School Tries New Ways to Teach Growing Numbers of Immigrants
In a typical language course, a teacher might limit a discussion on the meaning of "chameleon" to its two well-known definitions: a lizard that changes colors or a person who, figuratively, does the same thing in different situations.
But at Montgomery College, it's only the beginning for students whose first language is not English.
In the Cultural Identity in a Changing World course, 16 students sitting in a four-hour class last week learned about chameleons in apartheid South Africa, people whose official racial designation was changed by the government through the stroke of a pen. Indians became colored. Chinese became white.
The course is designed to teach the nitty-gritty of language acquisition -- reading, writing and oral communication -- through the context of content rather than through drilling of basic skills, something common in traditional classes for nonnative English speakers.
