[muawiyah]

One way that worked, both in the US and Canada, was to simply take the children away from the families and put them in boarding schools.

The parents don't usually like it, of course, but unlike the American Indians used to perfect this technique, the Mexicans came here voluntarily and knew what to expect.

They could take their complaints to the Mexican Congress I suppose.

[sinbad17]

I would teach them how to read and write their native tongue and forget about English all together. Teaching them English only helps them to stay in this country. Learning their own tongue would not!

[AD from SpringBay]

A quick way to cut the numbers of non-English speaking students would be to not allow non-citizen students in public school classrooms. The United States should not have to spend tax dollars to teach illegal immigrants.

[Mike Darancette]

The other side demands all children learn to read and write the same way, whether English is native to them or they're just learning the language.

Immersion is the only way to go, kids are language sponges and learn quickly. The younger the better.

And the English learned will be proper English.

[john drake]

Uh...how was it done for over the last one hundred years of American history? English only in schools and every where else public. Period. Amazing what that does and how well it worked. If they want to preserve some kind of ethnic heritage (as to why I don't have a clue; what does it mean to be an American? I thought it was to shed all that baggage from the sh%$hole you came from) then let them go to some Saturday class offered by their private community center or some such nonsense (all that does is make the parents happy). I don't get it; you are either desirous and proud to become an American, or don't come at all. We don't need people who want it both ways or just want the economic benefits and remain neutral or eventual enemies of America. Am I dense or what?_

[ncountylee]

The best way is to take English classes at the emigrant's expense in the home country while waiting for the proper (required) visa.

[IronJack]

One way has been to teach the alphabet, followed by the parts of speech, followed by sentence (grammatical) structure, including sentence diagramming. I know that isn't the "groovy" way to teach anything -- by requiring that the students actually LEARN the fundamentals by rote -- but it worked for a couple dozen generations in the past. Generations that, by the way, included some of the most articulate, well-spoken men in history.

But what did THEY know ...

[Hugin]

A high-decibel debate among education officials, politicians and advocates of bilingual schooling that led to the recent yanking of funds from the state Board of Education boils down to one difficult question:

How should California teach roughly a quarter of the state's public school population -- students who are not native English speakers -- how to read and write?

In the words of Algore: "The debate is over". The people of California settled this through direct vote. Of course for leftists issues are only settled when they get their way.

[Just another Joe]

They've yet to develop specifics, but advocates say the approach would incorporate more pictures, written passages with simple syntax, common vocabulary and less academic English.

See Dick run. See Jane run. See spot run. Run, Spot, run!

[ProtectOurFreedom]

WRONG! My kids were educated in the CA school system. The BIGGER question based on my experience shoud be "How should California teach roughly THREE QUARTERS of the state's public school population -- students who ARE native English speakers -- how to read and write? The schools are failing these kids, too.

[Quix]

Perhaps there's some merit in the equity issue though I suspect it's more than blown out of proportion.

I do fairly strongly believe that ESL learners do best with the MOST POSSIBLE CUES for meaning provided in initial levels and stages . . . e. g. pics, sound, color, context, sequence etc.

And, the greater variety, diversity of pairings used, the better.

Guess I'd be most for an initial year or 3 where both traditional and SOME ESL focused strategies were used with later Jr High and High School classes being more traditional.

BUT WHO ARE WE KIDDING. We don't teach native English speakers diddly squat about English traditionally or otherwise. It's deplorable. I'm shocked at what clerks in stores fail to understand.

And some of the writing and reasoning hereon is sometimes shockingly lacking as well.