Lakeland Catholic School District (LCSD) students needing a little help learning the English language are being given more opportunities to succeed.
In 2018, the district had 175 coded English Language Learners (ELL). These students work with staff to absorb the language through activities.
Anna Deligianis, English as a Second Language (ESL) coach for LCSD, explained during their board of trustees meeting on Thursday, April 25, how she assesses students joining their district before they enter the classroom, something that wasn’t always done perviously.
“We’ve been able to code a lot more students, we’ve been able to find them, we’ve been intentionally assessing them at intake, so we’re finding them right away, getting to them, and assessing them. That’s just evidence of the huge increase in our ELL,” expressed Deligianis, adding ELL is part of the LCSD inclusive education program.
She continued, “Before ESL intake existed, there was no consistency with our codes. Some of these students were coded, others weren’t. Some were going into French Immersion, there really wasn’t consistency in our coding, each school had a different agenda.”
Since 2016, the number of ELL students has grown. Starting with 138, two more joined LCSD in 2017, but not all went through the intake system.
What this meant, Deligianis said, is “there were no formalized assessments when our new ELL were coming into our district, so our teachers didn’t know what English level proficiency they were at when they were coming into the classroom.”
At the time, each school had their own way of integrating these students, but that all changed when Deligianis implemented a plan across LCSD, and it goes beyond helping the students.
“Our families now, with our intake, go through a questionnaire. We find out more information about them and share that information with teachers and school teams,” stated Deligianis. “The cultural liaison provides follow through support, so she does a lot of phone calls, navigating the community, and finding information for our ELL families.”
Coding has also become standard, so teachers know the language levels of their ELL students before they enter the classroom.
“We’re more intentional about programming for the students and figuring out what classes they might go to or options they might take,” added Deligianis.
In order to help students learn the language, Deligianis uses multiple techniques such as sentence frames and visuals.
“This year, I have compiled, focused, and practiced a few strategies that I wanted to be intentional on. It’s still a work in progress, but I think so far, it’s going pretty good,” she noted.
Deligianis explained how transitioning into English-speaking schools can be difficult for ELL students.
In some cases, they struggle because they can’t express their thoughts and ideas.
She stated, “It’s a really hard transition for some of them. The strategies I try and share with teachers are strategies they might have already been using, but we’re enhancing them.”
Deligianis is working on creating an ELL tool kit for teachers to access. That way if they do have a non-English speaking student, they have a place to go to access resources that could help.
Students will be able to sign out cultural or first language books, depending on their age. With financial assistance through a cultural grant, Deligianis was able to purchase several books to disperse throughout their schools.
LCSD speech-language pathologist Krista Ralph also supports ELL students.
“I’m working with students in a variety of ages, from preschool to high school, in a variety of communication areas. There’s quite a lot of diversity in the areas of need,” explained Ralph.
In some cases, Ralph finds students work better one-on-one, but there’s also an opportunity to collaborate with teachers by doing it in the classroom.
“I would like to move more away from the traditional pull-out model to the more classroom inclusive model,” she continued.
In the case of one student who only speaks in vowels and the letters ‘n’ and ‘m’, Ralph breaks things down into really discreet steps.
”You can imagine what it was like when he tried to express something, because he had a lot to say… but no one could understand. He was a student that needed to be taken out so I could teach him how to make the sounds,” she added.
”That’s the traditional model,” Ralph noted.
She also uses a chart in order to help the student express himself.
“This core board has 36 of the most widely used words in the English language that he can use to point to make his message clear,” described Ralph. “Students learn to use this the same way they learn to use words, we model it for them and show them.”
Other visuals help non-English speaking students learn actions, such as cleaning up or turning the page of a book.
Ralph explained how by showing them a direction using visuals, ELL students are not only learning the language, but are behaving differently overall.
“It’s amazing how these visuals help impact, not only their understanding, but their behaviour. If they come to school not able to communicate very well and not understanding, we can see how behaviours can increase, but once they understand, ‘okay, I only have to do this for a little bit and then I get to do this,’ you start to see the behaviours go down because they know what’s expected of them.”
Social language is also a teaching point for Ralph, who works with students on the importance of making eye contact, playing with others, and taking turns.
“We have a few students in our district with selective mutism. It’s really an anxiety disorder, but it’s related to speech and language. They can speak fluently and very well, but selectively,” Ralph detailed. “They might speak normally at home with their families, but as soon as they enter the doors of the school, they say absolutely nothing. For some of our students, it’s been like that for years,” she noted. “You can see how that can impact not only their school life, but their teachers and their peers as well.”
