"It is not easy for people to learn a language overnight; for most of us, it takes awhile. In the meantime, immigrants and the receiving community need to communicate with each other. If their children are in school, it is really important to get the parents involved, and the only way to get parents with limited English skills involved is to communicate in their native language.
Creating a Formula for Success: Why English Language Learner Students Are Dropping Out of School, and How to Increase Graduation Rates
This report uses school data and student focus groups to assess why increasing numbers of English language learners (ELLs) in New York City dropped out of school after the state adopted higher graduation standards. Recommendations include: 1) targeting middle and high schools where 248 ELLS are underperforming; 2) implementing new strategies to reach students at high risk because they arrive in the United States as teenagers; 3) improving instruction in both ESL and core classes as well as increasing the number of teachers certified for ESL and bilingual instruction; 4) implementing a language access policy to enable immigrant parents to participate more actively in their children's education.
English is almost universally accepted by the children and grandchildren of the immigrants who have come to the US in great numbers since the 1960s, which means these children have high levels of linguistic assimilation. Moreover, by the third generation (grandchildren of immigrants), only a minority in any group maintains bilingualism.
This chapter from GCIR’s Investing in Our Communities: Strategies for Immigrant Integration explains the challenges of language access for immigrants and looks at the role that foundations can play.
This guide is intended to help healthcare organizations implement effective language access services (LAS) to meet the needs of their limited- English proficient (LEP) patients, thereby increasing their access to health care. LAS are especially relevant to racial and ethnic disparities in health care.
Reports on more than half of This report studies New York City’s Haitian, Russian, and Latino first-generation immigrants, and finds that language barriers lead to reduced quality of care for their children and prevents first-generation immigrants from fully using healthcare services. For a PDF of the report and to arrange interviews with the lead author or immigrant New Yorkers, contact Kathryn Cervino, Associate Communications Director, at 212.822.7285 or kcervino@nyam.org.
This report describes the impact of having interpreters for those with limited English proficiency on respondents' overall experiences at the urban hospitals included in the study. The Access Project collaborated with 24 community-based organizations to survey the uninsured on their experiences and perceptions of the care they received from local health care institutions.
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