Connecting With the American Dialect: "Educators say that learning a different form of English can be even more challenging than picking up an entirely new language, because students never know when the habits of a lifetime will be right or wrong. 'It's very frustrating for them,' said Dena Sewell, a dual-language assessment teacher with Fairfax County schools. 'They've learned English, and all of a sudden we say, 'You don't speak English the right way.' '
Fairfax schools have a pilot World English Literacy class at West Potomac High School to help West African immigrants. Montgomery County schools are creating a program for all World English speakers, who can include children from places as divergent as the Caribbean, Australia and Canada. Other districts are using a one-on-one approach.
A complex blend of linguistic and cultural phenomena set English-speaking students from Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone apart from other World English speakers, educators say. Most West African children learned a form of English in school and are fluent in it, but many lag in reading and writing partly because of limited or interrupted schooling. Socially, many of them speak Creole, a mix of English and regional dialects. And many have experienced or witnessed violence in their home countries, leaving psychological scars that make learning harder."
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