Chapter 8:Teaching Teenagers who are still Learning English

“I was put into ESP and I was pulled out to read, and we would read really easy books. We could read already, and it was insulting. You were like the outcasts, and that made me mad.” Page 152.

This girl was learning English (obviously not her first language), and she was being pulled out of the classroom to try to teach her the English language. She felt humiliated and frustrated because it disrupts the class as she goes to leave and come back, but she is also missing that information during the class.

My younger brother had a very bad learning disability and he had a really hard time learning how to read and write. When he was in 3rd grade, a teacher would pull him out of class and set him down at a desk right outside the door and try to teach him to read and write, and Ben hated it. He knew that the other kids knew that he couldn’t read and write and it humiliated him to no end, not to mention that he was missing out in being with the other students. My mother was furious when she finally found out about this. She really just wanted him to be in a classroom with that teacher, not in the hallway, outside the door where passing students would stare and disrupt. Mom actually taught my brother how to read and write in a summer using the SPIRE program, and my brother is just like any other kid now (which he is very grateful for). I think the best way (in high school) to teach English to a student would be during study halls, or maybe even a lunch once or twice a week where all the English learning students could get together and talk.