Awakening ESL (English as a Second Language) Education in U.S.A.

This paper advocates the use of ESL (English as a Second Language) as all instructional technique not only in the area of language arts but also in the area of content subject courses, such as Social Studies (Global Studies), Sciences, Health, Personal Finance, Career Development, etc. for the LEP (Limited English Proficient) students in the public schools. For various reasons, it is not practicable for most of the LEP students to receive real bilingual instruction (i.e. academic instruction through the home language) in the schools. Therefore, ESL instructional technique in content subjects appears to be the only feasible option to provide an equitable educational opportunity to this particular student population. The paper also advocates the early use of such technique for content subjects side by side with the continued learning of language arts (English). This use should start as soon as the students concerned have achieved some rudimentary though still imperfect language skills, because the proposed use of ESL instructional technique for content subject area can cognitively help accelerate the learning of language arts (English). At the same time, if properly coordinated and adopted, the language arts classes can start some pre-content subject courses to prepare the ground for the learning of the full content subjects, both required and elective. This manner of intra-program interaction between the language arts and the content subjects components within ESL program itself can impact greatly the educational future of the client student population.