English-language education

The Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, “The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” Language can unlock many doors, but our world can also be limited to what we know about it. This is the cruel reality that many of us face when arriving in a new country, not being able to speak the language. One feels as everything around us has broadened, but our world has shrunken. One feels impotent, unable to communicate with the people that surround us. For this reason,…

In George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language,” though it was written in 1946 it remains very relevant for modern students use of language. In this essay, Orwell argues that the English language has become very poor and is evolving in a bad way. It is becoming this way because writers are not taking it serious and are writing with foolish intentions. In his essay he gives a list of rules one should not break while writing. The first one is “Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of…

“Basically they are in the middle between two different worlds and that’s the dilemma. That’s the struggle.” (Martha H. Bigelow; Mogadishu on the Mississippi: Language, Racialized Identity, and Education in a New Land pg. 94). First generation immigrants are torn between multiple cultures, with their parents' views different from the views of the country they are raised in. Through this, first generation immigrants struggle with finding themselves in life and don’t feel as if they belong to…

I am not currently working in a school, but the schools I attended while growing up had two extremely different approaches to ELLs. I actually lived in Flagstaff in elementary and middle school and I was completely unaware of non-English speakers even attending my school. I think this is partially because I was 13 and focused almost entirely on myself but also because, at that time, the school system almost entirely separated these students from the "main stream" kids. While I can 't speak to…

recommended. This form of English requires proper punctuation and grammar, which helps students to understand and express ideas easily and clearly. This usage also contributes to students’ future prospects, but to be an expert in English it is also important to be able to spontaneously switch between academic English and the language that is used within social media. The language of social media does not conform to the formal academic language and in comparison to formal English the language of…

average graduation rate over the past four years is 89%, the current poverty index is 47.5%, and the dropout rate is 1.8% (Williams & Strickland, 2015). In general, high school students today face numerous obstacles that affect the outcome of their education. Facing issues like bullying, mental health, substance use and abuse, delinquency, violence, low socioeconomic status, and poverty, for example, only increase the likelihood for poor academic outcomes…

Excuse me, where is the elbow grease? When it comes to immigrating, simply learning the language is not enough. In order to assimilate into a new country, one must not only learn the language and culture, but also be capable of translating the culture back into language. So is the story of a young girl who immigrated with her family to the United States when she was just seven years old. In her essay “Hot Dogs and Wild Geese,” Firoozeh Dumas illustrates the challenges she and her family…

relentlessly and with all the knowledge he gained, he later became a professional writer. Alexie’s passion for reading is comparable to Malcom X’s who ended up understanding the language thoroughly while imprisoned. In Malcolm X’s “Coming to an Awareness of Language” he expresses his lack of knowledge of the English language. He knew how to make his way around the streets with slang, but until he ended up in prison, he then realized that he needed to know the meaning…

The word fatal came about in the English language in the Middle English period, circa 1347. Originally the adjectival form of fate, it initially meant “allotted or decreed by fate or destiny; destined, fated” (OED, 2015). Up until the early 16th century, circa 1518, its various definitions continued to revolve around the idea of “destiny”, portraying the largely stagnant semantic change lasting for almost two centuries. Its initial borrowing likely came as a result of the Norman Conquest of…

“One of the big moments in the spread of English took place in India in 1835. [British politician] Thomas Babington Macaulay proposed that English be used to create a class of Indian middlemen who would be sympathetic to British interests, without the necessity of large numbers of British citizens coming out and running the show” (Traves 102). As you can see, English has impacted different cultures over the years. As English continues to grow over time, English has become a way to communicate…