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From https://acadeafic.org

Matt Hall, Wyatte Hall and Naomi Caselli write, "The ability to use language is important for all people. For most people, language acquisition happens naturally and automatically in early childhood. By age 5, most children have basically mastered all major parts of their native language(s), without needing formal instruction or therapy. This is true for children who have effortless access to language in their everyday environment such as hearing children, and also for Deaf children who are raised by proficient signers. Unfortunately, the situation is different for a majority of deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) children born into families that use primarily spoken languages and do not know a sign language. For them, language acquisition is often delayed and/or incomplete by age 5, which means that these DHH children, in contrast to most other peers, enter school without the language foundation that will be required for success in the classroom and beyond.

"Because of this, mastery of at least one language – spoken or signed – needs to be an urgent priority for DHH children. Unfortunately, the current systems that are in place to support DHH children’s development don’t usually frame things this way. Instead, these systems typically privilege the acquisition of a spoken language. This can happen explicitly (e.g. professionals specifically dissuading parents from using other languages and forms of communication other than spoken language) or implicitly (e.g. parents having a default preference for their child to share their home language, which is almost always spoken). 

"In any case, the result is typically that early intervention with DHH usually focuses on the acquisition of a specific language (usually English), rather than at least one language (which would include spoken languages like English and Spanish, but also natural sign languages like American Sign Language – ASL)."

Read the full essay or watch a video in ASL at https://acadeafic.org/2019/07/11/deaf-children-need-language/

From https://www.npr.org/2019/07/17/741239298/as-scrutiny-of-china-grows-some-u-s-schools-drop-a-language-program

As Scrutiny of China Grows, Some U.S. Schools Drop a Language Program
by Greg Myre
July 17, 2019

The Defense Department wants more Americans to speak Chinese, and it provides millions of dollars to train students at U.S. universities. 

China's government, through language centers known as Confucius Institutes, has been doing the same thing, for the same reasons, and at some of the same U.S. universities.

But a new law has forced these American universities to choose: They can take money from the Pentagon or from the Confucius Institute — but not both.

...Riding a wave of rising American interest in China, the first Confucius Institute in the U.S. opened at the University of Maryland in 2004. The institutes quickly expanded, growing to more than 100 in the U.S. and more than 500 worldwide.

But, forced to choose, at least 13 U.S. universities have closed Confucius Institutes in the past year, in order to preserve Defense Department funding. They include the University of Oregon.

"It's very clear that faculty were anguished about the choice," said Dennis Galvan, the university's vice provost for global engagement. "They would have much preferred to not have to choose between these two projects that they had created and nourished for more than a decade. So it was a reluctant decision."

The Defense Department program, known as the Language Flagship, sends close to $1 million annually to the University of Oregon for Chinese language studies, and about a third of that is then passed on to Portland public schools for their own Chinese language instruction, Galvan said.

...The University of Nebraska is keeping its Confucius Institute, which Harvey Perlman helped bring to the school in 2007 when he was the chancellor. As part of the arrangement, the institute sends about a dozen Chinese language teachers to high schools around the state.

Read the full article at https://www.npr.org/2019/07/17/741239298/as-scrutiny-of-china-grows-some-u-s-schools-drop-a-language-program

From https://www.saporedicina.com

Here is an English-language article introducing Chinese writing: the order and direction of writing, the different kinds of strokes, combinations of strokes, stroke order, and a few more details: https://www.saporedicina.com/english/writing-chinese-rules-strokes/

From https://www.dw.com/en/where-german-is-still-spoken-in-the-us/a-49535403

Where German is still spoken in the US
Over 300 years ago, German immigrants crossed the Atlantic to reach, among other places, Pennsylvania. Their language and culture continues to influence their descendants, as DW correspondent Oliver Sallet discovered.
by Oliver Sallet
July 10, 2019

Patrick Donmoyer of the University of Pennsylvania wants to preserve this German heritage for future generations. At the German Cultural Heritage Center in Kutztown in Berks County, he teaches Pennsylvania Deitsch in a former German school from 1870 that is now a museum.

On an old school slate board in the cultural center, one can see "deitsche Sprichwadde" (German adages) written down such as "Schpaar die Geld" ("saving money"), and the unusual phrase "gut gwetzt ist halwer gmeht" ("well-sharpened is half mown"), which literally refers to the mowing of fields with a scythe. 

The language is not at risk of extinction, says Donmoyer. Around 40,000 people speak the dialect in Pennsylvania alone, and around 400,000 across America. The number is rising since many Amish and Mennonites faith communities who speak Pennsylvania German as their mother tongue traditionally have large families.

Some 30% of Pennsylvanians have German ancestors, and many of the descendants still speak some form of German at home. Donmoyer says a Pennsylvanian German dialect has developed into its own language across 300 years.

Read the full article at https://www.dw.com/en/where-german-is-still-spoken-in-the-us/a-49535403

From http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/learning-the-language/2019/07/bias_teachers_english_learners.html

Do English-Language Learners Get Stigmatized by Teachers? A Study Says Yes
by Corey Mitchell
July 17, 2019

Research from Ilana Umansky of the University of Oregon and Hanna Dumont of Germany's Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education suggests that English-learner classification has a "direct and negative effect on teachers' perceptions of students' academic skills."

Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, the researchers examined teacher perceptions of 2,166 students who spoke a language other than English at home.

At the start of kindergarten, the students had the same English proficiency and academic skill levels; whether they were identified as English-learners or not largely depended on differences in states' and districts' thresholds for classification.

The study included questions in which teachers recorded their perceptions of students' academic skills and knowledge over time. Umansky and Dumont used responses from the spring of kindergarten, after teachers had been working with their students for almost a full school year, and then again at the end of 1st and 2nd grades. They focused on teachers' perceptions of students' skills and knowledge in four areas: language and literacy; math; social studies; and science.

Their findings indicate that, across all the grade levels and content areas, teachers had lower perceptions of the academic skills and knowledge of those students who were classified as English-learners.

They also found, however, that the teachers' negative bias or low academic perceptions were virtually nonexistent for English-learners in bilingual settings, such as dual-language programs and traditional bilingual programs, where a teacher or paraprofessional is using a language other than English at least half the time.

Read the full article at http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/learning-the-language/2019/07/bias_teachers_english_learners.html
Umansky and Dumont's working paper is available at https://edworkingpapers.com/sites/default/files/ai19-94.pdf

From https://www.eflmagazine.com/cambridge-university-press-launches-new-youtube-channel-for-learners-of-english/

The Learn English with Cambridge YouTube channel launched in April. The channel, created to supply viewers with readily-available, useful content which shows language learners how they should be using English outside of the classroom, in everyday context, is available at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9-5oT15dxc81MI-pUui3Ww/featured

Read more about this new resource at https://www.eflmagazine.com/cambridge-university-press-launches-new-youtube-channel-for-learners-of-english/

From http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/learning-the-language/2019/07/seal_of_biliteracy_california.html

Who's Earning the Seal of Biliteracy? In One State, It's Mostly English-Learners
by Corey Mitchell 
July 9, 2019

California's statewide push to honor students who master a second language is growing—and English-language learners are benefiting the most.

In the class of 2018, 63 percent of graduates who earned the "seal of biliteracy" spoke a language other than English when they began school, a new report from Californians Together, an English-learner research and advocacy group, found. Those youths, identified in the report as heritage-language students, include current English-learners, former English-learners reclassified as English proficient, and students identified as bilingual when they began school.

The seal of biliteracy is affixed to high school diplomas or transcripts as proof that graduates can communicate in more than one language. Its popularity has surged across the country as more states and school systems have placed an emphasis on honoring multilingual graduates and in helping more English-learners become proficient.

Read the full article at http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/learning-the-language/2019/07/seal_of_biliteracy_california.html

From https://seidlitzblog.org/2019/07/10/primary-language-support-in-general-education-classrooms/

Valentina Gonzalez writes, "Primary language support (PLS) is the use of students’ first languages to build on the development of their target language. For example, if a child first learned Italian at home and then begins school in America, the primary language of Italian would be used as a leverage to build the English language. 

"...For many decades in the United States, primary language support has been a highly controversial topic in education. Some argue that the use of primary language may delay ELs’ English language development. However, Claude Goldenberg states in a 2013 article for American Educator that, 'there is an inherent advantage of knowing and being literate in two languages.'"

Read Gonzalez's full article to learn more about PLS, why it's important, and how you can use it to support emergent bilinguals: https://seidlitzblog.org/2019/07/10/primary-language-support-in-general-education-classrooms/

From http://blog.tesol.org

Judie Haynes outlines how to use quickwrites, or short written responses to a writing prompt, with English learners in this blog post, which would apply equally well to learners of any language: http://blog.tesol.org/linking-writing-to-els-lives-using-quickwrites/