TAKING A DIFFERENT ROUTE...

Basically, I wanted to research these popular "Teach English in Asia" ads on careerbuilder. I wondered if western education might be on to something with their full english immersion curriculum because they are spending so much money recruiting for English speakers to go abroad. Through interviews and past research, I came to the conclusion that full language immersion without special program/training assistance works best for cultural and lingusitc development, but not really fluency (in my opinion). :)

 HERE IS THE START OF THE PROJECT...the rest is almost done. 

     Many teachers in the United States are faced with the challenge of teaching English to culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students (O’Hara & Pritchard, 2008). A fraction of these students are enrolled in bilingual or ESOL (English Speakers of Other Languages) programs, while a majority of English language learners are placed into mainstream classrooms without program assistance. According to the Florida Department of Education (2009), all schools with students classified as English Language Learners (ELL) must provide an appropriate ESOL program to meet the specific students' needs in language learning, academic achievement, and in cultural integration. In Florida, only 12 % of the 10^th grade ELL student population passed the reading portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (Florida Department of Education, 2009). This indicates that literacy for this student population needs to be addressed.

There is a long-going debate over whether ESOL learners should be taught through a curriculum designed around Full English Immersion, Semi Immersion or Bilingual Education. Full English Immersion involves ELL students learning English without any help in their native language. Semi Immersion involves ELL students enrolled in a mainstream classroom, but with the assistance of a curriculum designed with cultural and native language sensitivity. Bilingual Education is a mixture of native language instruction combined with English lessons, much like a first year foreign language course in high school.

As an aspiring English instructor, I have noticed many of the popular job boards swarmed with ads to teach English in Asian countries, specifically Korea and China. I started researching these ads and found that these Asian countries have hired numerous companies to recruit English speakers from the United States, Canada, Britain and Australia to teach abroad. These candidates have little or no experience with English language instruction and cultural awareness. So, why are these positions focusing on full English immersion so popular in these Asian countries? With millions of dollars spent on the placement of these abroad teachers with little or no experience, I began to wonder whether the United States could learn something from the Asian ESL curriculum. Can ESL instruction be universally taught? This paper focuses on past research conducted regarding ESL instructional effectiveness.  In addition to this past research, I interviewed two ESL abroad teachers, one currently teaching in Korea and one who formerly taught in China, in order to further research the effectiveness of a full English immersion curriculum with ESL students.

Julie Nelson is a novice 1^st through 6^th grade ESL teacher at Cheongdo Jungang Elementary School, located just outside of Daegu, the 3rd largest city in Korea. She has a Bachelor degree in Fashion Design and was unable to secure a job after graduation to the economy. She answered an advertisement on Monster.com placed by a recruiter called, Craig’s Korea. The ad did not require any teaching experience, just a Bachelor Degree. According to many blogs, such as ___ and ____, there are recruiting companies that promise these job seekers payment, places to live, and plane tickets and do not fulfill the promises. Julie says that she was lucky with her recruiter.

Sharon Reigel, is a former English ESL instructor of PH.D. students at Tianjin University in China. She had experience working with international students and teaching. She went through a recruiter that worked with the university in which she was employed at the time.