New Tools for Spanish-speaking Parents to help with homework
One of the greatest challenges for parents of young English-language learners is homework. How can one help a child with, say, history or science when the information is in a language other than their native tongue? A new resource is available for all K-12 students (and for homework purposes, their parents) that can help Spanish speakers: Britannica Escolar, an online library encyclopedia and information resource written in native Spanish.
The entries and information in the Britannica Escolar resource are written in native Spanish, not auto-translated by computer. This site may be utilized by Spanish-speaking parents wishing to assist their little ones with homework, but who felt intimidated because the homework is conducted in English. The resource is great for subject-specific work (history or science, for example), as well as for Spanish-speaking English language learners.
Britannica will be hosting a webinar in Spanish to guide parents on how to utilize the resource on the following dates – just in time for schools’ or districts’ English Learner Advisory Committee meetings!
• Tuesday, September 18, 7:00 pm: REGISTER
• Wednesday, September 19, 7:00 pm: REGISTER
• Thursday, September 20, 6:00 pm: REGISTER
Continue reading to learn more about this helpful new tool…
Britannica isn’t the only online resource now available for K-12 students. ProQuest and TeachingBooks.net also have vast resources to help with education, and can be used by parents and students who speak a language other than English by utilizing the built-in auto-translate tools available in dozens of languages. These can be quite useful, as long as readers can forgive the awkward translations and recognize some responses aren’t perfect.See the full list of resources.
Interested in learning more about the California State Library’s K-12 Online Resources project? Sign up for the eNewsletter for updates. And if you can’t make the webinars, no worries! The State Library will be posting links to the recording and making the information available through the eNewsletter and website.
It is important that we as a Dual Language community support those in their endeavors to broaden the bilingual community and create resources to support this. We recommend these resources for our mission of continuing to expand the dual language community.
This article was provided by the California State Library Staff.
Author: Sandra Mercuri
Dr. Mercuri is a nationally and internationally recognized educational consultant in the area of second language acquisition, dual language education, and curriculum integration for biliteracy development. She has over 28 years of experience in teaching in K-12 schools and at the university level in Argentina and the United States. After retiring as a professor from the University of Texas System, she continued to work on research on the development of academic language across the content areas, the use of translanguaging practices for language transfer, and the effect of long-term professional development on dual language, bilingual and ESL teachers’ instructional practices. Dr. Mercuri provides professional development for teachers and administrators as well as for parents. She presents at national and international conferences on issues of second language acquisition and bilingualism, dual language education, translanguaging pedagogy, and ESL strategies. Dr. Mercuri has published articles in the TESOL Quarterly, Talking Points, EJLTS, JMER, TESOL Connections, MEXTESOL, and the NABE journal as well as the Spanish professional journals The Colombian Journal of Bilingual Education: GIST and the Revista Educación y Pedagogía and more than twelve book chapters. Dr. Mercuri is the author of the book titled Supporting Literacy Through Science: The Challenge of Teaching...