Speaking of things people do to hurt their kids' chance ...

My heart aches for that little one. So irresponsible of the parents.

Poor little guy.

The poor mite, my 11 DD has suggested getting google translate up on a screen and typing in a few phrases to help with basic phrases.

very sad and i hate to say it, but very common among people i know who speak languages other than english, their theory is that its the school's job to teach them english...

Did the school call his parents to tell them he's so upset?

WTF is wrong with you? Rude much?

This. I work with many students who speak absolutely no English and some of them are much older their first time in a US school. That's not a typical reaction.

Agreed. There is more going on with the screamer kid. 

When we lived overseas, DS went to the American school. There were a lot of embassy kids who went there as well, many of whom did not speak English. By Christmas, most were pretty fluent. It was amazing. It may not be common in Merge's school, but it's not unusual from what I have seen. But that doesn't mean I don't feel bad for the kids. I know how I feel as an adult with my broken language skills in other countries. And then to be a little kid...  Yikes. 

What is pulling a scrappower?

Pull out the spreadsheet...some people think she's contrary and argumentative.

They actually may have given him the best chance to become fully bilingual. One of my favorite classes in college was linguistics. It's not uncommon in other parts of the world for children to have one language that they speak at home and another in school/public. If a child is immersed in a second language before the age of eight, they are more likely to become fully fluent in that language. Interestingly, the second language gets processed in a different part of the brain than the first language. As a result, there's no inner translation going on as there is with languages learned later in life. These children also have an easier time learning third, fourth, and even more languages. Here in America, we do our children a huge disservice by not teaching foreign language starting in kindergarten. This boy will have an advantage that other ESL student don't have in that his parents are educated and speak English. They will be able to help him. His situation is far different than the situation Maryland described.

My grandmother's parents came to America from Germany. She was born here, but only spoke German until she started school. When she was in school, the children were taught in English, no German allowed. The only language they used outside of the home once they started school was English. In their home, they still spoke German. My grandma doesn't even have an accent. As an adult, she eventually forgot how to speak German because she never used it. (I think she may have been lying about that because I don't think you really can forget your first language.)

You don't know what this family's situation is. You don't know why they moved here or how much time they had to prepare. Maybe they tried to teach him a few things and it didn't work. Maybe where they come from, children aren't given special consideration if their families speak a different language at home. Give the boy a few weeks, he'll be fine. His language centers are young and malleable.

I understand the comment. My impression of scrappower is that she tries to see things from both sides.

Considering I was just blasted in another thread for stating my opion I am not so sure. But either way I still find it rude to be pulled into a thread like this. It did not sound like a complement with saying "sorry to pull a scrappower". Oh well. But thanks for your opinion of me, that is what I try to do, I fail at times of course. But we are only human.