter: Kathy Deckard (Indiana University & MCCSC)

Room: Education 2277 (Alumni Room)

Time: 1:00-3:00pm

 
FRIDAY, JUNE 27TH, 2008

The Rights of Immigrant Students and English Language Learners in the Indiana Public Schools

Presenter: Roger Rosenthal, Executive Director of the Migrant Legal Action Program (MLAP), Washington, D.C.

Room: State Room East/West (IMU)

Time: 1:00-2:30pm

 
Language Learning Strategies for Diverse Learners

Presenter: Martha Nyikos, Language Education, Indiana University

Room:  State Room East/West (IMU)

Time: 3:15-4:30pm

If you plan to attend any of these sessions, please RSVP ASAP to kjdeckar@indiana.edu.

Reporters who want to interview Rosenthal should contact Chuck Carney at the IU School of Education at ccarney@indiana.edu or 812-856-8027.