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Guest
Author: Ernest Barteldes |
By Nelson Leon, with Ernest Barteldes
New York City is a hot place for anyone who wants to learn English, and language schools' profits are continually soaring here.
A lot of people are coming from every part of the world to learn the English language; they are anxious to start, since they want to become part of the English-speaking community. Other people are just happy to be here, making friends and enjoying life in " The Big Apple."
They have dreams and hopes that, once they have mastered the language, a world of opportunities will be open for them. Some will be able to go to College and earn a degree from an American university, which will surely make them proud to say that they made it, for if they can "make it here, they can make it everywhere." Just like the song. In the meantime, language schools are doing very well, since their ESL programs are making a new record killing.
Each student, who will spend from $8,400 to $ 14,400 a year in school fees, represents from $700 to $ 1200 per month plus books, housing, transportation, clothing, entertainment and other personal costs. The usual number of students per class range from 15 to 35 depending on the size of the institution and the availability of classes.
Teachers of English as a Second Language (ESL) are busier than ever delivering the " goodies" to the eager and hungry ESL consumers. However, the vast majority of those professionals are not getting a deserved piece of the action. Teachers here merely earn from $ 12 to $16 dollars an hour for teaching the four skills of the English language (speaking, writing, listening comprehension and reading) and American culture.
Language schools are the ones reaping all the benefits. They are not only collecting registration fees and tuitions from the students, but they are also selling books, entertainment and housing services to those who seek their assistance. The cost of delivering lessons to their students represents less than ten percent of what comes in, while the other ninety simply goes directly to the bank, whether it comes in the form of U.S. Dollars or foreign currency transfers.
Are students getting their money's worth? The answer to that question would be that honestly they are not.
Language programs are customized to keep students in a "revolving door" situation in which they learn the language skills in a year or two, but the fluency they need to communicate in their target language is rarely accomplished.
In a large group of students there is very limited productive interaction and participation in conversational drills and role-plays.
English language schools are not selling what students need and want, which is real communication skills. That is not their line of business, because what they really believe in is that students are here because they want to buy what schools are offering, which is ESL as long as one can afford it. Period.
Then we have the immigrants living and working in the tri-state area.
At some point of their lives permanent aliens and naturalized citizens of this great country have been motivated to attend schools in order to reach a better level of proficiency in the English language. Those are not as eager as the thousands of visitors that fly in with student visas and lots of cash to pay for their language adventures (which, by the way, is an INS requirement in order to get an I-20).
However, their need to survive and improve their living standards forces them to seek specialized help in this area. Some have been going to school for years with the understanding that as long as one gets reasonable grades and pays for them, the rest is just fine, just as it goes with High School students that simply study to pass tests instead of actually trying to learn a subject. But that is another story.
How can ESL programs be improved?
The thing to do is to customize the language programs in accordance to the students' - and not the institution's - needs and objectives. It makes no sense to generalize the programs and push them into the minds of students who come from all diversities of culture and who have differentiated language needs.
Those familiar with ESL/EFL programs know that most traditional language
teaching institutions treat
students not as individuals but simply as walking money providers. Many are put in large
classes with students that have incredibly different levels of proficiency, so a student
who is a "false beginner", who is not really on the zero level might be assigned
to a true beginner class and end up wasting a lot of time and money. The other way around
is also possible, turning the learning process into a very unpleasant thing.
Large groups also generally start classes on fixed dates, but the schools keep registering students for weeks after the programs have started in order to fill their class size requirements. Since the vast majority of them do not offer complimentary make-up classes to those latecomers, many students become unable to catch up with the ongoing programs.
It is also of public knowledge that many INS-authorized institutions actually negotiate The I-20 visas with students in order to extend their legal status here for an indeterminate amount of time. That is however, a controversial issue that is simply not the point of this article.
Time can also become a problem to ESL students.
As mentioned earlier, many programs last up to two years. For foreign students who have come to the US in order to pursue higher education, that amount of time can be incredibly long, since someday the funds might not be as available as they originally were from the beginning.
That is also true for the immigrants who seek better proficiency in order to get better professional positions.
Businesses in America, as elsewhere in the world, demand immediate results from the time professionals are consuming with ESL (as many use working hours for their lessons). How can an executive wait for years until his or her employees show results from the time and money invested? That simply is not acceptable in today's globalized, fast-paced economy.
The answer is facilitating the learning process. Once the teacher is able to simplify grammar, vocabulary and other language skills, learning becomes much faster, which in turn will bring faster results, with huge savings in time and money for all.
Scholars might argue that only through a long, painful process will a student achieve full, desirable proficiency.
That might be true. However, one needs to remember that that are different needs for different levels of proficiency. Knowing how to argue about the writings of Ernest Hemingway might just not be necessary for a money market operator or for someone who simply needs how to communicate efficiently.
Language institutions should stop trying to fool their students. As
teachers, we have often heard from
students that they are not achieving their desired results in due time, but are mostly
buying books and wasting their energy and money.
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Nelson Leon is a native of Spain. He is a naturalized American and is one of the directors of MLC - Multi-Language Consultants in New York City. He earned his PhD in Psychology from the University of Madrid He is also a language facilitator and a program developer has contributed numerous articles for training and development publications. He lives in Queens, New York.
Ernest Barteldes was born in Michigan and worked as a teacher of English as a foreign language in Brazil for over 10 years. He earned his degree in English and Portuguese from the University of Ceara in Brazil and has recently moved to New York City where he has made a living as a GED and ESL teacher. He has contributed regularly for The Greenwich Village Gazette and to other publications in the U.S. and in Brazil. He lives on Staten Island,NY
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Ernest Barteldes
Staten Island,New York
http://www.freeyellow.com/members/barteldes/index.html
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