Well said Cheryl. The registration and enrolment process this year is a huge and daunting challenge for tutors and prospective students; it always has been but this year it is far more complex. I too wish that politicians and policy makers could witness it directly. As I too am in the middle of enrolments time is too short for me to add more but I fully endorse your comments.
Mary
-----Original Message-----
From: ESOL-Research discussion forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Cheryl Thornett
Sent: 11 September 2007 18:24
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Language tests for potential migrants
James, I can't agree with you more.
I wonder if anyone has evidence for the relative cost of English lessons in, say Pakistan, and England? At the first Save ESOL meeting in Birmingham, a community worker asked why the British Council could give him a scholarship in his home country for much more expensive English lessons, but that the UK could not give him or someone like him less costly lessons when resident in the UK. The cost of lessons will tend to exclude women, as you say, and anyone from a less affluent background or from a less well-paid job. Perhaps this means that people with brown skins are acceptable only if they are rich enough.
Some of my students who have settled here on marriage have been educated in English-medium schools or have had English tuition in secondary schools or colleges. They still tend to find when they actually arrive here that they can't understand anyone for a while or make themselves understood, although many make rapid progress. Some comment very unfavourably on the methods and standards of teaching in their home countries. Especially, as you might guess, those who are teachers themselves.
Is this an admission, perhaps that the English/Welsh education system is such a failure for all but the few who get as far as A-levels and university, that all others must be excluded as offering too much competition?
I am exhausted and bad-tempered after two days of trying to cope (with
colleagues) with the hundreds who have turned up at just one Birmingham Adult Education Centre, asking and begging to learn English. Most of our few remaining E1 classes are full, all but one of the women's classes is full, the crèche is full.... Only the really unpopular times have any class space left, and women who have been given class places can't always get a crèche place to go with it.
Credit to the City Council, however, for insisting that we must offer free ESOL. Boos for not providing extra money, but insisting it comes out of the BAES budget. There will be 4 classes (for the whole city, I think) designated as 'Welcome to ESOL' for spouses in their fist year of residence.
These will be multi-level, mixed sex and those who have nearly completed their first 12 months will be chosen first, so they can be moved into other provision as soon as possible. We certainly won't be able to give everyone turned away by the colleges or unable to afford FE fees a class place.
Has anyone ever persuaded a politician, policy-maker or rightish journalist to visit an ESOL centre during registration?
----- Original Message -----
From: "James Simpson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2007 3:37 PM
Subject: Language tests for potential migrants
Hello all
I feel it's time I weighed in with a few comments about the recent
pronouncements of G. Brown, J. Smith et al on language and migration.
James
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