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Europe to the Max

Planning to study in Europe? Be sure to check out our collection of tips so that you can
experience more of the continent

Paperwork

Review all of your paperwork with a critical eye, and then go over it again. Bureaucracy is a worldwide phenomenon, but in some countries it is almost an art. When I was studying at the University of Grenoble in France, I had to have five different picture IDs, three of which had to be processed in Paris.

Transatlantic Travel

Flying across the Atlantic is currently one of the best deals in travel. Apart from the well-known major airlines (particularly United and Virgin Atlantic), consider smaller budget carriers, like Norwegian Air and WOW (out of Iceland), which offer discount deals where the travel tax often tops the actual cost of the flight. These “no-frill” airlines charge extra for everything, but apart from the price, you might be able to get a stopover in a fascinating city like Reykjavik.

Discount Cards

Discounts for student and youth travelers are offered by thousands of museums, parks, and historical sites, as well as airlines, railways, hostels, and hotels.

Student IDs are widely recognized throughout Europe, opening up a huge range of discounts at hotels, restaurants, tours, and tourist attractions, but buying an International Student Identity Card (www.isic.org) helps you actually get these discounts, and the organization provides guides so you know where to find these deals. Any full-time student over the age of twelve can get an International Student ID. If you are not a registered student, the International Youth Travel Card, which offers similar perks, is available to anyone under age 26, student or not.

Organizations like STATravel.com and StudentUniverse.com offer massive discounts on flights, hotels, and tours to students traveling in groups of ten to twelve or more.

Air Travel within Europe

There are dozens of budget airlines on the continent that make city-hopping extremely affordable. Check out the many airlines offering super-cheap one-way European airfares. Ryanair and EasyJet have the extensive routes across the continent, but many major airlines also have their own budget subsidiaries, like British Airways’ Vueling. These carriers offer thousands of one-way flights between European destinations for less than $60 including tax. However, bear in mind that these airlines do not offer “extras” like in-flight meals, free drinks, or prebooked seats, so pack some snacks and arrive early to get a good seat.

These budget airlines usually land at less-busy airports farther out from major cities, so make sure that there is affordable transport (coach or rail) into town, or you may end up paying more to get from the airport into the town center than the cost of the flight.
Also, prepare yourself for delays and cancellations, and do not expect meal or hotel vouchers.

Baggage allowances are also very limited, with exorbitant charges for excess, so try to leave extra bags and sports equipment with friends if possible. Unfortunately, airport lockers are a thing of the past thanks to security concerns.

The easiest way to compare budget airlines for a given route is to use an aggregator like Skyscanner or Adioso, which has an even wider range of search options.

Rail Travel

If you are under the age of 25, you are eligible for a decent 25% discount on Eurail (www.eurail.com) train passes. Eurail is a consortium of train companies covering most of Europe, and it offers one of the easiest, cheapest, and best ways to explore the continent. Most of the trains in Europe are modern and comfortable, and travel times are much shorter than comparable routes in the U.S.

The discount includes all Eurail passes, whether the Global Pass, the Four-Country Select Pass, the Three-Country Select Pass, the Two-Country Select Pass, or any of the many single-country Eurail passes.

There are two types of Eurail youth passes—the Global Pass and several multicountry passes. Multicountry passes allow you to take a Eurail train around two or more European countries and cost a bit more than buying a single European country train pass. They generally cost less than buying a separate Eurail ticket in six or more European countries, though.

You can also get a discounted ticket on the Eurostar, the train passing under the English Channel between London and Paris or Brussels.

The Eurail Global Pass Youth is a flexible pass that offers great value. If you are not sure which countries you want to visit on your Europe trip and want to keep your options open, this is the pass for you.

The Eurail Select Pass Youth offers unlimited travel to any two to four countries out of 23 countries over the course of two months. Travel days do not have to be consecutive, and you can choose between five-, six-, eight-, ten-, or 15-day travel options, but the countries you choose to visit must border each other.

Eurail One Country Passes are available for the following countries/regions: Austria, Benelux, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, the Greek Islands, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Scandinavia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden. Prices start from €60 for a pass in Slovenia and range to €175 for a pass encompassing Scandinavia.

Accommodation

A shared hostel room is a great way to save money and meet fellow travelers. Hostels are generally clean and safe (but it is always a good idea to check the reviews on sites like TripAdvisor, Hostels.com, or HostelWorld before booking). Nowadays, these are really nice places with lots of great people from all over the world. For a bed, it usually costs €20–29 a night depending on the European city you are visiting. For that, you get cheap accommodation that is usually very centrally located and has long reception hours.
Another cheap accommodation option is to rent an apartment or room privately. This is probably the cheapest way of staying somewhere if you are traveling as a group and can work out much cheaper than a youth hostel. But it can come with some restrictions: if you are renting a section of a private house, then the reception is obviously not open 24 hours.
There are lots of websites that connect people who have an apartment or spare room with potential renters, like Airbnb.com, but bear in mind that they do charge a 10%+ commission.

Renting from a local is not only good for your wallet, it also means you have someone to ask what to see and someone cool to talk to. There is often an understanding that one of you cooks a meal from his or her own culture on alternating nights. This is not mandatory but is always fun and interesting.

Couch surfing is another option. International websites such as CouchSurfing and Airbnb connect budget-minded travelers with locals who are willing to lend their spare bedrooms (and couches) to travelers. These gracious hosts are usually a great resource for local insights.

Funding

Some student-oriented travel sites (including STATravel.com) offer scholarships to fund trips. But this is not the only way to pad otherwise lacking funds. Applying to one of these programs could add a few hundred or several thousand dollars to the budget, but students will have to prove that their trip has educational merit. Other organizations—including the Smithsonian Institution, the Student Youth Travel Association, and National Geographic—also provide financial support to poor, ambitious voyagers-to-be.

Simple Speech May Slow Autistic Children

A new study, published in Cognition, suggests that because parents speak to their autistic children using fewer words and less complex sentences than do parents of typical children, the development of autistic children’s language skills may be inhibited. Were this to be proven, it would call into question the common recommendation that parents speak in simple sentences to autistic children.

The study produced six major findings:

1/ Children’s production of word types, tokens, and MLU increased across visits, and were predicted by their Expressive Language (EL) (positively) and diagnosis (negatively) from Visit 1.

2/ Parents’ production also increased across visits and was predicted by their child’s nonverbal cognition (positively) and diagnosis (negatively) from Visit 1.

3/ At all visits and across groups, children and parents matched each other in lexical and syntactic production;

4/ Parents who produced longer MLUs during a given visit had children who produced more word types and tokens, and had longer MLUs, at the subsequent visit.

5/ When both child EL at Visit 1 and parent MLU were included in the model, both contributed significantly to future child language; however, EL accounted for a greater proportion of the variance.

6/ Finally, children’s speech significantly predicted parent speech at the next visit.

Taken together, these results draw more attention to the importance of child-based factors in the early language development of TD children, and to the importance of parental language factors in the early language development of children with ASD.

“Hearing me hearing you: Reciprocal effects between child and parent language in autism and typical development” is available at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027718302804?via%3Dihub.

 

Mother Tongue Affects What You See

In a recent study, published in Psychological Science, Martin Maier and Rasha Abdel Rahman at the Humboldt University of Berlin examined  how native language influences what we consciously perceive. Groups of Greek, German, and Russian speakers (103 people) were shown a rapid series of shapes and were told to look out for a grey semi-circle. This semi-circle appeared alongside a triangle in different shades of blue and green, and participants later reported whether they saw a complete triangle, a slight or strong impression of the shape, or didn’t see it at all.

Native Greek speakers, who distinguish categorically between light and dark shades of blue, showed boosted perception for this contrast compared with a verbally unmarked green contrast. German speakers, who have only one category for light and dark shades of blue, showed no differences in perception between blue and green targets. The behavioral consequence of categorical perception was replicated with Russian speakers, reproducing this novel finding. We conclude that linguistic enhancement of color contrasts provides targets with a head start in accessing visual consciousness. “Our native language is thus one of the forces that determine what we consciously perceive,” claim the researchers.

For the studies on Greek- and German-speakers, Maier and Abdel-Rahman also used electroencephalography (EEG) to compare their participants’ brain activity during the visual tasks. The EEG results supported the idea that native language influences a very early, automatic stage of visual processing—a concept that has been previously disputed.

“The present results show for the first time that … our native language—and the color categories we apply within it—can influence whether we consciously perceive a stimulus or not,” claims the study.

The differences in blue vs. green detection rates between Greek/Russian and German participants were not big in statistical terms. Still, “language… seems to play an active role in perception and helps to optimize it in the long run,” the researchers concluded.

See:

How Language Affects Color Vision

Colorful Speech

 

A Statistically Significant Success Story

Kate Kinsella and Theresa Hancock offer a compelling story about a successful
program that put hundreds of adolescent English learners on the pathway to success

According to an assessment by the Institute of Education Sciences, only about 13% of the grants awarded under the Investing in Innovation, or i3, program were considered successful (Sparks, 2018). With astonishingly few of the hundreds of programs proposed under this $1.4 billion federal grant program, here is the story of one grant project that truly led to statistically significant positive effects for English learners.

The Magnitude of the Need

English learners (ELs) are the fastest-growing U.S. school population and constitute more than 20% of the total enrollment of California schools (California Language Census, 2017). Unfortunately, many ELs, who have attended U.S. schools for years, are not reaching English language proficiency. It is estimated that between one-quarter and one-half of all ELs who enter the primary grades will become long-term English learners (Olsen, 2014), particularly during middle school. Many adolescent ELs remain at an intermediate level of English proficiency or below (Olsen, 2010) and must cope with the double demands of learning rigorous content in core courses and a second language (Short and Fitzsimmons, 2007), which contributes to ELs only achieving below grade-level academic standards (Olsen, 2010). Furthermore, ELs who are not reclassified are often tracked into lower-level classes and are at a higher risk of not graduating (Kim and Herman, 2009). 

A Significant Intervention

After winning one of the coveted Investing in Innovation (i3) development grants in the 2013–14 school year, the California League of Schools (CLS) partnered with Dr. Kate Kinsella and Associates and others to initiate the Families for College program in the Moreno Valley Unified School District (MVUSD). Located 70 miles east of Los Angeles in a high-poverty “urban-fringe” area of Riverside County, the school district had chronically low high school graduation rates and a staggeringly high dropout rate. Compared to the county and state, MVUSD had 83% of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals, and 24% of students classified as ELs (California Department of Education, 2013–14). Prior to the grant, the percentage of English learners in MVUSD who reclassified as English proficient wasbelow 10% by sixth grade and below 5% by eleventh grade.

The Goal and Objectives

The Families for College i3 grant program had an initial goal to raise the reclassification rate from below 5% to an ambitious 35% over three years, before ELs entered high school, to increase their odds of graduation. The major objectives of the program were 1) to significantly improve the academic achievement of high-need English learners in middle school so they can access college preparatory curriculum in high school, and 2) to increase parent participation in the school communities. The five-year program provided a unique combination of rigorous curriculum, extensive professional development for teachers and administrators, family engagement strategies, and mentor support for students. The program served a cohort of 325 English learners and their families from the beginning of sixth grade at six middle schools through the fall of their tenth-grade year at four high schools. 
The three largest components of the program were the implementation of targeted academic English instruction using Dr. Kate Kinsella’s English language development curriculum, English 3D; a core set of instructional routines; intensive and ongoing professional development for teachers; and guided support for administrators. These academic resources were concentrated in grades 6–8, with the goal of reclassifying cohort students as “fluent English proficient” by the end of eighth grade in order to better access the high school core curriculum and the pathway to college and career success.

A Rigorous Curricular Anchor: English 3D

A key recommendation from numerous EL studies is the use of appropriate, intensive, and effective English language development materials to promote access to the core content. In addition, ELs need dedicated time for second-language learning and practice, as content teaching does not ensure that teachers effectively address the multifaceted language skills that students must develop (Gersten and Baker, 2000; Ramirez, 1992; Kinsella 2018). Therefore, the Families for College program adopted the curriculum English 3D for daily use with cohort students. English 3D is specifically designed to equip students with the academic language to discuss, describe, and debate contemporary issues that are compelling to adolescent learners (Kinsella, 2016). Dr. Kinsella developed the program over multiple years through her involvement with adolescent English learners in San Francisco State University’s Step to College Program and through her extensive work providing teacher and administrator training and coaching with upper-elementary and secondary schools. English 3D is a unique language development program designed to ensure proficiency in the “language of school,” the academic language, writing, discourse, and demeanor vital to success in secondary school, college, and career. The daily lessons are driven by highly relevant issue-based informational text sets that serve as conceptual platforms for daily verbal and written academic speaking and listening tasks.

English 3D is built on eight evidence-based principles for language development (Kinsella, 2016):

  • Language development focused on the needs of long-term English learners
  • Utilization of consistent instructional routines
  • Explicit teaching of language elements
  • Extension of prior knowledge of language and content
  • Modeling academic register both verbally and in writing
  • Orchestration of peer interactions with clear language targets
  • Monitoring language production conscientiously
  • Providing timely, productive feedback on verbal and written interactions

Game Changer: Instructional Routines

These evidence-based principles are the foundation of English 3D. In particular, the instructional routines orchestrated across each unit are research-informed and classroom-tested by Dr. Kinsella herself, her close associates, and scores of teachers she and her associates have trained and coached over the last two decades. What distinguishes these instructional routines from many teaching strategies is that they are research-informed, classroom-tested, step-by-step sequences of teacher and student actions that are regularly followed to address specific instructional goals (Kinsella, 2018). English 3D includes a set of key instructional routines for vocabulary, academic discussion, writing, and more. Teachers use the recursive, research-informed instructional routines to deliver lessons and maximize student engagement and learning. The daily use of the instructional routines enables students to consistently accomplish lesson tasks, freeing up cognitive space for them to learn new content and master language skills. (For a detailed read about instructional routines, see “Strategies: Harmful or Helpful?” Language Magazine, October 2018.)

Start with the Willing

Experience from previous projects taught Dr. Kinsella and her associates that to initiate a successful implementation, it is best to start with the willing. The California League of Schools, along with district leaders Superintendent Dr. Martinrex Kedziora and English learner director Lilia Villa, invited teachers, students, and families to “apply” for the opportunity to participate in the Families for College program. Everyone who applied was accepted, but participants had to make a commitment to the program. Teachers had to be willing to teach a dedicated ELD class, implement the curriculum, and actively participate in rigorous professional development and in-classroom coaching. Families had to agree to, and students had to be willing to attend, the dedicated ELD class. When it appeared that the dedicated period of ELD might impact students’ ability to take electives, such as band or art, Dr. Kedziora and Ms. Villa willingly intervened and added additional periods to the school day so students would not miss any other classes. 

Unique and Extensive Professional Development

A unique aspect of the Families for College implementation of English 3D was having the author, Dr. Kinsella, provide the initial training for teachers and administrators and oversee the implementation of the curriculum. Theresa Hancock, Dr. Kinsella’s lead associate, directly trained all of the grade-level cohort teachers (grades 6–8) for each of the three years of the English 3D implementation. Each year, teachers participated in ten days of training, classroom coaching, and customized follow-up support sessions. During the trainings, Ms. Hancock extensively modeled lessons and the instructional routines required to successfully implement English 3D. Teachers were also given opportunities to practice each routine with each other in small groups, receiving supportive feedback from Hancock and their peers. As a result, each teacher provided one period of core English language arts, followed by a second designated period of academic language instruction using English 3D. Teachers also worked collaboratively during each of the trainings, at their school sites, and on Edmodo (an online communication tool) with a focus on lesson planning, reflection, and improvement.
In addition to teacher training, school principals also received training by Dr. Kinsella and Theresa Hancock. Dr. Kinsella provided initial trainings for principals designed to equip them with an understanding of the partner and group interactions and key attributes of English 3D and what to look for during classroom observations.
Subsequently, Theresa guided principals and district leadership during observations of cohort classrooms to identify trends and to inform subsequent days of follow-up training for teachers. Principals learned to identify key features of the instructional routines and discussed strategies to further support teachers. As a result, principals identified the need to protect teachers from additional initiatives and demands while they were participating in the program. Finally, to strengthen their understanding of Dr. Kinsella’s work with academic response frames, accountable partner interactions, and whole-class reporting with attentive listening tasks—key attributes of English 3D—principals co-delivered lessons with their teachers in cohort classrooms. Not only did these lessons strengthen each principal’s understanding of the curriculum, but the experience also strengthened their credibility with teachers when conducting observations. Principals overwhelmingly expressed a deeper understanding of Dr. Kinsella’s intentional language-focused instruction as a result of the trainings, guided observations, and lesson delivery.

Key Evaluation Findings

Exceeding Expectations for Reclassification
Of the cohort students who began the program in the fall of sixth grade (2013) as English learners, 78% (196 of 250) were reclassified as fluent English proficient by the fall of ninth grade (2016); in total, 83% of all cohort students were reclassified as fluent English proficient at the start of their freshman year in high school.

Significant Language Proficiency Gains
The overall mean score of cohort students on the California English Language Development Test (CELDT) increased by 23.7 points between the fall of 2013 (sixth grade) and 2014 (seventh grade), exceeding mean historical gains made by ELs in the district, county, and state in three of four domains: speaking, reading and writing.

Significant Gains in English Language Arts
The performance of cohort students on state standardized tests in English language arts was significantly greater in seventh and eighth grade (+.36 and +.23 standard deviations) than in pretreatment years.

Engaging ELD Instruction

During focus groups, students reported that using English 3D most improved their ability to speak and write more effectively in English. They indicated that the English 3D daily lessons provided many more opportunities to practice speaking with partners and present ideas to the whole class. Several students commented that their teachers took extra time to help them correct mistakes and use the right grammar.
Students said English 3D improved their reading through opportunities to read articles and study new vocabulary words. One student said that, before English 3D, he used to skip words when reading. After he had experienced the program, he joined the debate team in high school.
Cohort teachers interviewed also expressed that, through their English 3D classes, their students became more confident and were more eager to participate. Students were using more academic vocabulary and their writing had improved. Overall, the students became more proficient in listening, speaking, reading, and writing in English. One teacher commented that her EL students had become better writers than her GATE students.

Improvements in English Learner Motivation


Most students said their attitudes toward school had improved because of their experiences in English 3D. They cited their teachers being excited about teaching and caring about student success.
Students said that they received far more time to practice speaking in English 3D than they received in any other class. This extra practice time helped students feel less shy and more comfortable speaking English. Students said that without all the practice time, their English would not have improved so much.
Others reported that students’ writing was stronger, with clearer thesis statements and better supporting evidence. Students were beginning to realize how important language skills were to their future careers and were showing an increased interest in going to college. Teachers also reported that their EL students’ attendance had improved compared to other students.

Stronger Teachers = Stronger Students

Teachers also reported that the professional development they received through the program improved classroom instruction. Improvements included an increase in teacher expectations resulting in more rigorous instruction. Teachers were more confident in using academic vocabulary and in implementing instructional routines more consistently. Teachers also incorporated the instructional routines they learned into their other content classes.

Concluding Remarks

Clearly, with English learners as the largest growing population and achievement data showing the increasing demands of college and career readiness in the era of the Every Student Succeeds Act, it is imperative that grant funds and district efforts go toward replicating proven practices where progress has actually been accomplished. This study points out the benefits of supporting teachers with a strong curriculum, instructional routines, and quality professional development. The Families for College program has proven that achieving statistically significant positive effects for English learners is indeed possible.
For more information about the Families for Schools program, please contact Dr. Kate Kinsella’s lead associate, Theresa Hancock ([email protected]), or the California League of Schools at www.EnglishLearners.us.
For the ERC Families for College evaluation report, please visit www.ercdata.com.
The project was funded through the U.S. Department of Education’s Investing in Innovation program, grant number U411C120095.

Kate Kinsella, EdD ([email protected]), provides consultancy throughout the U.S. to state departments of education, school districts, and publishers on evidence-based instructional principles and practices to accelerate academic English acquisition for language-minority youth. Her numerous publications and instructional programs focus on career and college readiness for academic English learners, with an emphasis on academic interaction, high-utility vocabulary development, informational text reading, and writing across subject areas.

Theresa Hancock ([email protected]) works as Dr. Kinsella’s lead associate, providing training and coaching for teachers and principals in districts and schools across the nation. She co-authored the Academic Vocabulary Toolkit (Grades 3–8, National Geographic Learning-Cengage). She has worked on several USDOE grant projects and numerous programs focusing on the academic achievement of English learners through the implementation of Dr. Kinsella’s programs and life-changing instructional routines.

About California League of Schools

California League of Schools has a history of providing exceptional professional growth opportunities to middle-grades teachers and administrators through their statewide conferences and ongoing professional development programs within districts. CLS leads the largest state Schools to Watch program in the nation, with over 100 middle-grades schools identified, has served as the lead agency for three U.S. Department of Education grants, and is a state hub for five U.S. Department of Education grants.

References

California Language Census (2017). https://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/sd/cb/cefelfacts.asp
California Department of Education Ed-Data (2014). https://www.ed-data.org/state/CA
Kim, J., and Herman, J. L. (November 2009). “A Three-State Study of English Learner Progress.” (CRESST Tech. Rep. No. 764). Los Angeles: University of California National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student testing (CRESST).
Gersten, R., and Baker, S. (2000). “What We Know about Effective Instructional Practices for English-Language Learners.” Exceptional Children, 66(4), 454–470.
Kinsella, K. (2016). English 3D: Course B. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Kinsella, K. (October 2018). “Strategies: Harmful or Helpful?” Language Magazine.
Olsen, L. (2010). Reparable Harm: Fulfilling the Unkept Promise of Educational Opportunity for California’s Long-Term English Learners. Long Beach, CA: California Together.
Olsen, L. (2014). Meeting the Unique Needs of Long-Term English Language Learners: A Guide for Educators. National Education Association.
Ramirez, J. D. (1992). “Executive Summary: Longitudinal study of structured English immersion strategy, early-exit and late-exit transitional bilingual education programs for language-minority children.” Bilingual Research Journal, 16(1), 1–62.
Short, D., and Fitzsimmons, S. (2007). Double the Work: Challenges and Solutions to Acquiring Language and Academic Literacy for Adolescent English Language Learners. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.
Sparks, S. D. “Investing in Innovation ‘Gems’ Show Tricky Path for Districts Using Evidence under ESSA.” Education Week, June 11, 2018, http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2018/06/investing_in_innovation_evaluation_essa.html#comments.

Bilingual Advocate to Head CA Education

Democratic Assemblyman Tony Thurmond managed to come from behind to emerge as California’s new superintendent of public instruction, beating out Marshall Tuck, a fellow Democrat and former Los Angeles executive of charter schools and educational nonprofits.

Thurmond sponsored California Assembly Bill 2514 which was passed in September, allocating $300,000 in grant funding to eligible schools, county offices of education and consortia to expand or initiate new dual language immersion or developmental bilingual programs.

Born in Monterey, California, Thurmond was a member of the West Contra Costa School Board from 2008 to 2012 and the Richmond City Council from 2005 to 2008. He was the council liaison to the West Contra Costa County Unified School District and the West Contra Costa County Education Fund.

Thurmond lived in San Jose, where he was raised by a single mother, a teacher from Panama, who died of cancer in 1974, when he was 6. He then moved to Philadelphia, where he was adopted and raised by his cousin and stepfather.

It took 11 days of vote counting in California for the vote to be declared.

“I want to thank the voters of California for electing me to serve the six million students of California,” Thurmond, who overrode Tuck’s broader-based appeal with decisive margins in the state’s coastal and urban counties, said in a statement.

“I ran for superintendent of public instruction to deliver to all Californians the promise that public education delivered to me—that all students, no matter their background and no matter their challenges, can succeed with a great public education.”

For pro-charter donors, the result was disappointing after spending tens of millions on the race.

Eric Heins, president of the California Teachers Association, commented that Thurmond’s win “sent a loud message to the billionaires and corporate special interests who spent nearly $40 million trying to buy the state superintendent’s office: Our public schools are not for sale!”

Study Abroad Reaches New Highs

The latest Open Doors report shows record numbers of students are studying abroad but new international enrollments in the U.S. are dropping

The number of international students in the United States surpassed one million for the third consecutive year, increasing by 1.5% to reach a new high of 1,094,792 million, while the number of U.S. students studying abroad for academic credit at their home institutions in 2016/17 grew by 2.3% to 332,727, according to the 2018 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange.

Although the U.S. remains the top host of international students globally and overall numbers of international students increased, new student enrollments fell by 6.6% in 2017/18, continuing a slowing or downward trend first observed in the 2015/16 academic year. Current gains in the total number of international students are due primarily to increased participation in the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, which allows international students to practice their skills in the U.S. for up to 12 months during or after they complete their academic programs, or up to 36 months for graduate students in STEM fields. OPT participation grew by 15.8% in 2017/18. Among enrolled students, drops were seen primarily at the graduate and non-degree levels.

In 2017, international students contributed $42.4 billion to the U.S. economy through tuition, room and board, and other expenses, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. “International students studying alongside Americans are a tremendous asset to the United States,” said Marie Royce, assistant secretary of state for Educational and Cultural Affairs. “We need to develop leaders in all fields who can take on our toughest challenges. We need people who can find solutions that keep us secure and make us more prosperous. We want to send a message that international education makes us stronger as a country.”

China was the top source for students on Intensive English Programs (IEPs) in the U.S., with nearly 20,000 students (22.8%), while Japan accounted for 14.5% of the total. The number of students from Saudi Arabia plummeted by 46.5% to 11,000 while the number of Brazilians studying English grew by over 11% to 5,650.

Encouragingly, Open Doors 2018 shows that the profile of U.S. students going abroad continues to diversify. The number of students identifying as racial or ethnic minorities who studied abroad in 2016/2017 was 29.2%, up from 17% in 2005/06. About one in 10 U.S. students study abroad during their undergraduate career.

“Expanding access to opportunity through international education helps us build stronger ties across the world,” said Dr. Allan E. Goodman, president and CEO of the Institute of International Education (IIE), publisher of Open Doors. “International students have more choices than ever before on where to pursue higher education. The dedication of American colleges and universities to students’ academic, professional, and personal success is one of the main factors in our international competitiveness.”

The full 100+ page report will be available in early 2019 and can be ordered from IIE Books. For more data, infographics and resources visit iie.org/opendoors.

‘Nomophobia’ is the UK People’s Word of 2018

The UK’s Cambridge Dictionary has declared nomophobia, the word that describes the stress and anxiety caused by being separated from your mobile device, as the People’s Word of 2018.

For the first time, the Cambridge editors asked the public to vote for the word that best summed up 2018. They shortlisted four words that have surged in use this year, and from New York to London to Tokyo, Cambridge Dictionary users have been voting for their favorite. It was nomophobia – defined as “fear or worry at the idea of being without your mobile phone or unable to use it” – that topped the polls.

Wendalyn Nichols, Cambridge Dictionary publishing manager, commented: “We are one of the most popular online dictionaries in the world, and we have a very smart and enthusiastic global community using our free resources. We add thousands of new words and definitions every year, and we were eager to give our users the opportunity to express their views on the words that best reflected this year’s trends and events.

“Their votes tell us that separation anxiety isn’t just about what young children feel when separated from their parents any longer. It’s now also about the intimate—and often dysfunctional—relationships with our smartphones. And nomophobia gives a name to this anxiety.”

Perhaps described more accurately as an anxiety disorder than a phobia, nomophobia (a blend of syllables from “no mobile phone phobia”) appears to have been coined in 2008—not by psychologists, but by Britain’s YouGov researchers, in a report commissioned by the UK Post Office. It subsequently began to appear in UK media and has since spread around the world. Having proved its staying power, it was added to the online Cambridge Dictionary earlier this year.

Other words on the shortlist for the People’s Word of 2018 were:

gender gap noun

a difference between the way men and women are treated in society, or between what men and women do and achieve

ecocide noun

destruction of the natural environment of an area, or very great damage to it

no-platforming noun

the practice of refusing someone an opportunity to make their ideas or beliefs known publicly, because you think these beliefs are dangerous or unacceptable

For more information about how the Cambridge Dictionary editors decide which new words to add to the online dictionary, take a look at the two-minute animation on their YouTube channel.

 

 

Recognizing Gifted English Learners

The National Center for Research on Gifted Education (NCREGE) has published a study, commissioned during the Obama administration, with funding from the U.S. Department of Education’s office of English-language acquisition, to help improve the identification of English Learners (ELs) as gifted and talented by better understand the following: 

What are the patterns of underrepresentation in gifted and talented programs for ELs by grade level?

What procedures, practices, and instruments are used to assess and identify ELs for gifted and talented programs?

What are the roles, backgrounds, and qualification of district and school personnel involved in the assessment and identification of ELs for gifted and talented programs?

What challenges do districts and schools encounter in the assessment and identification of ELs for gifted and talented programs?

To what extent do the findings from the qualitative study map onto the preliminary NCRGE EL Theory of Change?

“Exploratory Study on the Identification of English Learners for Gifted and Talented Programs” states that “despite the growing numbers of ELs, their representation in gifted identification and programming continues to lag behind not only traditional populations of learners from advantaged communities (Callahan, 2005), but also other underserved populations of learners (Iowa Department of Education, 2008; Matthews, 2014). The United States Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights (2014) indicated that 2% of ELs are enrolled in gifted and talented programs, as compared to 7% of non-ELs.”

NCRGE researchers visited 16 elementary and middle schools across the three states, selected because they were exemplary in their identification of gifted ELs. The NCRGE team conducted group and individual interviews with a total of 225 administrators; district gifted coordinators; gifted specialists; classroom teachers; parents/guardians/caretakers; and school psychologists or counselors, yielding a total of 84 transcripts. Group and individual interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed.  The research findings led to the following recommendations for review and reflection for stakeholders involved in designing and implementing gifted and talented programs.

Adopt a policy of universal screening of all students in one or more grade levels for the identification process.

Create alternative pathways to identification, allowing schools to use a variety of different assessment instruments (including native language ability and achievement assessments and reliable and valid nonverbal ability assessments) and to apply flexible criteria to ensure that students’ talents and abilities are recognized.

Establish a web of communication to ensure that all stakeholders (administrators, district gifted coordinators, classroom teachers, gifted specialists, psychologists, multilingual teachers, and parents/guardians/caretakers) are aware of the identification system in its entirety and are empowered to interact with one another in all components (i.e., screening, nomination, identification, and placement).

View professional development as a lever for change, providing information to gifted specialists, classroom teachers, psychologists, and parents/guardians/caretakers on identifying giftedness in multiple ways and creating a school climate with the goal of identifying students’ strengths rather than weaknesses.

The full report is available at: https://ncrge.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/982/2018/06/NCRGE-EL-Report-1.pdf

Bringing Chinese to Preschoolers

Lauren Cortinas presents a 

solution for the youngest learners of Mandarin

 

 

In October 2014, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave a speech at Tsinghua University in Beijing entirely in Mandarin Chinese. While his delivery was not perfect, the speech itself was a nod to what so many business and community leaders already know: Mandarin Chinese, the most widely spoken language in the world, is becoming a critical tool for global leaders and thinkers.

Many parents with young children have taken note. Seeking the most effective way to teach their kids Mandarin Chinese, moms and dads across the U.S. and abroad are looking for language programs that can make learning fun and assist kids in getting the best possible start when it comes to language acquisition.

In some areas of the country, Mandarin-immersion programs are offered starting around kindergarten. But the best time for kids to start to learn Mandarin—or any language, for that matter—is in infancy. For parents of preschoolers, the options are limited, but that is changing thanks to developments in educational technology.

The benefits of foreign language learning are well documented, with research dating back decades. And with China expected to be the world’s largest economy by 2030, interest in learning Mandarin is increasing.

It is no wonder, then, that some school districts are responding to parents by offering Mandarin-immersion programs. According to the Mandarin Immersion Parents Council, there are now 259 Mandarin-immersion programs in the U.S. Sixty of the programs are new since 2016, and many districts report that demand for the programs outstrips supply.
One obstacle for school districts interested in launching Mandarin-immersion programs is the shortage of certified Chinese teachers. In 2010, Asia Society, a global education nonprofit dedicated to promoting partnerships between Asia and the U.S., released a report which found a growing demand for Chinese teachers and noted the difficulty many schools and programs face in finding such educators.

“There is no precise way to measure the demand for Chinese language teachers over the next five to ten years,” the authors wrote, “but using historical experience with other languages, we can say that if Chinese were to become as popular as German, we would need 2,800 teachers. If it were to become as popular as French, we would need 10,000 teachers.”

With H-1B visas becoming more limited, the current shortage is only likely to get worse. Parents without access to Mandarin programs in their local schools are left looking for other options. And even for children fortunate enough to get into an immersion program, experts say that the ideal time to start learning a foreign language is even earlier than kindergarten. In a recent study, researchers from the University of Washington discovered that babies are born with the ability to distinguish sounds from any language from across the globe. That ability extends beyond their native tongues and gives them a great
aptitude for learning more than one language at once.

Some experts have honed in even further on this point, identifying the time at which babies begin to differentiate the sounds of their native languages from the sounds of other languages. In her 2010 TED Talk “The Linguistic Genius of Babies,” Patricia Kuhl, PhD, pinpoints that time as between 6–8 months of age and 10–12 months of age. Kuhl’s research shows that around eleven months of age, babies get better at distinguishing the sounds in their own languages and begin to lose the ability to differentiate sounds that they are not regularly hearing. “But babies raised listening to two languages seem to stay ‘open’ to the sounds of novel languages longer than their monolingual peers,” says Kuhl.
All of this means that, while immersion programs, when available, are immensely beneficial, they do not start early enough to capitalize on very young children’s innate biological abilities.

For these reasons, many parents want to introduce a second language to their children well before kindergarten.

A handful of options exist for such families. Children can take local Mandarin play- or music-based programs if available—both are excellent ways to kick-start learning in kids. Other parents might opt to hire a Mandarin-speaking babysitter or caregiver, but such options are not readily available in many areas and can be expensive.

For other moms and dads, it might be tempting to simply plunk their children down in front of the television to watch a foreign-language program. While that may work anecdotally, research suggests that it serves more as a supplemental, entertaining way to enjoy a foreign language rather than a way to learn or practice it. According to new MIT research, it is “conversation turns”—or the back-and-forth conversation with a child—that accelerate a child’s language learning, not just the total number of words they hear (http://news.mit.edu/2018/conversation-boost-childrens-brain-response-language-0214).
Many EdTech offerings, especially apps, have tried to simulate human engagement with age-appropriate games. Studies have repeatedly shown that children excel at learning through play, for a variety of reasons. In her 2016 paper “Learning a Foreign Language through Play,” Polish researcher Ewa Guz writes that play, unlike bedtime or homework, is voluntary. That means it produces “positive emotions such as enjoyment, interest, satisfaction, pride, excitement,” she writes, thereby generating ongoing motivation that keeps kids engaged and wanting to come back for more.

Since language-learning games do not seem like work, children perceive them as simply another fun activity incorporated into the day—a phenomenon Guz calls “hidden practice.” Games can also stimulate creativity, which encourages children to work toward a goal without feeling any academic or parental pressure. It can be a challenge for parents to find foreign language apps that are appropriate for preschoolers, though.

Some EdTech companies are going a step further by bringing language teachers into the home, live over the internet for one-on-one language lessons. PandaTree.com, based in California, has been offering live online Spanish and Mandarin lessons to children since 2014.

“We started off with online foreign language lessons for kids ages five to 15,” says Kristina Klausen, CEO of PandaTree, “but we were getting a lot of requests from parents with kids as young as two to use the program. So we built a new curriculum specifically to meet the learning needs of preschoolers—with songs, games, and puppets, and it has been our fastest growing program. Parents join in the lessons, and they love having the chance to learn along with their child.”

Speaking one-on-one with a tutor ensures the preschooler is an active participant in the lesson, with lots of conversation turns, and the downloadable songs provide opportunities to practice between lessons. The curriculum has been met with enthusiasm from kids and parents alike.

Songs and music are a key feature of the program, and music has been shown to be very effective for foreign language learning. Research shows that singing in a foreign language can accelerate children’s language learning, and many people can learn words to a song more easily than a passage of text. When infants as young as five months old are sung to by a parent for one to two weeks, they can recognize the melody eight months later. Especially for Mandarin Chinese, which the U.S. State Department classifies as “exceptionally difficult” for native English speakers to learn, starting as young as possible makes a difference.

Parents seeking Mandarin options for their preschoolers often face a challenge, as immersion programs, while growing, are still sparse and typically start in kindergarten. EdTech programs, especially ones incorporating live interactions, are beginning to expand the options for children. And who knows? Maybe one of those children will become the next Mark Zuckerberg.

Lauren Cortinas is marketing lead at PandaTree.com and mom to two bilingual children.

Progress on Migrant and Refugee Education Worldwide

Undocumented children are unable to go to school in South Africa

UNESCO’s 2019 Global Education Monitoring Report, Migration, displacement and education, shows that the number of migrant and refugee school-age children around the world today has grown by 26% since 2000 and could fill half a million classrooms.

The Report highlights countries’ achievements and shortcomings in ensuring the right of migrant and refugee children to benefit from quality education, a right that serves the interests of both learners and the communities they live in.

The right of these children to quality education, even if increasingly recognized on paper, is challenged daily in classrooms and schoolyards and denied outright by a few governments. In the two years since the landmark New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants in 2016, refugees have missed 1.5 billion days of school.

Nevertheless, there has been progress in the inclusion of refugees in national education systems, as seen in eight of the top ten refugee hosting countries. Champions include low income countries such as Chad, Ethiopia and Uganda. Canada and Ireland are among the global leaders in implementing inclusive education policies for immigrants.

As the Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay argues, “Everyone loses when the education of migrants and refugees is ignored. Education is the key to inclusion and cohesion. Increased classroom diversity, while challenging for teachers, can also enhance respect for diversity and an opportunity to learn from others.  It is the best way to make communities stronger and more resilient.”

Refugees: Half of the world’s forcibly displaced people are under the age of 18. Yet, many countries exclude them from their national education systems. Asylum-seeking children in detention in countries such as Australia, Hungary, Indonesia, Malaysia and Mexico, are given limited access to education, if any. Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, Burundian refugees in the United Republic of Tanzania, Karen refugees in Thailand and many Afghan refugees in Pakistan can only get an education in separate, non-formal, community-based or private schools, some of which are not certified. Some of these host countries, do not provide refugee learners with the language tuition they will need to achieve social integration and acquire good employment prospects.

Kenya, for example, allows refugees to benefit from its national educational curriculum but does not achieve full inclusion because its refugee learners are living in camps where they are unable to interact with their Kenyan peers. Lebanon and Jordan, hosts to the largest number of refugees per capita, do not have the resources necessary to build more schools. They have therefore established separate morning and afternoon school shifts for citizen and refugee children, which limits interaction between the two groups.

The report recognizes the considerable investments made by countries such as Rwanda and  Iran to ensure that refugees attend school side by side with nationals. Turkey has committed to include all refugees in its national education system by 2020, as have seven countries in East Africa. Uganda has already fulfilled this promise.

Efforts for inclusion may come to nothing in the absence of enough trained teachers. In Lebanon, only 55% of teachers and staff received specialized training to meet the needs of displaced learners in the past two years. To provide quality education to all refugees, Germany would need 42,000 new teachers, Turkey 80,000 and Uganda 7,000.

Low and middle income countries host 89% of refugees but lack funds to cope. Donors need to multiply their expenditure on refugee education by three and ensure long term support.

Immigrants: The share of students with immigrant backgrounds in high income countries has increased from 15% to 18% between 2005 and 2017. They now number 36 million, equivalent to the entire school-aged population in Europe. At current rates, it could rise to 22% by 2030. But immigrant children are not given a fair chance to succeed. In 2017, in the European Union, twice as many young people born abroad left school early compared to natives. First-generation immigrant students in the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) were 32% less likely than natives to achieve basic skills in reading, mathematics and science in 2015.

Manos Antoninis, director of the GEM Report, said: “Countries cannot think the job is done once immigrants are in school. They are being excluded in so many other ways. They end up in slower school tracks or in under-resourced establishments in troubled neighborhoods. Nevertheless,” Antoninis continued, “almost all countries are now signing two global compacts on refugees and migrants, which contain several key education commitments. This could be the much-awaited turning point.”

Canada, with the largest percentage of immigrants among the seven richest industrialized countries, makes sure children learn about migration starting in second grade and has enshrined multiculturalism in its constitution. Ireland, with the highest percentage of first generation immigrants in the European Union, succeeded in funding an intercultural education strategy while in the midst of a deep financial crisis.

Report recommendations:

  • Protect the right to education of migrants and displaced people
  • Include migrants and displaced people in the national education system
  • Understand and plan to meet the education needs of migrants and displaced people
  • Represent migration and displacement histories in education accurately to challenge prejudices
  • Prepare teachers of migrants and refugees to address diversity and hardship
  • Harness the potential of migrants and displaced people
  • Support education needs of migrants and displaced people in humanitarian and development aid.

Visit the #EducationOnTheMove campaign page to see the stories of people on the move around the world in real time, showing their challenges, and successes in accessing an inclusive education.

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