The debate on how best to educate ELL students continues, with little promise of a clear-cut way to proceed emerging anytime soon. At the same time, the diversity of languages of spoken in U.S. schools continues to expand. Languages include Spanish, Hmong, Urdu, Russian, Chinese, Polish, Korean, Tagalog, Swahili and more. Achieving the goal for all students to obtain a satisfactory level of learning is often compromised by the cultural, social, and language differences among various groups. The inability to come to grips with how to best approach the learning needs of ELL student’s,places them at greater risk of falling behind.

The original enthusiasm for bilingual programs has diminished, as these programs are now criticized as being ineffective. Support for the immersion model has declined, as initial supporters now believe ELL students simply aren’t learning English quickly and thoroughly enough. They now suggest that the immersion program does not facilitate the ELL students’ ability to cope with the American culture, not just in school, but also beyond school boundaries. The slower learning curve experienced by ELL students in immersion programs may plague them for the rest of their lives.

This belief is based on research that suggests Hispanics who were in school from the 1970s through the 1990s, and who were in bilingual programs earned less money on average than Hispanic students educated during the same period in an English-only setting. Hispanic high school dropouts which were in English-only classrooms are also fewer in number and more likely to return to school later. Immersion makes it difficult for the teacher to provide support for all students’ needs. In the case of a complex assignment such as a research paper, language and usage are challenging even for fluent students. The further complication of using a second language puts ELL students at a serious disadvantage, without special support. The immersion method of teaching is yet to establish itself as an effective program for minority students.

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  SPECIAL TO VIEW

  Liberty High School English and Chinese teacher Denise Tatum visited Beijing in 2010. She has spent four summers studying Chinese in China.

SYRACUSE — Gov. Gary Herbert learned firsthand Wednesday morning how dual language immersion programs are working in Davis School District.

Herbert and his staff visited three classes at Syracuse Elementary School, where Mandarin Chinese is taught to 170 of the school’s 981 students.

Herbert’s goal is to have the program offered to 30,000 students in 100 schools across the state by 2014.

“We are a global economy,” Herbert said. “The ability to communicate will mean economic success.”

Currently, 57 schools statewide offer the program in either Chinese, French or Spanish.

The school offers Chinese to students in kindergarten through second grade in a typical dual immersion program where students divide their time between English and a second language to learn academics.

Chinese is offered in four schools in Davis district. In Utah, 31 schools offer dual immersion programs in Spanish, 17 in Mandarin Chinese and nine in French.

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OREM — It must be one of the most singularly astonishing sights in any classroom in Utah Valley — first-graders being taught entirely in Chinese, even though they didn’t know a single word of the language until four months ago.

Alpine School District’s hugely successful Chinese language immersion program was the first of its kind here two years ago. Today, it is one of the district’s biggest success stories. The pilot group, now in second grade, has learned to speak Chinese so quickly and so fluently that the district is looking to expand the immersion program into other languages and other schools. An announcement could be made before Christmas.