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English language acquisition

According to Brittain (2002), Mexican students come to the U.S. with negative attitudes about their abilities to learn English easily, and some have indicated that English is but a tool for survival (Raskuaskas&Rodriguez, 2005). Immigrant students tend to view English proficiency as a major obstacle not only in terms of communication, but also in terms of social relations and inclusion. They experience English as the language of validation for belonging to the societal structure both in and out of school.

School as a different learning environment

In Mexico and Central America, the school systems are very different than in the U.S. For example, U.S. schools are social institutions where children are provided books for classroom use, books to check out from the library, breakfast and lunches for free, counseling, nurses on call, free transportation, and physical education. Additionally, Mexican schools do not, for the most part, include parents in the education of their children, while U.S. schools count heavily on the involvement of parents—parent involvement programs are common in the U.S. Most of the Mexican students in Brittain’s (2002) study indicated that schools in their home country, in general, did not provide such services. She noted, however, that the services provided in the U.S. schools to immigrants did not always equate to what they needed to succeed in the upward mobility of our society.

Parental involvement in schools

In general, Latino parents have been found to have low self-esteem (Hughes et al., 1999; Kelty, 1997; Paratore, et al., 1999). Additionally, Lambourne and Zinn (1993) found that immigrant families may experience culture shock as they navigate within a new culture. Parents from Latino backgrounds need assistance from the school in knowing how to work with their children so that the children can be more successful within the school structure. This needed assistance is based upon Kelty’s (1997) work which determined that the Latino culture emphasizes obedience and respect for adult authority, therefore, many parents may communicate in a direct manner with their children rather than engaging them in oral language development and reading. Without instruction on how to encourage children at home, these parents will not be able to build a strong foundation for academic skills. Paratore et al. (1999) indicated that despite limited English proficiency, low levels of education, and few economic resources, when parents were provided opportunities to learn from and collaborate with teachers, all were willing and able to do so consistently and effectively; this was also supported by Kelty’s (1997) study. We have found that such parental involvement programs also assist parents in becoming more acculturated to the school structure and to the U.S. society; additionally, like Valdez (1997), we found that parents value learning English just as much as they value their children learning English.

Teacher induction to the culture

According to a recent study by Karabenick and Clemens Noda (2004), there are 14 identified knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that impact regular and bilingual classroom teachers’ delivery of quality educational services to ELL students in regular and bilingual settings (A few of their findings are included in parenthetical phrases for each listed; outside the parentheses are comments based upon our experiences in schools.):

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Source:  OpenStax, Immigration in the united states and spain: considerations for educational leaders. OpenStax CNX. Jul 26, 2010 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col11174/1.28
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