Dear Editor:
Re: What about the kids in the classrooms? In My Opinion, July 2, Burnaby NOW.
Keith Baldrey had some interesting words about the teachers’ strike.
However, towards the end he must have lost interest and repeated a teacher’s account without giving it any thought:
“… Seventeen are ELL (English Language Learners), of which one child has two words (“bathroom” and “no”), and a second child has about 150 words. I have two ADHD, one ADD and four seeing the school counsellor because of problems at home ...”
I am not going to pretend that I know how to fix all her problems, especially, because I do not even know how infectious ADHD and ADD are (just kidding!). However, I should know something about how to and how not to learn languages.
Why do I get the feeling the teacher and Baldrey treat the lack of English as something permanent, like my webbed toes, for example?
Take my word that at age seven, the student with the “two-words-only” should have known 10 more words by lunch and an additional 10 before leaving for the day. If not, why not?
In a city where we are surrounded by new Canadians, it is painful to watch teachers with such little understanding of how one deals with another language, and, not having questioned the teacher’s silly remarks, Baldrey’s article loses overall credibility.
Ziggy Eckardt, Burnaby
