Metro wants immigrant students to spend more time with English speakers

There are differing views on how best to teach English to immigrant students. This school pledges to raise test scores for their school and believes that language immersion is one way to do it. This is the way it was done in the 1800s and most of the 1900s. - - Donna Poisl

School officials hope language immersion with improve test scores

By Jaime Sarrio • THE TENNESSEAN •

Nancy Colin knows what it's like to attend a school where the teachers don't speak your language.

Colin moved to Texas from Mexico when she was 13. She was enrolled in special classes for foreign language speakers but remembers just wanting to be treated like every other kid.

"It takes a while to learn English," she said. "But when I was 13, I wanted to be in regular classes."

Now, as the mother of a first-grader at A.Z. Kelley Elementary and a translator at Cole Elementary, Colin is watching closely to see how Metro Nashville Public Schools deals with its growing population of non-English-speaking students.

She's not the only one. Metro schools must meet testing goals this year to regain local control and avoid further sanctions prescribed under the No Child Left Behind law. A crucial piece of that is improving the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program scores of students whose first language isn't English.
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