Athens High Schools Cater ESOL Programs to Meet Teen Needs

Many high school students in Clarke County are expected to function in English when they have spoken nothing but Spanish for the first 15 or so years of their lives.

“Students usually start and complete ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) programs in elementary school,” said Vicki Krugman, director of ESOL Programs in Athens Clarke-County. “For a student to be in a high school program they might have started ESOL in middle school or they may have just recently moved to the country.”

A typical ESOL student spends three years in the ESOL program. This is the minimum time frame for accomplishing the primary goal of ESOL instruction, success in four language domains – listening, speaking, reading and writing.

“We have basic components that all teachers follow, but the actual instruction is adjusted to age level,” Krugman said. “There are things that high school students have to learn right away that apply to their specific courses. So high school ESOL programs are generally faster paced and more intensive.”

In accordance with the Title IV Act stating that schools must provide some sort of service to help English learners fully participate, all Athens-Clarke County schools offer ESOL instruction. There are clear state guidelines regarding entrance into and exit from ESOL programs, but each district has choices in the services they offer.

“The choices are based on population,” Krugman said. “So our programs will look pretty different from schools with only 10 English language learners.”

ESOL programs in Athens cater to 1,191 students who have shown need. These students account for 10 percent of the entire district school population, and 90 percent of them are of Hispanic descent.

Although some students merely come from homes that speak a language other than English, many fall into the 13.2 percent of Athens residents who moved to the U.S. within the past year.

Brittany Mackay, an ESOL tutor at Winterville Elementary, taught a number of newly settled immigrants and found that their inexperience with English crippled, or at least hindered, their capacity to learn.

“You have to constantly ask them if they understand the material,” Mackay said. “And even when they say they do they usually don’t. They’re just too embarrassed to admit that they don’t get it.”

The extent of language setbacks in non-native speakers often exceeds the time and resources of ESOL teachers. In response to this problem, the Office of Early Learning in Athens-Clarke County developed Right Start Family Literacy. This program operates under the philosophy that parents are students’ first, and often most influential, teachers.

“We serve parents of children birth to 18,” said Nancy Heiges, a Right Start Family Literacy ESOL teacher.

“They often do meet their goals. They are able to go to appointments without a translator, and they’re able to work in an English-speaking environment.”

Although many non-English speaking parents are eager to improve their language skills, the Right Start Family Literacy classes are in such high demand that Heiges must be very selective in admitting students.

“I only have space for 24 students in my classroom, and the requirements limit who I can take,” Heiges said. “They must be parents for one thing, and I have to have a certain number of parents from certain programs.”

The Right Start Family Literacy program only allows 24 students in each class, because older students often need more specified and intensive attention. Recognizing older students’ need for more concentrated ESOL instruction, Athens Clarke County uses a similar approach called the sheltered method in its high school programs.

Elementary schools typically focus on the “push in” and “pull out” approaches. In the former, regular teachers and ESOL instructors deliver content to children during their normal class. The latter method involves tutors pulling kids out of class for intense English instruction.

“I personally like the sheltered method better,” said Carla Horne, an ESOL instructor at Cedar Shoals High School, “because there’s too much commotion and distraction involved with going into a classroom.”

Sheltered classes included only non-native speakers. They cater to a specific subject, like 10^th grade English, and focus instruction on the content that would normally be assigned in that class’s curriculum.

“They all need help writing so no one feels embarrassed or uncomfortable,” Horne said of her ESOL English literature class. “In the sheltered method we’re all together and we’re all a family.”