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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 3-page paper refutes some of Jim Cummins' assertions about ESL classes. Topics discussed include teacher interaction and cognitive academic language proficiency. Bibliography lists 6 sources.
Page Count:
3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_MTeslanaly.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
sitting a student down in front of a teacher and hoping said student will learn something. His premise is that other factors, such as those shaping society, have a huge
impact. This is especially the situation in diverse, lower-income communities. The argument here is that lower-income minorities dont have a chance to, for example, learn English if theyre foreigners, simply
because their community/society is also disempowered. The students will succeed in learning English only if his/her society is open to it. To reverse the trend, he points out, requires the
educators not only to teach the student, but to challenge the power structure in society, as a whole. Cummins also points out that culturally diverse students succeed or fail, based
on the direct result of interactions with their teachers. His third point is that children tend to develop basic interpersonal communication skills easier than they develop skills to complete academic
tasks. If the students dont have cognitive academic language proficiency, or CALP in their native or new languages, theyll likely be at an academic disadvantage.
How do Cummins theories hold up in an ESL classroom? As with anything, there are detractors. On the first point, the idea that students are doomed
if their communities are similarly doomed, there is a good deal of evidence that ESL can be taught in even uncaring communities. Though Cummins beliefs are noble, most ESL teachers
(not to mention teachers, as a whole) have enough to deal with simply trying to teach the standard curriculum, let alone trying to challenge society as a whole.
Griffith and Ruan (2007) point out that second-English language learners, for example, can benefit from story innovation - in other words, learning to read
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