All students fill out a language survey upon registering for school. Any student who has a language other than English on this survey will be assessed for English proficiency using the W-APT screener within the first two weeks of school. Parents of ESL students must be notified within the first 30 days of school, if the child qualifies for ESL services.

 

As required by federal law, all classroom teachers are responsible for modifying and adapting their teaching to meet the needs of English Language Learners. This does not mean lowering the standards of what is taught, merely changing HOW it is taught. Lessons need to be content embedded using visuals, modeling, scaffolding, language AND content objectives, lots of interaction, lots of student discussion, clearly defined expectations, and lots of review. Assessments should be broken into smaller units that are language friendly. This will benefit ALL students, including gifted students, as they will be able to interact with the material at their level and grow from there in their understanding. Please refer to the Mainstream Teacher Binders in the teacher resource library for ideas on working with ELL students and modifying assessments.

 

All teachers are responsible for collecting authentic work samples from the English Language Learners. These work samples will be kept in a portfolio

            Good samples of student work are raw samples (uncorrected) and are:

            Generated individually (not group work)

            Not a work sheet

            Correlate to the content standards

            Demonstrate higher order thinking skills

            Show the student’s thought process

Every year there are 8-10 required samples of original student work which must be assessed in the portfolio. By the end of the year we need: 2 work samples per content area for language arts, math, science, and social studies (8 samples) plus one reading sample and one writing sample.

 

These samples must be turned in to the ESL teacher by the end of the year. These will become part of the English Language Learner’s portfolio. Content area teachers and an ESL teacher will meet within the first 30 days of school to examine work samples from the portfolio of the ELL student. The team will write an individual plan with goals for the ELL student for the academic year. All teachers are responsible for helping the student achieve his/her goals. If a student is failing to work toward goals, teachers must notify the ESL coordinator, who will contact parents.

 

The ESL teacher for your building is here to assist you in working with the ELL students in your class. She can help in lesson preparation and team teaching. She also has different resources that you can use to teach in some of the content areas. If you have any questions, please contact the ESL teacher in your building.