The 2023-2024 school year brought the return of many ESOL students back to their homeschool. Here at Kenwood we have 150 ESOL students actively receiving English Language instruction. Our ESOL students represent 24 different countries and 11 languages!
In true Kenwood spirit, students have been signing up to be Ambassadors to the new ESOL Bluebirds to help them get to know the school and feel at home.
The increase of ESOL students at Kenwood has brought a change throughout the classrooms. Some of the positive changes has been that new students bring new perspectives and experiences to class, but the integration of ESOL students can be challenging for them and for their teachers.
This has required some adaptations and new strategies on the part of Kenwood teachers as their ESOL students aren’t just learning new material, but trying to master a whole new language at the same time! Verbal cues and directions can be difficult for ESOL students to keep up with so one strategy has been writing things down as much as possible and utilizing visual references and manipulatives. Other strategies teachers have been encouraged to use are chunking texts, highlighting, simplifying language, and giving alternate texts.
The end goal for ESOL students is not to just translate, but for students to decode the things they read. Everything they do overwhelms them with English so that they will pick up the language piece by piece whether class instruction involves listening to Ted talks, YouTube, podcasts, and reading books and articles in their classes.
A common struggle for ESOL students is that so much of what we learn and how we interact with one another is based on US culture and if you’re not familiar or comfortable with the culture yet, it can make it challenging for ESOL students to follow what is happening in class and around them.
Despite frustration that ESOL students may encounter in the transition to classes, Ms. Lalia adds, “It’s normal to be experiencing these types of feelings, but the ESOL students are resilient.”
Though our school has ESOL certified teachers that are teaching and helping our ESOL students acclimate to school here at Kenwood, teachers of all contents have to learn how to teach ESOL students, so it’s been an ongoing learning process for both students and teachers this year.
Anyone with questions or concerns can contact the ESOL Coordinator, Antonette Lalia, at 443-809-0637 or [email protected].
