ESL programs help remove language barriers

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BANGOR – High school English teacher Julie Grab often goes to great lengths to help her international students understand literature, vocabulary and grammar.

During one recent lesson the six Korean-, Chinese- and Spanish-speaking youths who make up her Bangor High School class were having trouble comprehending some of the words in a short story about the international space station, she said recently.

So Grab picked up some chalk. “Soon the blackboard was filled with marvelous illustrations and drawings of space.”

After writing each word above the corresponding picture, the teacher enunciated it and then asked the class to repeat after her.

Her efforts paid off. “They understood – there was no doubt about that,” Grab said.

The youths, who have been in the country for two years or less, are among 17 students at Bangor High School and 43 in the entire school system who receive special accommodations through English as a Second Language services.

While English-speaking students need to fulfill a foreign language requirement, ESL students need to speak English to go to school.

Specially trained instructors work one-on-one with these youngsters both in and out of the classroom, teaching them English and the curriculum at the same time.

Statewide, the number of ESL students has hovered at approximately 3,000 for the last couple of years as foreign families seek jobs, education and refuge.

“While there has not been a significant increase overall, there have been bulges in Lewiston, Auburn and South Portland at different times of the past couple of years as they have absorbed new arrivals,” said Jacqueline Soychak of the Maine Department of Education.

At Portland High School, international students represent 51 different countries and speak 33 different languages.

Bangor’s ESL population has been growing steadily for the last seven years. In 1996, 12 students were receiving ESL tutoring while in 2003 there were 47.

Confidentiality rules barred interviews with students, but administrators and teachers involved with ESL said they see a program that does a good job of helping the students who in turn work hard to succeed.

“Some students are here because their parents have come for employment,” said Murray Shulman, director of pupil services in Bangor. “One family came because a parent was a Husson College instructor. Another was a Swiss family whose parents were going to work at Lemforder.”

The countries from which the students come are as varied as the reasons their families moved to Maine. The school system has 21 ESL students from China; five each from India and from Puerto Rico; four from Korea; three from Russia; and one each from Egypt, Zimbabwe, Gambia, Romania and Georgia, a former Soviet republic.

While the nationalities tend to vary, there always has been a large Asian population, said Shulman. From time to time he has seen influxes of French Canadian students.

Determining whether students need ESL services and what type depends on a number of factors, including their age, the amount of English they know, their ability to read and write in their own language, and how well they’ve done in school in their native country, according to Laura Wittmann, ESL coordinator in Bangor.

“Some arrive with little or no English, but because they’ve been excellent students they have a framework in place and catch on much quicker,” she said. “But if they come from a refugee camp or a country that doesn’t value education for girls or from a war-torn country and didn’t go to school and don’t know how to read and write in their native language, it’s much harder because you have to teach literacy and English and content.”

Most of the instruction for a child who doesn’t know any English will be one-on-one apart from class, she said. “We need to give them enough English to communicate. Then we can start trying to place them into content-area classes.”

The goal of ESL services is to get students as quickly as possible to where they can learn English and content at the same time, said Wittmann.

Students typically receive ESL services for three to six years. While children generally pick up social English quickly, acquiring academic skills can take five to seven years.

Younger students tend to learn English faster because the focus isn’t on academics but on socialization. “It’s easier to learn the language because your peers are still learning to read and write themselves so you’re just doing what everybody else is doing,” she said.

Tammy Cormier, who teaches fourth grade at Mary Snow School in Bangor, has two ESL students in her class – one from Korea and one from China.

Her other students have benefited enormously from their contact with the international students because they’ve learned about other cultures and heard the languages read “fluently and with expression,” she said.

In addition, they have found other ways to communicate through pointing, drawing, simple speech, and enunciating words.

“One of the most important lessons the other students have taken away from their exposure to our ESL students is that you do not really know what a person is all about until you give them a chance to show you,” said Cormier. “They truly believed our students were struggling with learning, not just English. It wasn’t until they became aware of what they could do in their native language that they appreciated what they had to offer.”

Cormier’s students have welcomed their international classmates and included them in their play, she said. Youngsters here “will hopefully become tolerant adults who understand diversity and are helpful to all members of our society.”

Grab’s class marks the first time that the high school’s ESL students are together in a standard English class.

Through the class, ESL students can earn credit toward their diploma, increasing their chances of graduating from high school sooner.

Amassing enough graduation credits can be a problem for non-English-speaking students, Grab said.

Those with little or no English who must be tutored outside class don’t earn credit for those sessions, and those who have attained a higher level of English and can be mainstreamed in a regular class still may struggle and sometimes get a failing grade.

After they leave high school, many ESL students opt to enroll in adult education to obtain the remainder of the credits they need. But the new Bangor High School class enables them to get as many credits as possible before leaving public school.

“Many ESL students anticipate spending extra years in high school, but when they do move on, they get into good colleges and do well,” Shulman said.

Grab’s students receive a reduced version of the regular English curriculum and cover it at a slower pace and with different materials.

For example, they read three myths instead of six, as well as condensed, simplified versions of novels. They study vocabulary words from a lower grade level that are geared toward adolescents and that are “culturally informative” to give them life skills and help them navigate the grocery or drug store, Grab said.

In addition to drawings, she relies on a variety of techniques to get her points across, including gestures and sounds. Sometimes she asks the student who’s most proficient in English to translate.

“Then I see the light go on,” she said. “‘Oh, so that’s what she wants me to do.'”

Based on the results of a recent test, students are making progress. “It’s a very powerful achievement for them to suddenly realize that they’re doing regular classroom work and succeeding and getting credit for it,” she said.

ESL students may take longer to complete the local assessments that gauge their progress on the state’s academic standards, but many still manage to meet or partially meet the standards “because they work so hard,” she said.

“These kids never complain about work – they’re highly motivated. When they get an A they’re so excited. They know their parents are going to smile.”