Appendix
H: Identifying
the Needs of ESOL Students
·
Firstly, the future students of Neighbor Charter School
("NCS") do not belong to any one or even several schools. There is no number to call and no
database to indicate what the needs of the students at NCS will be. Some of the students that currently
attend Slaton, West, and Guice will no doubt attend NCS. In addition, many of the students will
come from other area elementary schools such as attend Cook, Hubert, Stanton,
and McGill. Still others will be
out-of-zone transfers or students who currently attend private school.
·
Secondly, in an effort to better understand the ESOL population in
the nearby elementary schools, the principals of most of the concerned schools
were sent an e-mail in August, 2000 asking the following questions:
· How many ESOL students were there at your school?
· Of these, how many were in-zone and how many were
out-of-zone transfers?
· Of the in-zone students, what grades were they in,
what languages did they speak, and at what level of ESOL were they (beginning,
intermediate, advanced, of limited formal education)?
· Do you know how many of your in-zone ESOL students
live in Grant Park?
· How many ESOL teachers do you have at your school?
· Do you have a pull-out program? If so, is it clustered by age or by
language ability?”
These were the responses received:
·
Cook: The e-mail address for the principal of Cook bounced back as
“undeliverable”.
· West: Gail Gellman on
8/7/00 responded that West’s ESOL numbers were marginal (appx.
10-12). She also asked
West’s ESOL teacher (Dorothy Werts, shared among 4 APS schools) to
contact us with the additional information).
· Hubert: Dorothy Werts
responded (8/14/00) saying that Hubert’s ESOL enrollment varied
throughout the year between 3 and 7 students. All of
them were in zone. Most of them were Mexican and spoke Spanish. All would be
considered intermediate English students except one. Dorothy mentioned that
Gail had contacted her to get the numbers for Slaton and Guice for us. She said she would try to get that
information to us by the end of the week (late August), but we never heard from
her again.
· Slaton: Carol Wesley responded 9/9/00 (one month after
our initial request) that she would have the ESOL lead teacher gather this information for
us. We did not hear from her
again.
·
Thirdly, we tried
to contact the APS Program Facilitator for ESOL, leaving several messages on
her voice mail and with her secretary. She never returned my call.
·
Lastly, we spoke
with Mary Beth Heyer, Program Specialist for ESOL at the Georgia Department of
Education. She was very
helpful. She sent me information
on ESOL regulations (teachers required per number of ESOL students, etc.), but
had no specific information on ESOL students by school
Groupings and
Instructional Practice:
·
ESOL students at NCS will be integrated into
the regular classrooms to the fullest extent possible. Throughout the day, the ESOL teacher
will pull out ESOL students by grade level for specialized ESOL instruction. ESOL education will not be in lieu of
other non-academic developmental experiences (e.g., art, PE, music, etc.), but
will occur during a time when regular students are having language arts. Specific details of the instructional
practices of the ESOL program will be discussed and developed after the
principal, faculty, and ESOL teacher are hired. In principal, ESOL students will not be grouped according to
English language proficiency, as it is believed that ESOL students will learn
substantially from their peers who have a higher English language proficiency
level than themselves. ESOL
activities and exercises will be created in such a way that they can be
modified to serve the needs of ESOL students with different abilities and
needs.