A Patchwork of Plans Helps Teach English to Teenagers

High schools throughout Orange County are struggling to teach basic subjects to teenagers who speak little or no English, while teachers weigh whether to flunk bright students who work hard but cannot comprehend the lessons at hand.

“The situation is just awful,” said Newport Harbor High School history teacher Angela Newman, burying her face in her hands. “I don’t want to fail them, because they work so hard and try much harder than many of my native speakers.

“They don’t deserve to fail. But the truth is, they are maybe reading at a third-grade level.”

Much of the debate surrounding Proposition 227, which banned bilingual education in most public school situations, has focused on the youngest students and how to get them reading and learning other scholastic skills when they do not speak English.

Less noticed have been the teenagers who are recent arrivals to the United States and land in classes on science, literature and history without understanding most of what the teacher is saying.

The high schools offer English language development classes, but at the same time these students are required to take the same classes and pass the same tests as native speakers.

“Those of us who enter in high school have a much more difficult time because we have six classes and six different teachers,” said Ilze Mungia, 16. She moved from Mexico to Costa Mesa three years ago and has been struggling ever since.

“Why do people think that just hearing English makes you understand what the teacher is talking about?” she said. “Because it does not.”

Leery of violating Proposition 227, passed by California voters in June, teachers often resort to the type of pantomiming used in elementary schools to explain complexities such as the post-Civil War Reconstruction period, economic theories of supply and demand, or symbolism in ancient Native American ceramics.

Whether students who speak little English will pass regular classes is often a matter of teacher discretion. Whether they actually learn the material is uncertain.

The teaching curriculum for these students varies by district; each is allowed to create its own program.

“I think this is a problem that all of us in education are going to be faced with,” said Gloria Roland, coordinator of Saddleback Valley Unified School District’s program for limited-English speakers.

“I think the general public passed 227 with all good intentions and didn’t realize what would happen,” Roland said. “They thought we were coddling kids. No, we were trying to teach kids English and keep them at grade level.”

Some schools rely heavily on sheltered classes, which teach the same subject matter as mainstream ones but at a slower pace. Others use extensive tutoring.

At Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton, immigrant students, mostly from Asia, are placed in classes to learn English upon arrival. As they gain fluency, they are then moved to federally funded sheltered classes in core subjects.

“But most of the students who come to Sunny Hills are from countries where their primary education has been very, very good,” said Deanna Hill, special projects coordinator. “They are very well prepared and that just translates.”

The system works well for 80% of English learners, Hill said.

“With about 20%, it’s just too hard and they can’t learn English fast enough,” she said. “Usually we move them over to La Sierra [Alternative School], and they’re not under the same pressure.”

Saddleback’s salvation also has been the use of federal funds.

It gets a $131,000 grant that is shared among Laguna Hills High, the adult education program and two elementary schools. The money pays for tutors hired specifically for the program, teacher training and tutorial programs.

“Also, we infuse into our curriculum [the methods] to help these kids,” said Laguna Hills Principal Wayne Mickaelian.

Even with sheltered programs and extra tutorials for students, Laguna Hills High scrambles to get the lessons learned.

“We tutor students really any time of the day,” Mickaelian said. “You might try after school, but then they have to work so you move it to lunchtime. Then that doesn’t work, so you do it at night.”

At Newport Harbor, Newman, who tutors students daily after class, does permit the use of some Spanish. She teaches entirely in English, but hands out study guides in Spanish when she has them. She has allowed some required reading to be done in Spanish and permits students to include Spanish explanations in their projects.

She worries about violating Proposition 227 but sees no other way for her students to succeed.

Neal Malkus, who teaches English language at Newport Harbor, also is a resource for both students and teachers. His classroom is a virtual clubhouse for English learners and the place where many students say they learn most quickly and feel the most comfortable.

Even with the extra help, the work in mainstream courses is challenging.

On a recent test in Newman’s U.S. history class, students were asked to explain Reconstruction, the post-Civil War process of readmitting the Southern states to the union, why it was a missed opportunity to solve America’s racial problems and why Congress rejected President Andrew Johnson’s postwar plan.

Or they could explain the Dred Scott decision, in which the Supreme Court ruled that a black slave could not become a citizen under the U.S. Constitution.

Students with limited English skills were lost.

Miriam Hernandez, 15, moved to Costa Mesa from Mexico 18 months ago. She describes how a task that would be simple in Spanish takes twice as much effort in English.

Worse, when she finally understands what is wanted of her, the lessons often seem easy--certainly more elementary than those she was taught in Mexico. “It’s a lot of work to understand something that is simple.”

Her English, however, is limited--she can ask directions and identify objects, and she speaks mainly in the present tense.

Her quarterly progress report in Newman’s class was an F. But she and the teacher are determined to raise the grade. Now Hernandez and a group of girls who also struggle with English study with Newman until 5 p.m. every Wednesday.

Hernandez’s grade in the past weeks has risen to a C-minus.

“It is so difficult for me, I just don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said. “I hope to pass.”

Much of her help comes from other Spanish-speaking students. In class they whisper translations and later help with projects.

“Homework is the worst,” Hernandez said. Much of what seemed clear in class is unintelligible at home alone.

“I will call some friends and my brother will call his friends, and seriously, between 10 of us my homework gets done,” she said.

Newport Harbor’s limited-English students, however, are caught by more than Proposition 227. Demographic changes in the past few years saw the school’s Latino population increase to 20%.

“We need sheltered classes, and we don’t have that yet,” said Liliana Zerouali, bilingual community coordinator for the school. “They come and show me their grades, which are low, and I know it’s the language.”

Zerouali works closely with each school department, however, to minimize misunderstandings between students and teachers. No one wants to see the students fail.

At the last grading period, a crying student revealed she had been too afraid to ask for help. Now the teacher who failed her devotes the lunch period to tutoring the student, Zerouali said.

“The teachers here have positive attitudes and really adjust to try to help the situation,” she said.