Stigmas versus Statistics for ESL students

In a time where tensions about immigration are running high, and politicians like Donald Trump are trying to ban immigrants from coming into America, the already negative stigma against immigrants, specifically the Hispanic and Muslim population, are tangible. This stigma greatly affects the children of these immigrants, who see on the news these negative views. How must these children feel? They arrive in a new country, searching for a new life, possibly escaping a desolate situation, hoping to find the welcoming America they’ve heard about; instead, they come to America and are looked down upon, and are not given an equal chance because of their culture, the language they speak, or their religion. As an English as a Second Language Teacher, it is my mission to erase these stigmas against my students, and to find the most effective ways to teach them and help them assimilate into the country.

To begin to erase these stigmas, we have to go over the facts. In his article in The Guardian Stephan Burgen writes, “The United States is now the world’s second largest Spanish-speaking country after Mexico, according to a new study published by the prestigious Instituto Cervantes. The report says there are 41 million native Spanish speakers in the US plus a further 11.6 million who are bilingual, mainly the children of Spanish-speaking immigrants”. Spanish speakers are very present in America, and it is evident that it is a language that needs to be learned. These numbers say a lot about how the populations are changing in America. Further in Burgen’s article in "The Guardian" he writes “Among the sources cited in the report is the US Census Office which estimates that the US will have 138 million Spanish speakers by 2050, making it the biggest Spanish-speaking nation on Earth, with Spanish the mother tongue of almost a third of its citizens”.
With the huge influx of Spanish speakers in America, one would think that this population would receive a lot of support and help in schools, and be important to policymakers in the education system. This is not the case, however. According to Andrew Rotherham in his Time Magazine  he article, “Our public schools are woefully unprepared to deal with the fastest-growing ethnic group in the U.S. Nationally, the high school graduation rate for Hispanics is just 64%, and only 7% of incoming college students are Hispanic, according to the Alliance for Excellent Education”.
           As educators, we need to change these statistics by using and experimenting with different teaching methods. Technology, in particular, has been shown to increase the attentiveness of students, and internet programs can be advantageous for ESL students. Martin Williams writes about technology for ESL students in The Guardian  saying that technology like videos, social media, and skype have transformed the ESL community. Students can use translators online, play vocabulary word games, speak and be able to play back their video to hear the language on Skype, and use communicative videos to hear how words are spoken, and the difference of dialects. With the growing number of ESL students in America, it is very important that the students are taken care of in schools, and using technology is just one way teachers can gain their students attention, and have them learn in different, interactive ways.