Career guidance modules drafted for graduating high school, college students

SAN FERNANDO CITY, La Union (PNA)—The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) in Region 1 has drafted career guidance modules for all graduating high school and college students to address the perennial problem on job mismatch that often causes unemployment.

DOLE Region 1 Director Henry John Jalbuena said that providing early guidance, starting with graduating high school students, is one of the current thrusts of his office to enhance the graduates’ employability for them not to end up merely as “discouraged workers.”

He explained that the term “discouraged workers” refers to the new classification of workers defined as jobless people available for work, but is not actively seeking employment.

According to Jalbuena, separate modules for each level entitled “Career Coaching Program for Secondary Students” and “Career and Employment Counseling for Graduating College Students" were drafted.

The “Career Coaching Program for Secondary Students” is a proposed module for secondary students that will basically contain an introduction stating the objectives and legal basis of the Career and Employment Coaching (CEC); factors to consider in choosing a career course such as abilities, interests, personality, family expectations, financial capability and health conditions; labor market information from different data sources; and a conclusion containing inspirational passages.

Full story...

DepEd vows intensified child-friendly education initiatives for child laborers

ILOILO CITY—The Department of Education (DepEd) has committed to bring back drop outs to school with more child-friendly initiatives.

Dr. Polohan represented DepEd Region VI Director Mildred Garay during the launching last July 17 of  “Libro Mo, Buasdamlag Ko” book drive of ABK2-Initiative for the benefit of child laborers.

Polohan, DepEd chief of Resource Management Division, said that despite the law on compulsory education, many children are still not in school because of poverty. Parents allow their children to engage in hard labor to augment family income.

With education costs escalating faster, DepEd noted that out of 100 first graders only 14 finish college, as the rest are into child labor.

“The low performance of schools is attributed to the number of dropouts, which despite our vigorous campaign against it, the rate has never decreased year after year,” Polohan said.

Full story...

Standards raised, more students fail tests

Applying new, tougher standards, state education officials said Wednesday that more than half of public school students in New York City failed their English exams this year, and 54 percent of them passed in math.

The results were in stark contrast to successes that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had heralded in recent years. When he ran for re-election in 2009, he boasted of state test scores that showed two-thirds of city students were passing English and 82 percent were passing math.

But state education officials said that performance was misleading because those scores were inflated by tests that had become easier to pass. The scores released on Wednesday were the first attempt to establish what the officials considered a more trustworthy measure of students’ abilities.

Merryl H. Tisch, the chancellor of the State Board of Regents, said she had encouraged teachers and parents to greet the news “not with disappointment and not with anger.”

“Now that we are facing the hard truth that not all of the gains were as advertised, we have to take a look at what we can do differently,” she said. “These results will finally provide real, unimpeachable evidence to be used for accountability.”

Full story...

Language pill for minorities

KOLKATA—After for Muslims, it’s time for quality education. English education, in fact.

Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee will be walking the next crucial step when he lays the foundation for an English-medium madarsa at Suri in Birbhum on July 31 — possibly the first such madarsa in the country. Over the next few months, each of the state’s 12 minority dominated districts will have such institutions.

In February this year, Bhattacharjee—who also holds the minority welfare portfolio—adopted the Ranganath Mishra Commission’s recommendations ahead of the Centre by reserving a 10 percent quota for backward Muslims. And by deciding to set up 14 new English-language madarsas (including three in Murshidabad), the Left Front government has again admitted that it was wrong in dropping English in primary education in the 1980s. The CM had himself acknowledged this while re-introducing English from Class I in 2001.

The rectification process continued with the government setting up state-run English-medium schools this year. It will come full circle with the English-medium madarsas. So far, the teaching medium in Bengal madarsas has been Urdu, Hindi or Bengali.

"Bengal will have the only government-run madarsas in the country where students from poor Muslim families can study in English. It will open new avenues for them for higher education and better jobs," minister of state for minority welfare Abdus Sattar said.

Full story...

British Council launches worldwide search for best in English teaching

English language teachers in the Arabic speaking world have been invited to highlight quality and innovation in English language teaching (ELT) in the region by applying for the British Council ELTons 2011.

This international award celebrates excellence in ELT from around the world. Now in its ninth year, the awards ceremony is run by the British Council and sponsored by Cambridge ESOL.

ELT professionals in the Arabic speaking world can apply in two of its three categories: The Cambridge ESOL International Award for Innovation and The Macmillan Education Award for Innovative Writing. There is also a UK Award for Innovation.

The Macmillan Education Award for Innovative Writing, now in its second year, is sponsored by Macmillan Education and gives previously unpublished writers the opportunity to win a £1,000 prize and have their work published. Through this award the British Council aims to discover and encourage up and coming ELT authors to take the next step in their writing careers.

Full story...

Local language teacher crisis                                    

A primary school in Dublin 15 has been reduced to just one English language teacher to cater for over 100 foreign national pupils who don’t have English as their mother tongue.

Come September, Mary Mother of Hope senior national school in Littlepace will have just one language teacher for the non-Irish nationals amongst its 400 pupils.

The situation is dramatically different from just two years ago when the school had three language teachers for its 300 pupils at the time.

Dublin 15 schools have among the highest number of international students in the country – in fact, a number of primary schools have a student ratio of over 70 per cent international to less than 30 per cent Irish nationals.

The international communities in the Dublin 15 area hail from 40 different nationalities.
Local TD Joan Burton (TD) recently raised the matter in the Dáil where she called on the Department of Education to reconsider its cuts to the English language teacher supply to schools in Dublin 15.
“The school finds that because it is a senior cycle school, it is now suffering severe cuts because the Department of Education officials argue that children only need two years of English language support,” she stated.

Full story...

English workshop to help improve teaching skills

Bandar Seri Begawan—The workshop for primary school English language teachers which ended recently provided participants with new skills to improve their methods of teaching at their respective schools.

The workshop’s facilitator, Dr Alexander Arguelles, Language Specialist in Training, Research, Assessment and Consultancy Department at the Regional Language Centre in Singapore, said: “I was hoping that what I taught would be new for them and most of them said yes it was and through this morning’s presentation, some of them did this for the very first time, so it really is a new skill for them to learn."

Commenting on the participant’s performance, Dr Alexander noticed that “Some of the teachers have better English skills and some were very good, but looking at linguistics in a scientific aspect, analyse exactly what is going on, I didn't think they had that.”

From a reading aspect, he added, it was an uphill battle to get people to accept a reading culture. So first and foremost, during the workshop, he emphasized the importance of reading as a habit to take up.

“They get more support to deal with that (reading culture) in the workshop, and on top of that, I’ve given them a large package where I have loads of games and activities they could do with their students,” he said

Full story...

English spelling “too difficult for children”
By Graeme Paton, Education Editor, The Telegraph.co.uk

A high number of “inconsistencies” in the way basic words are spelt makes it much harder for children to read and write at a young age, it is claimed.

Masha Bell, author and literacy researcher, was scheduled to tell a conference of English teachers last week that sweeping reforms are needed to the spelling system to improve children’s linguistic skills.

She will say that English employs 185 “unreliable” spellings for just 44 speech sounds. Words such as “too,” “true,” “who,” “flew,” “shoe,” and “you” all employ different letters to represent the same sound, she will say.

According to academics, children in Britain normally take three years to read to a decent standard.

But in Finland – where words are more likely to be pronounced as they look – children can read fluently within three months.

Her comments will be made to the annual conference of the National Association for Teachers of English in Leicestershire.

Full story...

English language schools win visa reprieve

LONDON (Reuters)—English language schools have won a High Court battle against tighter visa regulations for foreign students introduced by the Labour government to clamp down on illegal immigration.

English UK, which represents 440 schools and colleges across Britain, believes Friday’s ruling has saved an estimated “3,000 jobs and over 600 million pounds a year in foreign earnings.”

On Friday, High Court judge David Foskett referred the matter back to Parliament and said the restrictions had been achieved through altering guidelines where there should have been a formal change to the rules, Britain's Press Association reported.

“This ruling confirms that Parliament must be included in decisions which will significantly change the immigration system,” said English UK’s legal representative Nichola Carter.

Tony Milns, chief executive of English UK, said Friday’s judgment offered schools and colleges “some immediate help since many of them faced losing a damaging number of students this summer and autumn.”

Full story...

“No English, no job” for some Japanese office workers

TOKYO—In a bid to plug dwindling domestic consumption by tapping into overseas markets, some of Japan's big-name retailers are telling their employees to start speaking English—or find another job. As Japan’s population shrinks, the country’s retailers are increasingly looking to boost sales by expanding abroad and some firms are waking up to the necessity of being able to speak the global language of business in order to succeed overseas.

Rakuten, Japan’s biggest online retailer, plans to make English the firm’s official language, while Fast Retailing, operator of the Uniqlo apparel chain, wants to make English more common in its offices by 2012 and plans to test its employees for proficiency. “It’s about stopping being a Japanese company. We will become a world company,” Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani said last week at a news conference in Tokyo—conducted almost entirely in English.

Employees at Rakuten, which hopes overseas sales will eventually account for 70 percent of all transactions made through its websites, will need to master English by 2012 to avoid facing the sack. “No English, no job,” Mikitani told the Asahi newspaper.

Full story...

Walt Disney to expand English language training schools in China

The Walt Disney Company announced that it is going ahead with plans to expand their English language training programs in China. The company, which currently operates 11 schools throughout the country, hopes to open 140 more over the next five years.

Russell Hampton, the president of Disney Publishing Worldwide, said that the language schools are part of a broader initiative to expand the company’s presence in one of the world’s most rapidly growing economies, a plan that will also include the opening of the first Disney theme park in mainland China. He estimates that by 2015 the program will generate over $100 million in revenue while teaching English to 150,000 students.

However, he also recognized that the nature of the schools present a unique opportunity to help the company gain exposure with Chinese consumers. In a recent interview he was quoted as saying that, “We wouldn’t enter this business just to use it as a marketing tool…But there’s no doubt that a side benefit is broader exposure (for) the rich heritage of Disney story-telling.”

Full story...

Minister calls English language learning key

JAKARTA—Countries in the Asia-Pacific region must promote English proficiency as a way to deal with globalization, Coordinating Minister for People’s Welfare Agung Laksono said on Tuesday.

Agung said that to keep pace with the rest of the world, educators in developing Asia-Pacific countries were faced with the challenge to shape graduates to be competent citizens of an inter­national community.

“Schools and universities are expected to produce graduates who are familiar with other cultural values and histories, languages and institutions,” he said.

Agung was speaking at the opening of the first general assembly of the Forum of Asia Pacific Parliamentarians for Education (FASPPED) in Jakarta.

Indonesia, Agung said, had been facing a debate concerning English as one of the main requirements for students.

Full story...

Never a dull moment
By Kang Soon Chen, TheStar.com.my

The teaching of the English language can be challenging but it does not mean there should be no fun.

This is what was discussed at the 19th Malaysian English Language Teaching Association (Melta) International Conference 2010.

Themed “Transformations in English Language Education: Vision, Innovation, Implementation,” the conference drew academics and teachers alike to a roundtable on ways to bring English Language Teaching (ELT) to a whole new level.

The conference brought together around 300 educators from around the world.
Officiated by Raja Zarith Sofiah Almarhum Sultan Idris Shah, the conference was set to the right precedent with the Johor Ruler’s consort putting her faith in teachers to increase students’ proficiency in the language.

“When I studied English at pre-school and primary school, my English teachers were all Malaysians. “They taught me well, because even before I went to secondary school in England, I could speak, read and write in English quite fluently,” said Raja Zarith, who is also the patron of Melta, in her royal lecture.

Full story...