These kids eager to learn English Carrying out Proposition 227 brings considerable challenges to Johnson Middle School. Wednesday, November 25, 1998. Phil Hunter is a science teacher at Johnson Middle School in the midst of a lesson about simple machines. But these days his task is as much about teaching English as it is about science. Hunter, one of two teachers at Johnson assigned to teach limited-English students, draws a primitive seesaw on the board.
Several hands go up.
Hunter calls on a young Vietnamese girl, who haltingly tries to pronounce her answer. C'mon, I know you can do it. Since we are required to teach mostly in English, we're forced to reduce what we teach down to the bare, basic concepts. In some ways, it's really not fair to these kids. Yet Hunter and the other instructors at Johnson probably are more fortunate than their fellow educators in most other school districts.