Learning the language: Cape schools program helps students grasp English

Details come slowly. At first, all Ashley Hardin knows is a name.

Hardin learns the girl arrived from Honduras and has never before been in school. The student speaks Spanish, but can't read it. She hasn't been taught that letters form words, have specific sounds or are read from left to right. She knows no English but "hello."

School has been in session for a month and Hardin, a fifth-grade teacher at Central Middle School, is still learning how the student came to America and what life was like in Central America.

Years ago, teachers would have panicked to have an English Language Learner in their class, ELL teacher Elzena Simmons said. But after a decade of the program, most general education teachers have worked with such a student. This year, 55 students speaking eight languages other than English are enrolled in the Cape Girardeau School District.

The program that started with one teacher leading an hour of special instruction for those learning English now has three full-time teachers.

"We don't get as many 'Oh my God, what am I going to do with this kid' questions," Simmons said.

In Hardin's class, a bilingual student helps translate, and Hardin allows her English Language Learner student to work on puzzles or activities appropriate for her level.

ELIZABETH DODD ~ edodd@semissourian.com English as a second language teacher, Lana Andrews, helps Carlos Salas, 17, with a worksheet on how to get a job at Central High School Friday. Salas came back to the U.S. two years ago after living in Mexico for 13 years knowing little English. Salas is now a senior and plans on attending Southeast Missouri University.

Cape Girardeau's program is about 90 percent immersion-based, meaning students are placed in a regular classroom for a majority of their day. A portion is spent with an ELL teacher in a small-group environment.

"It's not sink or swim. It's structured immersion. Teachers make accommodations," said Lana Andrews, the district's first ELL teacher. Teachers are encouraged to use repetition and plenty of visuals during a lesson.

But while a teacher may provide fewer choices on a multiple-choice test or a word bank for a fill-in-the-blank quiz, students are not afforded the same accommodations on the Missouri Assessment Program test, given in the spring.

MAP test scores are used to classify schools as succeeding or failing under the No Child Left Behind Act. Migrant students are exempt from communication arts their first year, but still must take math and science. The result is an increasing emphasis on limited English-speaking students nationwide.

Early learners

In Linda Sacha's closet of a classroom at Clippard Elementary School, three kindergarten Hispanic girls sidle up to a table, smiling eagerly. Sacha distributes stickers and a printout book about fall titled "Where is the leaf?"

They are instructed to place the leaf sticker in the box, on the dog and finally under the table. The girls chatter at every opportunity, sharing stories about their fall experiences depicted in the pictures.

Sacha, a former speech therapist, likes to create lessons around themes. She understands her students' stress of constantly having to work double duty in their homerooms and strives to make class challenging but relaxing. Sacha is still nursing a burn on her finger from making caramel apples at home for her students last week.

"I picked apples" Maria Rodriguez, 5, tells classmate Citlali Miranda, describing how her father had to lift her. Rarely do they have to pause to think about a word or pronunciation, and speak English with ease.

This is not the case with all of Sacha's students. More frequently, the three teachers say, children are arriving in their classes who are not literate in their primary language and at 8, 9, or 10 years old are new to school.

Simmons, a former Parents as Teachers educator who used to run a day care, had to rummage through her attic to find preschool games appropriate for some of her fifth and sixth graders this year. Her closet-sized classroom at the middle school is packed with educational games, books, charts and puzzles she has made.

She organizes brown-bag lunches periodically for parents, where she encourages them to read and speak to their children in their native language. As it takes nine to 10 years to be academically fluent and literate in a second language, the teachers' fear is a child graduating who is not fluent or literate in either language.

A safe environment

Almost exclusively, a migrant student's first day is awkward, intimidating and overwhelming.

"My first day of school was horrible. People would just look at me and try to talk to me but I didn't know no English ... It was really hard to understand the teachers. They were like do some worksheets but I didn't know what to do because I didn't know no English," said Liliana Cuahutle, a senior who moved from Puebla, Mexico, when she was 12.

None of the ELL teachers speak a second language. "That's one of the biggest misconceptions," Andrews said. Instead, they communicate through dictionaries, pocket translators, visuals and hand gestures.

Each teacher focuses on creating a comfortable, safe and welcoming environment, where it is OK to make mistakes.

Some students don't start participating or speaking in their regular classes for up to a year, the teachers said. The transition from middle school to junior high can be traumatic and a setback for some. In junior high, the student must manage eight classes with eight different teachers.

While at the elementary level Sacha focuses on phonemic awareness and vocabulary, and at the middle school Simmons introduces more grammar concepts. By junior high and high school Andrews' lessons are entirely content based. Andrews has to be well-versed in nearly every subject at each grade level, although she relies on students to teach each other occasionally.

"You have to make a connection with the student and build on prior knowledge," Andrews said.

Seiya Miyata, 13, is a seventh-grade student from Japan adjusting to the junior high. Andrews and Simmons have junior high students write middle school students to practice writing and to foster a bond.

When he first arrived four years ago, Miyata only knew "hello, goodbye and thank you," but he now excels in math and feels more comfortable communicating.

His father works for BioKyowa, a company that has brought many English Language Learners to Cape Girardeau over the years, the teachers said. Southeast Missouri State University also attracts international graduate students and their families. A Mexican population is also growing as people settle and later bring their extended families here.

This year, 55 students are in the ELL program, a decrease from 79 during the 2006 to 2007 school year, which could be due to the lagging economy.

"Whenever there's slow growth in the job force we see a lull in growth," Andrews said.

Still, district officials expect to see more ELL students as the year progresses; students' arrival often doesn't correspond with the school calendar.

Rewarding work

While challenging, watching the rapid progress of English Language Learners is the most rewarding part of their jobs, Andrews, Sacha and Simmons said.

The first time a student writes a complete sentence, or feels comfortable enough to raise their hand in class, or even speaks in English feels monumental, they said.

Hardin volunteered to teach the student from Honduras after a positive experience with an ELL student the year before. "I was scared to death to have the little boy I had. But just to see the improvements he made, and to see him challenging himself to better himself and learn, I wanted that again," she said.

Rarely are there discipline problems, Andrews said, because the students see attending school and learning English as a privilege.

"I am in awe how [the new students] can sit in class all day and not understand a word being said ... I admire them so much. I think they are so brave," Sacha said.

lbavolek@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123

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