Notes for chapter 5 -YUILL

• Immigrant students are motivated learners and have positive attitudes towards school – often more so than their non-immigrant peers (pg. 125.)

• In some countries, including Canada and Sweden, second generation immigrant children perform significantly better than first generation students, whereas other countries like Germany and USA, the performance of second generation children is significantly below that of non-immigrant children (pg. 125) – Why is this?  Can we make any other inferences from this observation?

• The data suggest that newcomer L2Ls who arrive before entering the early years of schooling eventually outperform their Canadian born peers in literacy skills in English, even though they may start behind when they first enter an Ontario school (pg. 128)

• Students from economically poorer countries, or countries where education has been inconsistently available are not deriving equal benefit from schooling in their new country (pg. 131-132) Why is this so? What other factors impact upon this?

• Children’s Mother tongue is easily lost in the early years of school and can end up creating an emotional chasm by frequently becoming alienated from the cultures of both home and school (pg140) What role do you think  bullying might have in this?

• The teacher is the most important factor in student achievement, transcending factors that are traditionally thought to limit student potential such as poverty, language in the home, recent immigration and so on (pg. 141)

• Assigning experienced, qualified teachers to low performing schools and students is likely to pay off in better performance and narrowing gaps (pg. 141)

• Use conclusion to create opening statements for presentation (pg. 150)