question to teachers here or anybody who knows

[kimba1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivist_teaching_methods

is this taught in private schools ?

what are the laws that forbids public schools to use it?

[Xavier_Onassis]

There are no laws that ban this or any other technique.

However, if we are going to build on what the student already knows, then the whole class has to know X before we can build on X to teach them Y.

If you had a class of 30 WASP students in Chillicothe, MO, you might be able to assume that they all knew the same sort of things.

But today, this would not apply to even 30 WASP students in some small US town: some kids would have cable, otthers a dish, others just an antenna. Some could watch the History Channel, others would spend their time watching some bimbo stroke a CZ pendent on the Home Shopping Channel.

In cities, where most Americans live today, the students will be about 1/3 immigrants and the class will not even have a common language, let alone a common educational heritage. If we knew that every student had watched 'Sesame Street', then we could base the curriculum on that. But we can't, because not every kid even knows who Kermit and Elmo are.

Teachers are given textbooks, and are ordered to teach the textbook in the order the chapters of the book are written, according to a common syllabus. No method of teaching is banned, but the orders given teachers are pretty restrictive. I doubt that any of them even know what Constructivist means. Generally, they will have heard of John Dewey in some Ed class in college,and they will have been tested over it with a multiple choice exam.

[kimba1]

thanks
it was brought up and It got me wondering about it
but your post made think of ESL
recently a friend told me ESL today is teaching non-native speaking kids thier birth language and has nothing to do with learning english
do anyone know is this true?
it sounds crazy

[Xavier_Onassis]

ESL means English as a Second Language. Sometimes it is called ESOL, English for Speakers of Other Languages, because often English is not the second language, but a third or fourth language.

Taiwanese normally speak Taiwanese, but then learn Mandarin in school. Educated Haitians quite often learn French in high school. Belgians may know French and Dutch and perhaps German when they come here. People from Hong Kong usually know both Cantonese and Mandarin.

ESL never means teaching the birth language, or at least I have never heard this. The E in both ESL and ESOL stands for English.

Often the original language (Spanish, Mandarin, whatever) is used to explain English to students.

[kimba1]

that`s what I thought but I was told in the U.S. ESL doesn`t do that at all
some lobby sued to make ESL a continueing education of the childs birth language not to teach english.
is this a urban myth to get rid of ESL for the immersion method?

[Xavier_Onassis]

I have no idea who is sueing whom about what.

ESL and ESOL are both designed to teach English to non-English speakers.

I don't think that the government uses urban myths for any purpose. People can sue for anything regarding how their taxes are spent, so I suppose they could sue to replace ESL/ESOL with courses in the students' native language.

In Miami-Dade County, they have Spanish for Spanish speakers classes in addition to ESOL. These are not required, but I think they enrol bilingual students in them unless their parents send a note asking them not to.

Most parents here want their children to speak both languages. There are many more Hispanic people enrolled in ESOL than there are English speakers enrolled in Spanish classes, even though the County is about 60% Hispanic.

[Plane]

I think that parents can be convinced tha second languages are  employment ehanceing.

True isn't it?