Schools help bolster student English skills
By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer
When she found that nearly half of the children in her class spoke a language other than English at home, Ka'ewai Elementary School teacher Lianne Kanamu knew she had a problem.
Her students needed more individual attention, so she decided to specialize in teaching English to immigrant children.
Today, nearly 13,000 students are learning English as a second language in Hawai'i public schools through federally mandated programs, giving teachers such as Kanamu plenty of work.
As the state's ethnic diversity expands, schools are feeling continued pressure to keep reading test scores up by bolstering English proficiency. In schools like Ka'ewai, where more than half of the students in fifth grade scored below average last year on the reading portion of a national standardized test, the teaching sometimes looks more like a game of charades.
"It's a lot of pantomiming," said Kanamu.
The language barrier can be difficult to break in communities such as Palolo, Kalihi and Waipahu, where Ilocano, Samoan, Tagalong and Marshallese dialects are common. A language other than English is spoken in 286,792 homes in Hawai'i, according to the results of the newly released Census 2000 Supplementary Survey. Fewer than half of those homes are occupied by people who speak English "less than very well."
Beyond the schools, courts and hospitals are increasingly providing interpreters to smooth the lines of communication. Even the state driver's license written exam is available in eight languages.
The success of families depends on how well parents can adapt to the English-speaking world, said Ichi Ichise, president of Translation and Consulting Services, Inc.
"It all depends on the philosophy of the parents," Ichise said. "Even if the parents themselves are not well-educated, it does not prevent their children from being successful."
Much of the work in helping immigrant children adapt is left to the schools.
At Ka'ewai Elementary, which serves students from predominantly low-income and immigrant families in Kalihi, about 38 percent of the school's 400 students speak a language other than English at home. Most are Samoan and Filipino.
"Parents are kind of intimidated because they can't communicate," Principal Dale Spaulding said. So the school converted a classroom into an attendance office and parent room where bilingual teachers and assistants meet with families.
Sometimes, the cultural lessons are as basic as teaching immigrant children how to use a public restroom, Spaulding said.
"Some children have never been to school in their whole lives in their home country," said Stephanie Yamamoto, Ka'ewai's coordinator of English for Second Language Learners. "So they get a double whammy, not just with school, but with a whole new language."
While all Hawai'i public schools have English programs for foreign-language speakers, Ka'ewai ranks second only to Palolo Elementary in schools with the highest percentage of children learning English.
Statewide, the English-as-a-second-language program encompasses nearly 13,000 students, 140 full-time and 300 part-time teachers and 22 bilingual assistants who act as liaisons between the school and parents who don't speak English.
Schools also use resources such as university students and members of ethnic dance and social groups.
But the language barrier continues to be blamed for low school test scores. At Palolo Elementary, where 75 percent of the students live in the immigrant-heavy Palolo Valley Homes public housing project, reading test performance indicates a direct link to the fact that nearly half of the 300 students speak a language other than English at home.
At the school, 23 percent of third-graders and 53 percent of fifth-graders scored below average on the reading portion of the 2000 Stanford Achievement Test used to compare schools nationwide. That puts the third-graders on par with student performance nationwide, but compares unfavorably with national figures that show 23 percent of fifth-graders scoring below average, as well as the state norm of 21 percent reading below average.
At Ka'ewai, fifth-graders tied with Ka'ahumanu Elementary at the bottom of the reading ranking. At both schools, 55 percent of fifth-graders scored below average on the reading portion of the standardized test.
The schools with the highest percentage of below-average reading scores also tend to be those with the highest percentage of students learning English as a second language, test scores show.
The low scores are more reflective of new immigrants than of schools' progress, said May Kirimitsu, an English as a Second Language resource teacher at the Honolulu district office. The challenge continues to be measuring improvement of individual students and allowing them to graduate to mainstream classes, she said.
However, "Life cannot be just based on tests," Yamamoto said. "So we try to take into account how they're doing in classrooms."
In Maria Seu's classroom at Ka'ewai, children sit in teams and chatter in English as they discuss a reading assignment.
Junitta Fonoti, 10, can now speak English when she answers a question. Fonoti, a fifth-grader at Ka'ewai, comes from a Samoan-speaking home but is up to a third-grade reading level.
Children are quick learners, said Seu. "It is challenging," she said. "But I find because the kids come from similar backgrounds and are immigrants, they tend to help each other."
Helping fellow immigrants and giving back to the community have been Nina Nguyen's keys to success. Nguyen, a familiar face to those who watch her Vietnamese talk show on 'Olelo community television, came here from Vietnam 26 years ago and has been the Vietnamese interpreter for Honolulu's Bilingual Access Line for 13 years.
She finds opportunities to teach fellow immigrants how to keep their culture alive as they embrace a language and culture of Hawai'i. She plans to keep spreading the word — in both languages.
"The more I talk," she said, "the more I learn."
Reach Tanya Bricking at 525-8026 or tbricking@honoluluadvertiser.com.
