New Students, no english

Specialties School

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Specializes in Cardiology, School Nursing, General.

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So new year, new students like always. But it seems to me that this year we have a lot of new students that don't know any ounce of English. And it's very sad to see, because of lot of these kids just barely came to the US and boom, dropped in a school with no knowledge of the language. It's so difficult and saddening to see them struggling and so frustrated. I try to comfort them as much as I can, but it's hard.

I just wanted to let out my frustration on unable to help them, but we are working to help them out here.

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One thing we have found helpful was typing into google translate and translating into their language. There were many who were Spanish/English bilingual, but as we started getting more Haitian Creole and Vietnamese students the translate was a huge help.

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Specializes in Cardiology, School Nursing, General.
One thing we have found helpful was typing into google translate and translating into their language. There were many who were Spanish/English bilingual, but as we started getting more Haitian Creole and Vietnamese students the translate was a huge help.

Yes a lot of our non-spanish speaking staff is using this to communicate with them. It's just very stressful for them at their age (12 and 13).

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I find these students amazingly resilient and adapt very quickly, having a great handle of the language by the new year. We use language lines when necessary and google translate at other times.

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I have family who lived in Mexico for several years when their 3 kids were school age. They plunked them into the Spanish speaking schools directly from their US school. The kids did fine. They had no special help, but the teachers gave them space to learn and learn they did! They picked up the language very quickly and were bilingual before the school year was out. Kids can pick up language very easily.

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Specializes in Cardiology, School Nursing, General.

I tell them this, but they are still in the denial stage and are feeling lost. Hopefully they feel better.

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I find these students amazingly resilient and adapt very quickly, having a great handle of the language by the new year. We use language lines when necessary and google translate at other times.

This. The kids here usually have a good grasp by Christmas, and the following year they are translating for the new kids. Luckily at my school we have an amazing ENL dept, and a very large and thriving Latino population.

They work it out. I promise.

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I just want to say I cannot imagine how scary and disorienting it must be to be thrown into a situation where you feel like you have no ability to communicate with anyone :(

We are SO fortunate in my school that we have classrooms designated for ELL (English Language Learners) and are fortunate enough to have teachers who speak some of these students' first languages (Spanish, Arabic, Haitian Creole, Mandarin Chinese, Russian). There are still a few outliers but for the most part we have the ability to communicate in some way with the student and a parent. I am fully bilingual in Spanish/English and am grateful I can communicate with many of my student's parents about an illness.

All the above being said, we do see a very quick adaptation by most of our students and usually by the end of their first year they are able to communicate very well in English. It amazes me how easily children can pick up a new language.

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