I Am An English Language Learner The Real And Unique Stories Of Immigrant Children In America

All around the world, people speak, read, and write in many different languages. Some languages have different alphabet systems, and others make sounds that don't exist in English. Not only can our languages be different, but so can the ways we dress, eat, and greet others. When children come to the United States from other countries and need to learn English, they become English language learners. I Am an English-Language Learner introduces eight children from various countries who are learning English in their new homes. They share what they miss about their native countries, how they feel about living in the United States, and what they dream of doing. Each one has a new story and unique journey, helping everyone understand that the best education comes from learning about one another. This children's book introduces young readers to new customs and cultures through the stories of students who are learning English as a second language.

Immigration is one of the most contentious issues in twenty-first-century America. In forty years, the American population has doubled from 150 to 300 million, about half of the increase due to immigration. Discussions involving legal and illegal status, assimilation or separatism, and language unity or multilingualism continue to spark debate. The battle to give five million immigrant children America's common language, English, and to help these students join their English-speaking classmates in opportunities for self-fulfillment continues to be argued. American Immigrant is part memoir and part account of Rosalie Pedalino Porter's professional activities as a national authority on immigrant education and bilingualism.Her career began in the 1970s, when she entered the most controversial arena in public education, bilingualism. This book chronicles the political movement Porter helped lead, one that succeeded in changing state laws in California, Arizona, and Massachusetts. Programs that had segregated Latino children by language and ethnicity for years, diminishing their educational opportunities, were removed with overwhelming public support. New English-language programs in these states are reporting improved academic achievement for these students.This book is also Porter's testament to the boundless opportunities for women in the United States, and to the unique blending of ethnicities and religions and races into harmonious families, her own included, that continues to be a true strength of the United States Porter examines women's roles, beginning in the 1940s and continuing through the millennium, from the vantage point of someone who grew up in a working-class, male-dominated family. She explores the emotional price exacted by dislocation from one's native land and traditions; traveling and living in the Middle East, Europe, and Asia; and the evolving character of marriage and family in twenty-first-century America.

Welcome to America English Language Learners Starting Strong shares a special story along with helpful information for English Language Learners who have moved to the United States with their families. They will also be more prepared for the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead and realize that they can enrich the lives of the many Americans they meet along the way. Tips for parents to help their children adjust to the American educational system are included.

One child in five in America is the child of immigrants, and their numbers increase each year. Based on an extraordinary interdisciplinary study that followed 400 newly arrived children from the Caribbean, China, Central America, and Mexico for five years, this book provides a compelling account of the lives, dreams, academic journeys, and frustrations of these youngest immigrants.

Grounded in both theory and practice, with implications for both, this book is about children’s perspectives on the borders that society erects, and their actual, symbolic, ideational and metaphorical movement across those borders. Based on extensive ethnographic data on children of immigrants (mostly from Mexico, Central America and the Philippines) as they interact with undergraduate students from diverse linguistic, cultural and racial/ethnic backgrounds in the context of an urban play-based after-school program, it probes how children navigate a multilingual space that involves playing with language and literacy in a variety of forms. Immigrant Children in Transcultural Spaces speaks to critical social issues and debates about education, immigration, multilingualism and multiculturalism in an historical moment in which borders are being built up, torn down, debated and recreated, in both real and symbolic terms; raises questions about the values that drive educational practice and decision-making; and suggests alternatives to the status quo. At its heart, it is a book about how love can serve as a driving force to connect people with each other across all kinds of borders, and to motivate children to engage powerfully with learning and life.

A stunning novel of hopes and dreams, guilt and love—a book that offers a resonant new definition of what it means to be American and "illuminates the lives behind the current debates about Latino immigration" (The New York Times Book Review). When fifteen-year-old Maribel Rivera sustains a terrible injury, the Riveras leave behind a comfortable life in Mexico and risk everything to come to the United States so that Maribel can have the care she needs. Once they arrive, it’s not long before Maribel attracts the attention of Mayor Toro, the son of one of their new neighbors, who sees a kindred spirit in this beautiful, damaged outsider. Their love story sets in motion events that will have profound repercussions for everyone involved. Here Henríquez seamlessly interweaves the story of these star-crossed lovers, and of the Rivera and Toro families, with the testimonials of men and women who have come to the United States from all over Latin America.

In the past few years, there has been an influx of immigrant children into the school system, many with a limited understanding of English. Successfully teaching these students requires educators to understand their characteristics and to learn how to engage immigrant families to support their children’s academic achievements. The Handbook of Research on Engaging Immigrant Families and Promoting Academic Success for English Language Learners is a collection of innovative research that utilizes teacher professional development models, assessment practices, teaching strategies, and parental involvement strategies to develop ways for communities and educators to create social and academic conditions that promote the academic success of immigrant and English language learners. While highlighting topics including bilingual learners, family engagement, and teacher development, this book is ideally designed for early childhood, elementary, middle, K-12, and secondary school teachers; school administrators; faculty; academicians; and researchers.

More than twelve million immigrants, many of them children, passed through Ellis Island's gates between 1892 and 1954. Children also came through the “Guardian of the Western Gate,” the detention center on Angel Island in California that was designed to keep Chinese immigrants out of the United States. Based on the oral histories of fifty children who came to the United States before 1950, this book chronicles their American odyssey against the backdrop of World Wars I and II, the rise and fall of Hitler's Third Reich, and the hardships of the Great Depression. Ranging in age from four to sixteen years old, the children hailed from Northern, Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe; the Middle East; and China. Across ethnic lines, the child immigrants' life stories tell a remarkable tale of human resilience. The sources of family and community support that they relied on, their educational aims and accomplishments, their hard work, and their optimism about the future are just as crucial today for the new immigrants of the twenty-first century. These personal narratives offer unique perspectives on the psychological experience of being an immigrant child and its impact on later development and well-being. They chronicle the joys and sorrows, the aspirations and achievements, and the challenges that these small strangers faced while becoming grown citizens.

This powerful book tells the story of one teacher's odyssey to understand the inner world of immigrant children, and to create a learning environment that is responsive to these students' feelings and their needs. Featuring the voices and artwork of many immigrant children, this text portrays the immigrant experience of uprooting, culture shock, and adjustment to a new world, and then describes cultural, academic, and psychological interventions that facilitate learning as immigrant students make the transition to a new language and culture. Particularly relevant for courses dealing with multicultural and bilingual education, foundations of education, and literacy curriculum and instruction, this text is essential reading for all teachers who will -- or currently do -- work in today's school environment.

"In a green town in the middle of America, a bright 18-year-old Hispanic student named Isaias Ramos sets out on the journey to college. Isaias, who passed a prestigious national calculus test as a junior and leads the quiz bowl team, is the hope of Kingsbury High in Memphis, a school where many students have difficulty reading. But Kingsbury's dysfunction, expensive college fees, and forms printed in a language that's foreign to his parents are all obstacles in the way of getting him to a university. Isaias also doubts the value of college and says he might go to work in his family's painting business after high school, despite his academic potential. Is Isaias making a rational choice? Or does he simply hope to avoid pain by deferring dreams that may not come to fruition? This is what journalist Daniel Connolly attempts to uncover in The Book of Isaias as he follows Isaias, peers into a tumultuous final year of high school, and, eventually, shows how adults intervene in the hopes of changing Isaias' life. Mexican immigration has brought the proportion of Hispanics in the nation's youth population to roughly one in four. Every day, children of immigrants make decisions about their lives that will shape our society and economy for generations.