Not even teachers can speak English

[Soldier4Christ]

Not even teachers can speak English
Says 1, 'If you have problems, to who are you going to ask?"

An official state inspection of Arizona public schools reveals that many students are being taught English by Spanish-speaking teachers whose command of English is so poor that the officials can barely understand them.

The recent inspection revealed teachers providing instruction in Spanish instead of the legally required English, students unable to answer questions in English, and teachers' instructions such as "Sometimes, you are not gonna know some."

The results of the inspections were reported by the Arizona Republic, which concluded hundreds of students in the state are trying to learn English from teachers who don't know the language.

The inspections found teachers who are unable to use English grammar and cannot pronounce English words. The "You are not gonna know" comment came from a Mesa teacher instructing a classroom filled with students trying to learn English.

From a Casa Grande Elementary District teacher came, "read me first how it was before," and a Phoenix teacher at Creighton Elementary asked, "If you have problems, to who are you going to ask?"

State officials each year visit classrooms where children are learning English. Of the 32 school districts visited last year, there were problems at about one-third.

"Some teachers' English was so poor that even state officials strained to understand them," the assessment found. "At a dozen districts, evaluators found teachers who ignored state law and taught in Spanish."

The visits, which lasted from one to three days, discovered teachers did not know grammar or pronunciation. "In one classroom, the teacher's English was 'labored and arduous.' Other teachers were just difficult to understand. Some teachers pronounced 'levels' and 'lebels' and 'much' and 'mush,'" the newspaper reported.

Other visits uncovered:

    * In the Humboldt Unified District, one teacher said, "How do we call it in English?"

    * In Phoenix's Isaac Elementary, a teacher said. "My older brother always put the rules."

    * In Marana, a teacher said, "You need to make the story very interested to the teacher."

The report found children in Cartwright Elementary in Phoenix who still were in the beginning stages of learning English were "sitting, comprehending very little, and receiving almost no attention."

Another school, in Maricopa Unified, provided English instruction for students, from a teacher's aide at the back of the class.

Changes, however, apparently are on the way. The state under a new plan is requiring that schools put language learners into four hours of classes each day where the students will learn English grammar, phonetics, writing and reading. It also has a new program to help school managers train teachers in the new procedures.

Those commenting on the newspaper's forum pretty much followed a single track:

"Send them back, problem solved," wrote "MikeB."

"In all fairness, send the illegals home, then there would be enough qualified teachers for the students that are legitimately here and eligible for school," added ToddStallion.

"Excuse me, but how about taking the teachers back to 1st grade and teaching them ENGLISH first?" added "azconservative."

[Soldier4Christ]

In all fairness this is not just a problem in Ariz. nor is it just a problem with the Spanish speaking community. I personally encountered such problems with teachers not knowing proper English in several states. This is not a problem that is exclusive to just those speaking Spanish either. Part of my daughter's educational handicap in her early years was the lack of ability to enunciate certain letters. She was given speech therapy in a school by a teacher that spoke to her and wrote notes to us at a third grade level. They now call what this speech therapist was doing "ebonics".

ACT and SAT scores have dropped considerably since 1963 across the board. SAT scores were re-centered in 1995 in an attempt to disguise the disturbing fact that scores had plummeted since the high water mark of 1963. Something happened in 1963 to cause this problem that we have never fully recovered from. I wonder what that was. 

In the late 60's and early 70's Military entrance was fairly lax allowing high school dropouts to enter service. This was because of the war and the draft. In the 80's there was a push to get this group that was still in service to get an education to benefit both themselves and the Military. GED classes were held on ships during deployment. At the onset of these classes all students were given portions of the SAT exam to determine class levels. In other words the instructor wanted to see where the students stood so they would more fully understand the needs of the students. The majority of these high school dropouts passed the English portions at a college level based on test standards for students that had currently taken the SAT for college entry.

As you can see this goes far beyond just Spanish speaking people causing the problem although I must admit that they are compounding it. In the most recent SAT test scores those students that were home schooled faired far better scores. Scores that were more equivalent to pre- 1960's scores. Our public schools are putting more emphasis on non-curricular subjects than they are on the basics and with teachers that they themselves are not up to standard. (note: I am speaking in general and not in the whole as their are some very qualified teachers in some schools. Unfortunately they are having their hands tied by the content that they are required to teach.)