As my move to Hawaii approaches, I am learning more and more about the experiences I will be having. Thanks to the kindness of one of the two teachers who will be supervising my student teaching, I have learned a little bit about the language backgrounds of the students in my classes. The number of languages that the ELLs (English language learners) speak is astonishing! Some of the languages I could have guessed expected: Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Tagalog, Spanish, Cantonese, and Mandarin. Other languages are ones I truthfully didn't know existed! In addition to the ones I just mentioned, I will have students who speak Marshallese/Ebon (from the Marshall Islands), Samoan (from American Samoa and the Samoan Islands), Kosraean (from Kosrae, an island in Micronesia), Chuukese (from Chuuk, also part of Micronesia, and Tongan (from the Kingdom of Tonga). Need a refresher course on where these places are located? I sure did. Check out this great map. I am so excited to think about how much I will learn there. My goal for now is to learn at least a few phrases in each of these languages. I think as a future ESL teacher I can make a much better connection with my students just by knowing how to say 'hello' in my students' first languages.
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2004-2005 Most Common Languages Spoken by LEPs [ESL Students] in Hawaii
1. Ilokano 4802 26.1%
2. Samoan 1685 9.2%
3. Tagalog 1621 8.8%
4. Marshallese 1452 7.9%
5. Chuukese 1244 6.8%
6. Spanish 1170 6.4%
7. Japanese 1009 5.5%
8. Cantonese 911 5.0%
9. Korean 773 4.2%
10. Tongan 608 3.3%
(Listed by Number and Percentage of all ESL Students in the State)
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