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53 °F Forecast | Road Cams Friday, January 28, 2005 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Wellness Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Real Estate Guide Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People Volunteer Opportunities Moving to Southern Oregon? MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend April 13, 2004 Jonathan Garcia, bottom, and Melvin Brila, both 7, raise their hands to answer a question in Ann Manes� English as a Second Language (ESL) class at Washington Elementary School in Medford. Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Tracking language skills A Washington Elementary School teacher has learned to plot how easily her students will learn English as a second language By ANITA BURKE Mail Tribune A group of Washington Elementary students writing and illustrating a tall tale have created a superhero doctor who must battle a disease that turns its victims into horrible monsters. Teacher Ann Manes puts the symptoms on the chalkboard in English: horns from head, big ears, snakes for hair, fiery mouths, black lips. Some of her Spanish-speaking students nod in agreement while others squint, confused at the written record of the class discussion. Though they are all at a second-grade English reading level, the class is made up of kids in second- through sixth- grade. In nearly 14 years of teaching English to Spanish-speaking students at Washington Elementary, Manes has noticed that some kids soak up language like sponges. Others need plenty of repetition to pick up the sounds, words and rules of grammar. Another group needs a lot of hands-on teaching. But standardized test scores didn’t help her figure out which group her students were in. Instead, each fall she had students read to her as part of an evaluation to find out what they knew. Advertisement Over the years as she plotted the reading levels of more than 200 students on graphs, patterns began to emerge. Depending on a child’s reading level, it looked like they learned English at a specific, predictable rate. "Now we have a map to help direct kids right from the start," Manes said. "These are not arbitrary points. This is the kids telling me how they learn." Her graphs’ curves reveal that about 25 percent of students have a natural talent for language, learning quickly and easily. About two-thirds of students need plenty of examples and lots of repetition to make gains. Roughly 10 percent — the average number of students who have learning disabilities — won’t make progress in language-learning without extra help, she said. Teachers can use the graphs to track how students should do, Manes said. "In education, we spend so much time thinking there’s a model for all — especially in special-needs education, where we’re always looking for a new formula or a magic bullet," Washington Principal Stephanie Johnson said. "Ann has thought about the individual process on how to learn language." Manes, originally from Everett, Wash., knows first-hand what it’s like to have to pick up a new language in grade school. She attended third through eighth grades in Mexico. "People who haven’t learned a second language have a firm idea about how it should be done," she said. "But the reality is people learn differently." A student’s failure to progress along the learning curve indicates a problem — either with the program or the student, she said. When Manes notices a child not learning as her graphs predict, a closer look almost always reveals an illness, family problems or other instability at home, she said. Last year, 60 percent of her sixth-grade students seemed to be lagging behind predictions, prompting her to rethink parts of her program for those students, she said. She also has tailored her programs to the types of learners, so those who need extra repetition get that and the fastest learners get plenty of new challenges to keep them from slumping. In two years of testing her graphs, Manes has found they predict learning rates at Washington with 90 percent accuracy. Teachers at Jefferson Elementary also use the graphs and have found them 85 percent accurate, Manes said. She wants other schools to test her work and see if their students’ learning rates match her predictions. She even provided a copy of her research to Acting Deputy Secretary of Education Eugene Hickok and U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, who visited the school last month. Although she’s excited by the prospect of a national audience for her research, she hasn’t heard from federal officials. Manes thinks that because Spanish-speaking students move often, transferring in and out of different types of language programs, her research will hold true in other schools. "This could represent an entire reform movement on how to predict the future" for students learning a second language, she said. 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