VI. Further Listening and Speaking
Task1: Held Back Because I Speak Spanish
Script
I was raised speaking English, but I also spoke Spanish at home. When I went to school for the first time, I was enrolled in ESL classes—classes of English as a Second Language. I was also put in the Limited English Proficiency Program. In all these classes, I always got the highest grades. I was the best reader and speaker. There as no reason for me to be in any of those classes.
When my parents discovered that I was in those classes instead of in regular classes with other English-speaking students, they went to the school administration to complain about the discrimination. The school had nothing to say. My parents tried to get me out of the ESL classes, but the school fought it very hard to keep me there. And then we found out why—for every student the school had in the ESL and Limited English Proficiency Program, they would receive$400. This was pretty devastating. The school’s only excuse for keeping me there was because I lived in a Spanish-speaking household, and that I was influenced by the way my parents spoke. My parents were outraged, but I remained in the ESL and Limited English Proficiency Program until I was in the fifth grade.
Then parents transferred me to another school where they had friends. The new school gave me an English proficiency test. I aced it. SO I didn’t have to attend those programs for non-native English speakers. I was finally on the right track and back at the head of the class. The first school I had would have never let me out of those programs or even let me take the test. I was too “Spanish” for tem.
1. What kind of class does the speaker think he should attend?
2. What was the real reason the speaker was placed in a Limited English Proficiency class?
3. What was the excuse the school used to put the speaker in an ESL class?
4. How did the speaker perform in the regular English class?
5. When the speaker described his first school, what were his feeling?
Keys: 1.C 2.D 3.A 4.B 5.A
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