Tuesday, May 13, 2008

English Language Learners (ELL)

ELL - English Language Learners

presentation by Linda Waters

A review of the four year initiative

Sheltered English Immersion (SEI)

DOE had found Franklin in "noncompliance status" in 2004

not a service to teach curriculum, focused on teaching English as a language

two .5 ELL teachers, both half-time; one for elementary and one for middle school
one full time ELL teacher

close to 100 teachers with some level of training in this area

February 2008, DOE has found Franklin in "compliance" with the mandate

29 students designated as ELL
10 students designated as Former ELL (FELPs)

current languages being spoken by these students
Vietnamese, Spanish, Gujarti, Hindi, Cebuano, Telugu, Chinese, Bulgarian, Swahili, Russian, French, Arabic, Krio, and Portugese
22 kindergarten students identified as possible ELL's

Lisa talking about teaching the children who have trouble with the English language
other students in the classroom are helpful providing assistance
meets with students once a week as she is only part-time
get support to the regular teachers so they can provide help

Helen talking about the same program as provided to the secondary education students

Q - Armenio
This is one of the state unfunded mandates

Q - Trahan - Help for families?
The Franklin library provides a program in English as a Second Language for adults in the community. (side note - yes, I can vouch for this program as I participate as a tutor in this program.)

Q - Rohrbach - with 22 kindergartens possible, is this a growing trend?
Yes, it is. Given the other communities nearby, it is not surprising that we will gain some of these other languages.

Q - Roy, this was a result of a statewide ballot initiative

Lisa describes how she uses photos to elicit the students involvement in building their vocabulary, disposable cameras are good for this. Link the objects to the words.
Use total physical response to build the recognition of the verb and the word.

Waters:
Social language develops very quickly with interaction amongst their peers, the curriculum language takes longer (up to six years) to develop. Many of the students are also coming into the system with little schooling in their background or sometimes large gaps in their schooling (due to civil war in their former country).

Ogden:
ELL staff have two roles, one to teach the students and one to teach the teachers
kudos to the ELL teachers and to all the staff to make this program so successful

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