Many of you have shared the struggles that face adolescents who want or
need to enroll in high schools at an older age and are unable to do so.
What about those ELL students who find themselves in adult ESL classes?
What educational and career paths are available to them? What support
can teachers and other ESL students offer them? 
 
A couple of the students that I worked with in my classes come to mind.
Marcelo was enrolled in my adult beginning ESL class at night and in the
local high school ESL program during the day. His English proficiency
grew considerably, and he quickly became bored with the slower pace that
my older students required and the lack of the academic focus that he
was used to in his high school program. Erik was another younger
student, a 20-year old from El Salvador with very limited schooling. He
was unprepared for many of the expectations we have about classroom
behavior and learning strategies. He had a job in construction and the
potential to make a life in the U.S., although his legal status was in
question.  His girlfriend was pregnant and he needed the English,
literacy, and life skills that would help make him a good parent,
worker, and resident in the U.S.

Do these students sound familiar at all to those of you who work in
secondary or adult ESL? What other experiences have you had with them?
 
Sarah Young
Center for Applied Linguistics
4646 40th St. NW
Washington, DC 20016
 
Phone: (202) 362-0700 ext. 529
Fax: (202) 362-3740
Web: www.cal.org <http://www.cal.org/>  
Email: sarah at cal.org
CAL: "Improving communication through better understanding of language
and culture"
________________________________

From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Bruce Moon
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 12:18 AM
To: 'The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List'
Subject: Re: [EnglishLanguage] Adolescents in adult ESOL classes
Importance: Low



When I worked in a charter school a few years ago, we had students  who
were 16 and had less than a year of high school credits. They had been
refused entry by the district high school The rationale was that the
students lacked the credits to complete the normal program in a timely
manner. I had the impression that the high school feared that the
students might become a discipline problem if they were 19 or 20 and
still in high school.

Bruce Moon

Rio Linda, CA

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