Arizona Law is Affecting what we Need to Take:

Many of the students at Catalina Magnet High School have four hours of English when they are supposed to be taking the classes they need to graduate. If they do not take the classes they need to graduate, they have to stay for one or two years just to finish the many classes they have left and that is wasting time in high school when they are supposed to be going to college to get ready for what is waiting on the way. I am very tired of sitting in the same classes of English when I am supposed to be in different classes with different teachers.

I want to change the four ESL class policy. I feel so desperate about it. The conflict that I have some students who are refugees and immigrants at Catalina Magnet High School also share. If I have four hours of English, I can certainly learn more English and speak well, but I cannot take the classes that I need. Only two regular, non-English classes are possible to take when you have four hours of English.

This is my first year of having four hours of English. However, that was not our school decision that we made. That was the government’s decision about the ESL classes. The state decides about the four hours of English because they think that we should have four hours of English so we can learn more English and pass the AZELLA test next time. They want to see if we are improving or not.

I do not have the same teacher for four hours of English. I have two classes with the same teacher and my other two classes with different teachers. If I have four hours of English with the same teacher in the same room, that would be boring for me and repetition of the same work that I have done. I feel sorrow for myself having four hours of English. If I had studied hard and passed the AZELLA test last year. I wouldn’t worry about this problem. The problem is the four hours of English, but not the test. In my English class, we work on advertisements and do power points about them. Every two weeks, we read four chapters and take a unit test on vocabulary and grammar. In my reading class, we are researching about technology to find key facts in an article. We also take a vocabulary test on prefixes and root words every Friday. In my Finding Voice writing class, we are writing essays, poems, and stories about something in our lives. The lessons can improve my English if I pay attention and follow the steps in order to improve my English. However, I could learn all of these lessons in two hours of class because in two hours there is plenty of time to learn, not to play around.

We need to make changes about the four hours of English. It is important to face what you need to change in your life time. It might help you sometimes and you will end up saying that you did it. If you ignore it and you don’t do anything, it won’t change by itself. You have to do something about it. Now I am writing to make change in the policy of the four hours of English. Maybe it can change next year if the government sees how we feel about it and understands how it is affecting our lives.