Publication Date: Friday, January 06, 2006
ReaderWire
ReaderWire
(January 06, 2006)
ELD experience
The article by Alexandria Rocha on the subject of ELD-teaching issues in the Palo Alto Unified School District (Weekly, Dec. 30) prompted some memories of my experience in learning English subsequent to my arrival in the United States.
I knew not one word of English when I immigrated to the United States as an 11-year-old. I was pulled out from my classes in order to be taught English jointly with seven other non-English speaking students.
My personal observation and recollections of that pull-out ELD program back in 1956 (and not in Palo Alto) was that it worked superbly. All of us gained tremendously in language comprehension, vocabulary and use of English in a short period of time.
The immersion in the English language and the intensity of the exposure to it launched all of the students onto a path where they could rapidly become participants in the regular classroom subject materials. The students taught each other, competed in vocabulary games and encouraged each other.
In summary, the foreign language speakers were immersed in English language learning first, by being pulled out from their classrooms. The goal was to provide each student with the basic tools -- the English language skills -- necessary to understand and participate in the regular class work.
There was no option to learn in one's native language. The motivation to learn English was total, made enjoyable and effective. The foreign students quickly adapted to the language and their new culture and home and proceeded to academic equivalency with the native English speakers within the first year.
Ben Stolpa
Forest Avenue, Palo Alto
East Meadow vote?
When the Palo Alto Clinic land was developed for housing, the people of Palo Alto got to vote the proposed development up or down. Now that there are proposed plans to put nearly a thousand units on East Meadow Circle, we are going to get to vote on that too, aren't we?
All of the contiguous residential housing has a density of 4-6/acre, while the proposed development is closer to 20/acre.
Raymond R. White
Mayview Avenue, Palo Alto
Plan points
Thanks to the Weekly for recent coverage of the Charleston/Arastradero Plan. I would like to clarify three points:
1) The plan was supported at the Dec. 19 meeting not only by Greenmeadow, but by nine other corridor neighborhoods who presented a letter of support as a group.
2) While the plan does recommend lane reduction in segments of the corridor that currently have excess capacity that causes drivers to speed in school zones (about half of the corridor), segments that require more capacity will remain four lanes or increase to five lanes (as at the approach to Gunn High School).
3) All of the major intersections will stay at four lanes as well as the section between Alma Street and El Camino Real.
With the addition of traffic-adaptive lights, the corridor improvements should provide adequate capacity to accommodate projected growth while simultaneously improving safety for all users: motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians.
Penny Ellson
El Capitan Place, Palo Alto
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