Hazleton (PA): District still struggles with ESL

[Harold Schiffman]

District still struggles with ESL
Sunday, 16 March 2008
By SAM GALSKI
Staff Writer

Pattie Craig knows the ins and outs of Hazleton Area School District's
English as a Second Language program.  She can rattle off when the
first notable influx of non-English-speakers came to Hazleton Area
schools, the native language they spoke and where they came from.The
influx first began roughly six years ago and has been steady since,"
she recalled and said students enrolled in the program are
predominantly from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Mexico.
Hazleton Area's ESL program was launched in the early 1990s with one
teacher and a handful of students. In the 1993-94 school year, the
district reported its first substantial student count to the state
Department of Education – 67 students, less than 1 percent of the
entire district enrollment.

Five years later, ESL enrollment cracked triple digits, climbing to
101 students. And it continued to swell, requiring more instructional
staff and personnel for reaching out to students and their
families.The school board asked Director of Curriculum and Development
Deb Carr to turn in monthly ESL enrollment reports so it could better
monitor growth.
Craig, a long-time ESL teacher, eventually transitioned to an
assistant orientation coordinator who registers students and tests
them to determine English proficiency levels. She works closely with
Carr and helps to arrange staff training and parent meetings. When the
influx started, there was so much time taken out of instruction for
registration and testing that they needed someone just to do that,"
she explained. The numbers kept growing. As of early March, 1,086
Limited English Proficient students were enrolled in Hazleton Area's
ESL program. Total district enrollment was 10,200 about a week ago.


Responding to growth
The ESL program today has 24 teachers (including Craig) and two
bilingual community liaisons.
But adjusting to the needs of a diverse student population has been a
challenge, Carr said.
"It's quite a juncture when the numbers have grown so large," she
said. "We need to establish a balance so we don't have any one
classroom overloaded with need. This has been a learning curve."
On Wednesday, 18 Hazleton Area ESL instructors attended a daylong
training program headed by Dr. Rebecca Freeman-Field, an adjunct
professor at University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of
Education.
Freeman-Field advises teachers and administrators in the United States
and abroad about bilingual education, language policy and program
development, implementation and evaluation.
She routinely attends training programs offered by Hazleton Area as it
continues working to meet the needs of a diverse student population.
Hazleton Area's ESL teachers were the students at the session.
Freeman-Field worked with them on ways to get mainstream teachers more
involved in educating Limited English Proficient students.
"We're trying to teach mainstream teachers to make content
comprehensible for students," Freeman-Field explained. "The challenge
– the way the school is structured, ESL and mainstream teachers don't
have opportunities to collaborate. The school district needs to make
some structural changes."
Dozens of pages of notes were tacked to the walls of a conference room
used for the training program, with Freeman-Field asking teachers to
consider several issues when reaching students.
She asked them to consider a student's English proficiency level,
cultural background, where they are from and their literacy skills.
Writing development was one of several issues covered at the training session.
Informational packets and work sheets were distributed to teachers,
who were asked to reflect on writing instruction methods and how they
could be incorporated into mainstream programs.
Teachers were asked to list the strengths and needs of their
respective writing instruction strategies and share them with other
staff members.
The idea, Carr said, is to develop ideas for the classroom that ESL
staff could share with other teachers.
"We have to retrain our teachers to look at ELL (English Language
Learner) students and ensure education is there for all children,"
Carr said.
Training opportunities will be available for ESL staff members who did
not attend Wednesday's program, Carr said.


The orientation process
Craig has a long list of responsibilities that include testing
incoming students, placing them according to English proficiency
levels, coordinating discussion between guidance counselors and
students, assisting in parent conferences and monitoring student
progress.
She assists two bilingual liaisons in translating documents and
publishing informational items in local media outlets that target
non-English-speakers.
When a student registers, Craig administers speaking, reading and
writing assessments.
"I can tell if they're non-English (speakers), non-reading or if their
writing is limited," she said.
Tests are administered to students at all grade levels to determine
English proficiency.
Spanish assessments also are given to determine if a student who might
not be proficient in English understands course content material,
Craig said.
"A lot of the students have interrupted education or a lack of
education," she said.
Some are registered as non-English speakers while others arrive at the
district having taken English classes offered in the Dominican
Republic, she explained.
Those who take the preparation program generally are competent readers
and writers while those who don't could take between five and seven
years to "develop a vocabulary," she said.
"First they learn a social language and then they learn an academic
language," she said. "It varies, but it can take up to seven years (to
learn)."
Although Spanish is predominantly the language spoken by Limited
English Proficient students, Carr said that some speak Russian,
Romanian, Chinese and Punjabi/Panjabi (common in regions of India and
Pakistan).
For that reason, certain classes are equipped with CyraCom phones,
which have dual headsets and can translate 150 languages.
Carr commended all teachers for working "very, very hard" to meet the
needs of students – despite a lack of classroom space at schools and
limited resources and personnel.
"They've been all about trying to find solutions," Carr said of the
ESL staff. "Often times, they've been feeling like the lowest on the
totem poll. They sometimes feel blamed for all the challenges that
come with ELLs."
Adding to the challenge, she said, is that non-English speakers must
take state reading and math tests the same as any student enrolled in
regular education programs.


What's next
Carr recently asked the school board to consider expanding a Newcomers
Center program created for high school students in 2006.
The original program is offered at the Hazle Building by teachers
certified in both ESL and core subjects such as history, math, civics,
art and physical education. Some classes are offered at Hazleton Area
High School.
English is emphasized while core content is taught.
Students can "test out" and attend regular education courses when they
reach top proficiency levels.
Carr recently suggested offering the program to seventh- and
eighth-grade students at the Hazleton, Heights-Terrace and West
Hazleton elementary/middle schools – three schools with the highest
ESL concentrations at those grade levels.
Offering the program to those students would be logical because
earlier grade levels have more of a focus on comprehension, she said.
The school board has yet to vote on the request.

http://www.standardspeaker.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7043&Itemid=2

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