More students speak limited English
http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/509927.html
Samiha Khanna, Staff Writer
DURHAM - This year, nearly half the fourth-graders in Sharon Watford's class at Lakewood Elementary School speak limited English.
But when Watford told the story of "Penny the Goose" in English, everyone tuned in.
Instead of sending students who haven't mastered English out of their homerooms for reading and writing, educators say it makes more sense to let the students stay put and bring specialists into the regular classroom.
"When 60 percent of your class is ESL students, it's sort of silly to pull them out," said Kyra Raphaelidis, a teacher for the English as a Second Language program at Lakewood. "If you pull all the ESL kids from the classroom, you're left with half the class."
Across the state, the number of English language learners with limited skills jumped 40 percent from 2002 to 2005, according to the state Department of Public Instruction.
Students are classified as having "Limited English Proficiency" if they have scored below "superior" on a state-mandated test in listening, reading, writing and speaking English.
In 2005, Spanish speakers made up 70 percent of those learning English in North Carolina's public schools, followed by the speakers of the Hmong language, which originated in China, according to the state Department of Public Instruction.
The population of students learning English through the Triangle's public schools has continued to grow this year.
The greatest increase was in Johnston County, where enrollment of students with limited English grew by 19 percent. In Chatham County, the population grew 17 percent, and it rose 16 percent in Durham, according to district figures.
Durham's boost was mostly in kindergarten and first grade, said Sashi Rayasam, director of the ESL program. The increase means about 13 percent of Durham's nearly 32,000 students have limited English proficiency.
"Every year, we go up by a couple hundred, but this is our first big growth," Rayasam said.
Durham hired 11 additional teachers and three Spanish interpreters this year to serve the district's more than 4,100 students with limited English skills, she said.
At Eastway Elementary, about 150 entering kindergartners -- half the class -- speak a different language at home and had to take a language proficiency test to determine whether they needed special instruction, Rayasam said.
At Lakewood, 45 percent of the students speak limited English. Two instructors float among classrooms with the largest groups of non-native English speakers, including Watford's class. Having the teachers move around means students miss less class time.
"It's a matter of how best to serve the children and save time, rather than have them run all over the place," Watford said.
Raphaelidis comes to Watford's classroom several times a week to work with students. On Monday, the two teachers split the fourth graders into two groups to review the story of "Penny the Goose."
Both groups got the lesson in English, but the teaching techniques were different.
Watford worked with the native English speakers, reviewing characters, setting and actions in the story.
On the other side of the room, Raphaelidis did the same. But when she and the eight Hispanic students talked about the character, they looked at a sketch of a soaring goose.
When identifying the setting, they saw a drawing of the woods.
Among the children were Vepsey Rivas, 10, and her sister Claudia, 9.
Though the girls come from a Spanish-speaking household, they now communicate mostly in English in the classroom and at home, Vepsey said.
The girls do talk to their parents in Spanish but rarely use their native language in class, Vepsey told her teacher.
"You use Spanish when you don't want anyone to know what you're talking about?" Watford asked Vepsey with a smile.
"Yes," the girl said shyly, looking up from beneath her thick black bangs.
As the number of students who need help with English increases, leaders say all teachers should be tailoring their teaching techniques, and training is being offered to help them adjust.
"There's a greater awareness," said Tim Hart, senior ESL director for Wake County schools. "Everybody's an ESL teacher. Everybody's got to help teach."
The training for teachers comes in gestures as simple as tips handed out by colleagues, or as in-depth as workshops, such as the one Watford coordinated for her colleagues last summer.
Watford has taught for 30 years but is still learning how to better accommodate all her students, she said.
"It makes me think about the words I use," Watford said. "It makes me think about how to get that idea across to them, using more visuals. That's not just good for [ESL] kids. It's good for all of them."
Teachers say changing their lessons to accommodate students who speak limited English is becoming less of an exception and more of a rule.
"It ceases to be the special population and becomes the average kid," Raphaelidis said.
