Impromptu!

I will argue the PRO side for topic 1, namely that ESL (English as a Second Language) students should not be separated from normal classrooms. I assume that this means classrooms otherwise filled with what I shall call English as a Native Language (ENL) students. I will also assume, hopefully uncontroversially, that this context involves people emigrating either permanently or semi-permanently from a non-English speaking country to an English-speaking one. Onwards, then, to my case. There are two such types of ESL students. The first type is someone who has been learning English from a fairly young age - say, elementary/primary or high school/secondary school level - but is still, for fairly obvious reasons, not quite there yet by virtue of not being immersed in the language. The second type is an immigrant / refugee who, by virtue perhaps of the unexpected and sudden nature of their departure from their home country, has not learnt English to this standard. I contend that both of these types will benefit from merged classrooms, and that for neither circumstance are ENL students harmed by merged classrooms. Whilst the reasons for both types are interconnected, they are in places distinctly different, and accordingly I will deal with them separately. LONG-TIME LEARNERS: The benefits to the students are clear: through immersion in English they will be able to up their knowledge and fluency in English immeasurably: being around English-speaking people on a daily basis gives you a much richer understanding of how English is actually used in real life - colloquial expressions, metaphors, idioms, etc. By contrast, setting them aside with other ESL students will limit their exposure to "academic English", which is more focused on memorisation of grammar and vocabulary than it is on real-life experience of the language. Nor are ENL students are not harmed by this approach, as these ESL students are proficient enough in the language to avoid even the question that they may drag down IMMIGRANTS / REFUGEES WITH LITTLE TO NO PRE-EXISTING KNOWLEDGE OF ENGLISH: The points above about language immersion stand also for these students. That is the best way for someone to learn the English language. But this takes on an ever deeper meaning with this type of learner, for here they have a positive duty to learn English: if you aim to live in a country permanently / for a long period of time, it is both an act of politeness to your new country, and part of becoming an everyday citizen of the country, to learn the language. After all, it would be prohibitively expensive and time-wasting for the government to provide official documentation in every single language of the world. It should only be necessary to do so in the predominant languages of that area. For some areas of the US, this could potentially be an argument for state provision of materials in Spanish - and the same applies for Scottish and Welsh within the relevant parts of the UK - but apart from this why should governments in English-speaking countries be expected to provide materials in non-English language? Now granted, the ESL students' lack of ability in English does raise at least the question of harms on ENL students, unlike in the last section. But in actuality, this need not be enough of a problem to warrant negating this motion: as, for all practical purposes, ENL students who are less intelligent than other ENL students would be just as limiting a factor on fellow students' progress than would such ESL students. In both instances, the comparatively slow progress is due to intelligence not being shown, and the teacher's attention being diverted accordingly - it is functionally irrelevant precisely why this intelligence is not being shown, whether it being because it doesn't exist, the teaching methods are unsuited to the student, or because language barriers are stopping it from coming through. Accordingly, there is a very good argument here for separating students according to their progress in a given subject - this is sometimes known as putting them in "sets" or "grouping them" - but this separation should be language-blind, and apply just as much to ENL students as it does to ESL students. CONCLUSION: For all of the reasons mentioned both for long-term learners and for more recent learners - most likely down to family immigration or being refugees - we should not separate ESL students from ENL ones. Keeping them together can be a great benefit to the ESL students, and does not unduly affect ENL students in any way. Although severe language barriers would almost certainly lead to slower progress through schoolwork, the problems that this cause apply just as much to under-achieving ENL students as it does to non-English-speaking ESL students. Dealing with this problem need not extend to the separation of ENL and ESL students. Therefore, the motion should be supported. Thank you :-)