Homeschooling is popular
Homeschooling is becoming more and more popular. Because? Because in some areas schools are too dangerous to consider. Parents want more control over their children’s learning environment. Schools in some districts lack the essential quality of resources and staff to effectively educate children for the challenges of today’s global society. With homeschooling, parents can expand their child’s learning platform to an almost infinite degree. School districts provide the required curriculum for children so parents don’t go off on unproductive tangents. This also helps ensure that homeschooled children are keeping up with their peers of the same age and grade level.
What about those cases in which children have a first language other than English? Though not yet in extremely large numbers, the growing discovery of alarming numbers of children with illegal immigrant status raises the question of literacy and English as a Second Language (ESL) homeschooling. The task of developing fluency in English extends from children to parents and even grandparents in many cases. Immigrant families have liquidity problems. Often, due to low levels of educational achievement, lack of business skills, or even illiteracy, parents feel they are ‘stuck’. To earn more they must learn more, but how can this be achieved without fluency in the English language?
Using a TBL approach
One of many possible scenarios is homeschooling using a TBL (task-based learning) approach. In this approach, students are taught usable and marketable skills using English as the language of instruction. In-demand skills such as nursing aides, home health aides, auto mechanics, electrician aides, carpenters and construction workers, cooks, and even teacher aides could reach commercial standards fairly quickly. Certainly, most would require less than a year of preparation to begin “giving back” to the economy that many now only abuse to the detriment of the taxpayers and homeowners who currently support an overtaxed part of the economy.
Using a TBL approach, several problems would be addressed at the same time.
o Immigrants would learn a marketable skill
o Immigrants would learn English
o Immigrants would regain their pride and personal dignity
o Parents could set a valuable example for their children
o Children could become more integrated into mainstream American society
o Children could more easily acquire useful English language skills
There are already amounts of online and low-residency English and other programs available for both adults and children.
Certainly English taught as a second or foreign language is practical for homeschooling. Teachers and tutors must make classes interesting, lively, and sometimes even fun if they are to maintain the interest and attendance of these LEP (Limited English Proficient) students. By doing so, the problem of non-English speaking or LEP students of all ages can begin to be addressed in earnest. Overcrowded, cash-strapped, and resource-strapped schools need our help. Here’s one way we as concerned TEFL professionals can give it to you.