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Arizona law worries non-native educators
Advocacy groups and many stakeholders say targeting teachers who speak in accented English is unfair
Some Arizona teachers fear for their jobs as a result of a new policy seeking to reassign teachers who speak with heavy accents.
Many Arizona teachers who learned English as a second language or who speak in accented English, and who are educating English language learners, are worried about their job security after word spread about the state education department’s suggestion that those educators with heavy accents be reassigned.
Recent media reports state that the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) has mandated that teachers whose spoken English it deems to be heavily accented or ungrammatical must be removed from classes containing students who are learning to speak English.
Reports quote ADE officials as saying that the intent of the initiative is to ensure that students with limited English have teachers who are highly qualified in fluency of the English language.
“The teacher obviously must be fluent in every aspect of the English language,” Adela Santa Cruz, director of the ADE office that enforces standards in classes for students with limited English, said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. An eSchool News request for comment from ADE was not returned by press time.
Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and its Arizona affiliate issued a joint statement expressing the organizations’ disappointment with the department’s recommendation.
“For decades the field of English language teaching has suffered from the myth that one only needs to be a native English speaker in order to teach the English language. The myth further implicates that native English speakers make better English as a second language or English as a foreign language teachers than nonnative speakers of English, because native English speakers are perceived to speak ‘unaccented’ English and understand and use idiomatic expressions fluently,” the statement read.
Some say the myth does a disservice to those who have been trained to teach English but are not native English speakers.
“Does Arizona prefer a native speaker of English with no training in education [or instruction], or would they prefer someone with an accent who was trained as a teacher?” asked Michael Pasquale, director of the graduate-level TESOL program at Cornerstone University in Michigan.
“But even native speakers have varied accents all over the U.S. The way it’s been reported, [the definition of 'accent'] is very vague,” he said.
Educators also are not aware of the criteria used to judge a teacher’s fluency, said John Segota, director of advocacy for TESOL.
“We’ve not been able to identify a set of assessment standards that are being used to evaluate teachers. It seems to be individual people making assessments,” he said.
Evaluators reportedly were instructed to audit teachers on things such as comprehensible pronunciation, correct grammar, and good writing.
Officials said Arizona teachers who are deemed to speak with too heavy an accent or without proper grammar will be able to take classes or other steps to improve their English.
Some vendors offer accent reduction software, programs that many TESOL educators say may be able to help with certain areas, but might not be much help overall. Pasquale said it’s nearly impossible for a nonnative English speaker to completely lose an accent as an adult.
The TESOL/AZ-TESOL statement said ADE’s policy is also troubling from a political standpoint.
18 Responses to Arizona law worries non-native educators
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gunther8202952
May 27, 2010 at 3:08 pm
“State schools chief Tom Horne said he believes the district’s Mexican-American studies program teaches Latino students that they are oppressed by white people. Public schools should not be encouraging students to resent a particular race, he said.”
Mr. Horne would rather keep the status quo where white people oppress everyone that is not white without complaint.
gunther8202952
May 27, 2010 at 3:08 pm
“State schools chief Tom Horne said he believes the district’s Mexican-American studies program teaches Latino students that they are oppressed by white people. Public schools should not be encouraging students to resent a particular race, he said.”
Mr. Horne would rather keep the status quo where white people oppress everyone that is not white without complaint.
izziey
May 27, 2010 at 3:23 pm
To DW:
I completely disagree with your statements:
“Why are “heavily accented” and “ungrammatical” in the same sentence? … If anyone bothered to listen to the the ADE rep on the news, it is NOT the accent. It has to do with being ungrammatical. …Please, please know the facts before you bestow your opinion on the rest of us. ”
According to both the article above and The Wall Street Journal, ADE is using a teacher’s accent to remove them from certain classrooms. According to WSJ: “The education department has dispatched evaluators to audit teachers across the state on things such as comprehensible pronunciation, correct grammar and good writing.
Teachers that don’t pass muster may take classes or other steps to improve their English; if fluency continues to be a problem, Ms. Santa Cruz said, it is up to school districts to decide whether to fire teachers or reassign them to mainstream classes not designated for students still learning to speak English. However, teachers shouldn’t continue to work in classes for non-native English speakers…State auditors have reported to the district that some teachers pronounce words such as violet as “biolet,” think as “tink” and swallow the ending sounds of words, as they sometimes do in Spanish.”
What about teachers who say “Bawston Hawbaw” (Boston Harbor)? Would they be removed? Who determines what a “comprehensible accent” should be?
This feels blatantly Euro-centric.
izziey
May 27, 2010 at 3:23 pm
To DW:
I completely disagree with your statements:
“Why are “heavily accented” and “ungrammatical” in the same sentence? … If anyone bothered to listen to the the ADE rep on the news, it is NOT the accent. It has to do with being ungrammatical. …Please, please know the facts before you bestow your opinion on the rest of us. ”
According to both the article above and The Wall Street Journal, ADE is using a teacher’s accent to remove them from certain classrooms. According to WSJ: “The education department has dispatched evaluators to audit teachers across the state on things such as comprehensible pronunciation, correct grammar and good writing.
Teachers that don’t pass muster may take classes or other steps to improve their English; if fluency continues to be a problem, Ms. Santa Cruz said, it is up to school districts to decide whether to fire teachers or reassign them to mainstream classes not designated for students still learning to speak English. However, teachers shouldn’t continue to work in classes for non-native English speakers…State auditors have reported to the district that some teachers pronounce words such as violet as “biolet,” think as “tink” and swallow the ending sounds of words, as they sometimes do in Spanish.”
What about teachers who say “Bawston Hawbaw” (Boston Harbor)? Would they be removed? Who determines what a “comprehensible accent” should be?
This feels blatantly Euro-centric.
Iwalani
May 27, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Although the definition of a “heavy accent” when speaking any language is certainly somewhat subjective, those of any qualified English teacher’s mastery of and ability to teach proper English grammar and good writing skills are not.
An ELL teacher is, by definition, a teacher of the English language; it follows, therefore, that the English that he or she teaches to those of any age learning English as a second language should therefore be correct and proper, and that any teacher whose skills are not adequate to imparting this level of instruction should be questioned, just as any mainstream English teacher’s lack of these skills and ability to teach them should likewise be questioned.
As an ELL teacher in Arizona whose certification is as a Highly Qualified Secondary English teacher, I am a stickler for correct grammar with my students in both their speaking and writing in English. I tell them that there is proper speaking, grammar and writing in English, just as there is in all other languages, including their native tongue, and then there is slang – and these two are almost like two different languages. As anyone who has studied languages knows, slang in all languages can involve difficult-to-explain pronunciation and construction of words, and there are many regional slang expressions and pronunciations found in all countries, including the U.S.
This distinction makes perfect sense to all my students. We routinely compare standard English with slang, and enjoy sharing and comparing various slang expressions in English and their native languages (so far Spanish, Russian and Portuguese), and laughing together about how these expressions are often very difficult for non-native speakers to grasp. And all my students agree with me that anyone who wants to learn their native language as a second language should be taught proper grammar, construction and word pronunciation before learning slang… and that learning to speak and write English is no different in this regard.
As far as having a “non-white field of experience” is concerned: I am an American whose family was stationed for 17 years in Kingston, Jamaica, a country that was, and is, about 90 percent black, and has its own native language, a patois that was a colorful mixture of 16th Century English and Welsh, and Ashanti, from West Africa – which I learned to speak when living there, and which I can still speak to this day. Even though it is considered officially to be “English,” Jamaican patois has so many individual, quirky grammatical constructions, localized slang and inscrutable word pronunciations, and it is so hard to understand by mainstream English speakers that, when the classic Jamaican movie “The Harder They Come” was released internationally, it came with mainstream English subtitles.
When I was attended high school in Jamaica, all my friends and schoolmates, who were mostly native Jamaicans of all colors (the official terms used there were “black,” “brown,” “beige” and “white”) were uniformly taught to speak and write “the King’s English” in school, and no-one ever considered this “racist” or “discriminatory,” or insisted that the local patois was all one needed to be properly educated. On the contrary, learning to speak and write “proper” English was looked upon as a positive, vital stepping stone to better opportunities for life. So the question then arises: if I attempted to teach ELL in Arizona, and the only English I spoke was Jamaican patois, would the Arizona Department of Education be correct in objecting to my being paid by the taxpayers to teach this form of “English” pronunciation, grammar and construction to non-English speakers?
I pattern my approach to teaching ELL after my own second-language experiences: I studied French from second grade through college, and German for two years in high school. I am grateful to my teachers of both languages, including native French and German citizens in high school and college, who insisted on my learning proper grammar and writing, as well as correct pronunciation. All my teachers told me it was considered a mark of respect by native French and German speakers that I could speak their languages with good pronunciation, and therefore, that I would be graded on this skill, as well as on grammar, writing, vocabulary and reading comprehension. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to resist or resent this – it just made good sense to me. I worked hard to master good speaking skills, and was later thrilled when I was complimented on my pronunciation and accent when I visited France and Germany as a young adult. I have also been scrupulous about learning how to properly pronounce words in Spanish, Russian and Portuguese when learning them from my students. I consider it a mark of respect toward them.
Why would one ask anything less of us teachers of English as a second language than that we inculcate in and demand of our ELL students the high standards expected of me by my teachers of French or German, when they were teaching how to speak these second languages? Or, for that matter, the standards expected of me by my students here in Arizona when they teach me how to pronounce a word in their native language?
Finally, as far as Arizona School Superintendent Tom Horne’s position on “ethnic studies” is concerned, although I do not always agree with Mr. Horne, many of us in Arizona, including the Arizona Republic newspaper (http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/2010/05/18/20100518tue1-18.html) support his position condemning the serious problems in what has essentially been shown to be an extremely racially and historically biased program in the Tucson School District.
A copy of Mr. Horne’s open letter to the citizens of the Tucson Unified School District, detailing some of the most egregiously offensive aspects of these programs, including blatant intimidation by the school administration of some teachers who objected (even though they were of Hispanic origin, they were branded “racists”) can be read at: https://www.azed.gov/administration/superintendent/AnOpenLettertoCitizensofTucson.pdf
Iwalani
May 27, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Although the definition of a “heavy accent” when speaking any language is certainly somewhat subjective, those of any qualified English teacher’s mastery of and ability to teach proper English grammar and good writing skills are not.
An ELL teacher is, by definition, a teacher of the English language; it follows, therefore, that the English that he or she teaches to those of any age learning English as a second language should therefore be correct and proper, and that any teacher whose skills are not adequate to imparting this level of instruction should be questioned, just as any mainstream English teacher’s lack of these skills and ability to teach them should likewise be questioned.
As an ELL teacher in Arizona whose certification is as a Highly Qualified Secondary English teacher, I am a stickler for correct grammar with my students in both their speaking and writing in English. I tell them that there is proper speaking, grammar and writing in English, just as there is in all other languages, including their native tongue, and then there is slang – and these two are almost like two different languages. As anyone who has studied languages knows, slang in all languages can involve difficult-to-explain pronunciation and construction of words, and there are many regional slang expressions and pronunciations found in all countries, including the U.S.
This distinction makes perfect sense to all my students. We routinely compare standard English with slang, and enjoy sharing and comparing various slang expressions in English and their native languages (so far Spanish, Russian and Portuguese), and laughing together about how these expressions are often very difficult for non-native speakers to grasp. And all my students agree with me that anyone who wants to learn their native language as a second language should be taught proper grammar, construction and word pronunciation before learning slang… and that learning to speak and write English is no different in this regard.
As far as having a “non-white field of experience” is concerned: I am an American whose family was stationed for 17 years in Kingston, Jamaica, a country that was, and is, about 90 percent black, and has its own native language, a patois that was a colorful mixture of 16th Century English and Welsh, and Ashanti, from West Africa – which I learned to speak when living there, and which I can still speak to this day. Even though it is considered officially to be “English,” Jamaican patois has so many individual, quirky grammatical constructions, localized slang and inscrutable word pronunciations, and it is so hard to understand by mainstream English speakers that, when the classic Jamaican movie “The Harder They Come” was released internationally, it came with mainstream English subtitles.
When I was attended high school in Jamaica, all my friends and schoolmates, who were mostly native Jamaicans of all colors (the official terms used there were “black,” “brown,” “beige” and “white”) were uniformly taught to speak and write “the King’s English” in school, and no-one ever considered this “racist” or “discriminatory,” or insisted that the local patois was all one needed to be properly educated. On the contrary, learning to speak and write “proper” English was looked upon as a positive, vital stepping stone to better opportunities for life. So the question then arises: if I attempted to teach ELL in Arizona, and the only English I spoke was Jamaican patois, would the Arizona Department of Education be correct in objecting to my being paid by the taxpayers to teach this form of “English” pronunciation, grammar and construction to non-English speakers?
I pattern my approach to teaching ELL after my own second-language experiences: I studied French from second grade through college, and German for two years in high school. I am grateful to my teachers of both languages, including native French and German citizens in high school and college, who insisted on my learning proper grammar and writing, as well as correct pronunciation. All my teachers told me it was considered a mark of respect by native French and German speakers that I could speak their languages with good pronunciation, and therefore, that I would be graded on this skill, as well as on grammar, writing, vocabulary and reading comprehension. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to resist or resent this – it just made good sense to me. I worked hard to master good speaking skills, and was later thrilled when I was complimented on my pronunciation and accent when I visited France and Germany as a young adult. I have also been scrupulous about learning how to properly pronounce words in Spanish, Russian and Portuguese when learning them from my students. I consider it a mark of respect toward them.
Why would one ask anything less of us teachers of English as a second language than that we inculcate in and demand of our ELL students the high standards expected of me by my teachers of French or German, when they were teaching how to speak these second languages? Or, for that matter, the standards expected of me by my students here in Arizona when they teach me how to pronounce a word in their native language?
Finally, as far as Arizona School Superintendent Tom Horne’s position on “ethnic studies” is concerned, although I do not always agree with Mr. Horne, many of us in Arizona, including the Arizona Republic newspaper (http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/2010/05/18/20100518tue1-18.html) support his position condemning the serious problems in what has essentially been shown to be an extremely racially and historically biased program in the Tucson School District.
A copy of Mr. Horne’s open letter to the citizens of the Tucson Unified School District, detailing some of the most egregiously offensive aspects of these programs, including blatant intimidation by the school administration of some teachers who objected (even though they were of Hispanic origin, they were branded “racists”) can be read at: https://www.azed.gov/administration/superintendent/AnOpenLettertoCitizensofTucson.pdf
avenir1961
May 27, 2010 at 6:04 pm
I think the point many are missing is the “heavily accented” and “ungrammatical”. (Recent media reports state that the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) has mandated that teachers whose spoken English it deems to be heavily accented or ungrammatical must be removed from classes containing students who are learning to speak English.) Personally, I don’t want ANY teacher teaching my child if his/her accent is so heavy that (s)he cannot be easily understood OR if (s)he has poor grammar.
I am a French teacher and while I have a slight accent, I strive to be as “native sounding” as possible and as grammatically correct as possible. Native speakers usually think that I am from Canada or Belgium and that my grammar is better than their’s is. I say this NOT to toot my own horn but to explain the concept of teaching a language to non-native speakers.
A better method of judging would be to set standards for ESL teachers, using the same guidelines that are used to assess ESL students and require that teachers be at a particular level in order to teach English to non-native speakers in class. If a teacher falls below the required level, then (s)he should be given a reasonable amount of time to rectify the situation or be removed.
Let’s not jump ship on non-native speakers teaching and let’s not jump ship on Arizona for seeking to improve the educational system. It is obvious that a problem has been identified. The solution has NOT YET been chosen, but there is one available!
avenir1961
May 27, 2010 at 6:04 pm
I think the point many are missing is the “heavily accented” and “ungrammatical”. (Recent media reports state that the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) has mandated that teachers whose spoken English it deems to be heavily accented or ungrammatical must be removed from classes containing students who are learning to speak English.) Personally, I don’t want ANY teacher teaching my child if his/her accent is so heavy that (s)he cannot be easily understood OR if (s)he has poor grammar.
I am a French teacher and while I have a slight accent, I strive to be as “native sounding” as possible and as grammatically correct as possible. Native speakers usually think that I am from Canada or Belgium and that my grammar is better than their’s is. I say this NOT to toot my own horn but to explain the concept of teaching a language to non-native speakers.
A better method of judging would be to set standards for ESL teachers, using the same guidelines that are used to assess ESL students and require that teachers be at a particular level in order to teach English to non-native speakers in class. If a teacher falls below the required level, then (s)he should be given a reasonable amount of time to rectify the situation or be removed.
Let’s not jump ship on non-native speakers teaching and let’s not jump ship on Arizona for seeking to improve the educational system. It is obvious that a problem has been identified. The solution has NOT YET been chosen, but there is one available!
iteachthereforeIam
May 27, 2010 at 8:11 pm
I don’t think that regional American accents are the problem. It’s the non-native accents, specifically Central/South American, Asian and Middle Eastern accents that make it difficult for the student. As a college student I had a Persian professor for Algebra. No doubt he was qualified, but his pronunciation of certain algebraic terms made the class more difficult than it should have been.
As a parent, I am horrified that my child comes home and structures her sentences in the same way her non-native teacher does. “Mom, what kind of cereal that is?” I’m sure her teacher is qualified in the subject areas, but her lack of grammatically correct sentences and syntax as a teacher of 2nd graders is a problem that we as her parents consider a drawback of the school. We’re looking for a school where the teachers have a command of the English language.
No, we’re not racist since we are the same ethnicity as her teacher. We just want our children to become educated and SOUND educated.
iteachthereforeIam
May 27, 2010 at 8:11 pm
I don’t think that regional American accents are the problem. It’s the non-native accents, specifically Central/South American, Asian and Middle Eastern accents that make it difficult for the student. As a college student I had a Persian professor for Algebra. No doubt he was qualified, but his pronunciation of certain algebraic terms made the class more difficult than it should have been.
As a parent, I am horrified that my child comes home and structures her sentences in the same way her non-native teacher does. “Mom, what kind of cereal that is?” I’m sure her teacher is qualified in the subject areas, but her lack of grammatically correct sentences and syntax as a teacher of 2nd graders is a problem that we as her parents consider a drawback of the school. We’re looking for a school where the teachers have a command of the English language.
No, we’re not racist since we are the same ethnicity as her teacher. We just want our children to become educated and SOUND educated.
izziey
May 28, 2010 at 2:37 pm
To: iteachthereforeIam
“I don’t think that regional American accents are the problem. It’s the non-native accents, specifically Central/South American, Asian and Middle Eastern accents that make it difficult for the student.”
I don’t understand what the difference is. If I can’t understand someone due to their accent, then it shouldn’t matter what the accent is. I have more trouble understanding people with some regional accents than understanding those from other countries.
I think that everyone concerned about this issue should read the following article:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/learning/accented-teachers-may-be-bette.html
It mentions a study that suggests that students learn English better from someone with a similar accent. I don’t believe that a teacher should be teaching if the instruction is incomprehensible, but I also believe that this is racially motivated.
It
izziey
May 28, 2010 at 2:37 pm
To: iteachthereforeIam
“I don’t think that regional American accents are the problem. It’s the non-native accents, specifically Central/South American, Asian and Middle Eastern accents that make it difficult for the student.”
I don’t understand what the difference is. If I can’t understand someone due to their accent, then it shouldn’t matter what the accent is. I have more trouble understanding people with some regional accents than understanding those from other countries.
I think that everyone concerned about this issue should read the following article:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/learning/accented-teachers-may-be-bette.html
It mentions a study that suggests that students learn English better from someone with a similar accent. I don’t believe that a teacher should be teaching if the instruction is incomprehensible, but I also believe that this is racially motivated.
It
rufojr
June 2, 2010 at 9:12 am
The point is that “teachers for English language must be fluent and not heavily accented” came from the 2003 No Child Left Behind bill implemented by President Bush. Federal funds would be denied if schools were not in compliance. They are just reporting that they have nine out of 236 school districts in Arizona out of compliance. They are trying to comply with federal law. Stop making a big deal out of nothing!
rufojr
June 2, 2010 at 9:12 am
The point is that “teachers for English language must be fluent and not heavily accented” came from the 2003 No Child Left Behind bill implemented by President Bush. Federal funds would be denied if schools were not in compliance. They are just reporting that they have nine out of 236 school districts in Arizona out of compliance. They are trying to comply with federal law. Stop making a big deal out of nothing!
sue.way
June 2, 2010 at 2:21 pm
No mater what your race is, or your place or origin, if you are teaching English your grammar, spelling, and sentence structure should be correct. I taught with a teacher who had a slight regional accent, nothing dramatic, but whose grammar and spelling were terrible. She taught 8th grade English. When she corrected papers she would mark things as incorrect that were correct and incorrect grammar as correct. She had misspelled words on her bulletin board. It was appalling. For the sake of their students, it is situations like this about which Arizona, and every other state, should be deeply concerned.
sue.way
June 2, 2010 at 2:21 pm
No mater what your race is, or your place or origin, if you are teaching English your grammar, spelling, and sentence structure should be correct. I taught with a teacher who had a slight regional accent, nothing dramatic, but whose grammar and spelling were terrible. She taught 8th grade English. When she corrected papers she would mark things as incorrect that were correct and incorrect grammar as correct. She had misspelled words on her bulletin board. It was appalling. For the sake of their students, it is situations like this about which Arizona, and every other state, should be deeply concerned.