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Cultural Barriers To English Language Learners

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When living a society such as the United States we get in this comfortable state that our norms and culture are everyone’s norms and culture. Language is not something that is universal. English is one of the hardest languages to learn because it has derived from hundreds of languages, so learning all the rules and exception is difficult for new learners. When new immigrant students come to the United States to get an education the language barrier is the first thing that hits them hard and slows them down in their learning process. This transition into a new culture can be made even hard by the lack of support from the American school systems. English language learners are the fastest growing segment of the public school population – nearly doubling in the last 15 years. The U.S. Department of Education’s data for 2012-2013 indicate that there were 4.85 million English Language Learners enrolled in public schools …show more content…

Beyond initial supports, schools receiving students from other countries need to develop a full continuum of interventions to address immigrant concerns and a multicultural student body. Immigrant students have to do more than just learn English and go to school. They have to adjust to the culture and assimilate himself or herself without losing touch of whom they are as well as where they come from (Gatwiri). The American culture is not really like what we see in the movie. For example, when most West African immigrants come to the United States they are expecting to see what they watch on television: beaches, big houses, and the stereotypes that have been played out on the big screen. That is the only sense of the American culture they have. Moreover, there are students who do not know about the American culture at all, so they become stress trying to figure it out themselves because their parents do not know

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