Samantha Ramos, a second grade teacher at John B. Wright Elementary School in Tucson, Arizona, with 15 years of experience, stood at the front of her classroom holding a small mic attached to her lanyard. She amplified her voice to give instructions as she commenced a phonics lesson, saying, “Can we get our arms ready?” She placed her right hand on her left shoulder while the students copied her actions. Ramos, an expert in teaching English to non-native speakers, was conducting a class on the brief ‘i’ sound that day. Instructing the pupils to articulate each character with a separate movement, such as touching the shoulder for ‘w,’ the elbow for ‘i’ and the hand for the duplicated ‘l,’ they then uttered the term ‘will.’ “They conducted the same procedure for additional brief ‘i’ terms such as ‘dig’, ‘wig’, and ‘fit’.” As part of their daily language education, which lasts between two and four hours, Arizona students studying English as a second language must participate in this lesson. Mostly Spanish-speaking Latino children participate in a program called “structured English immersion” or colloquially “English-only”, where they are apart from their English-speaking peers for some time. They stay in the program until they pass a test demonstrating their fluency to learn in a regular classroom. All instruction during this time must be in English. This restricts their time for main subjects, such as mathematics and science, which are essential for academic achievement and college preparedness. Arizona stands as the sole state with English-exclusive laws for its public schools that remain in place. The enrollment in the program has experienced a significant drop this year.
