Sweet Home
High School
2014-2015
ESL Proposal
ESL Population Trends
2013-2014 ESL Population
B= Beginner
I= Intermediate
A= Advanced
2013-2014 Sections and Students
Course
Students
English Beginner ESL
Abdullah Reem (B)
Costa, Prottoy (B)
Muya, Christopher (B)
Muya, Florence (B)
English Intermediate ESL
Abdullah, Mahmood (I)
Abdullad, Reem (B)
Costa, Prottoy (B)
Muya, Christopher (B)
Muya, Florence (B)
Nguyen, Minh (I)
English Advanced ESL
Abdullah, Mahmood (I)
Abdullah, Reem (B)
Amin, Madeline (A)
Amin, Roni (A)
Attal, Huda (A)
Costa, Prottoy (B)
David, Aira (A)
David, Arva (A)
Mohammed, Helal (I)
Muya, Christopher (B)
Muya, Florence (B)
Nguyen, Minh (I)
Roh, Jiyoung (A)
Salahijang, Kiarash (A)
Vertsiakhouskaya, Dziana (A)
Younis, Abdullhak (A)
Challenges and limitations of
our current ESL program
 Offering only three sections poses significant limitations. Due to regulations,
ESL students with beginning English proficiency require three ESL courses and
students with intermediate English proficiency require two ESL courses.
Therefore, in our Advanced section, all three levels are present. Not only
does this make for a large section, the needs of the students are diverse and
there is only one instructor to meet those needs.
 There is no room in the current schedule for the ESL teacher to assist students
with other content areas and combine language instruction with academic
vocabulary in content classes.
 Our ESL instructor is teaching on an ‘island.’ There are few to no
opportunities to collaborate with other teachers who work with ESL students.
 Our language learners do not receive the benefit of learning with our
broader student population with an added benefit of learning from more
advanced levels of English proficiency.
 Our ESL students are struggling to pass required Regents Examinations
necessary for graduation, especially the English Comprehensive Exam.
2012-2013 ESL students
Comprehensive English Exam
Scores
80
70
60
65=passing
50
40
30
20
10
0
Score
What does research tell us about
our current model?
 Unfortunately, what is taught in pull-out ESL classes is often unrelated
to what is being taught in the students’ mainstream classes, which
makes the pull-out model of ESL instruction the least effective
program model for ELLs (Fu et al., 2007; Thomas & Collier, 1997;
Thomas & Collier, 1999)
 In addition, in pull-out ESL classes, especially at the secondary level,
ELLs are often grouped by language proficiency level, and students
who are in those classes are struggling readers and writers or students
who have little English language proficiency (Honigsfeld & Dove,
2008).
 In the study conducted by Thomas and Collier (1997), the pull-out ESL
program referred to two-year long programs with a focus mainly on
social language. Nevertheless, even with a broader focus of
instruction in pull-out ESL classes, ELLs miss out on the content lessons
when they are pulled out of their classrooms, because ESL and
mainstream teachers usually do not have time to collaborate and
coordinate their lessons (Mabbott & Strohl, 1992).
What can co-teaching bring to
our ESL program?
 Many schools are making a shift from ESL pull-out to ESL – mainstream
co-teaching because research suggests that co-teaching can be
one of the most effective ways to meet the needs of the growing ESL
population (Causton- Theoharis & Theoharis, 2008; Fu et al., 2007;
Honigsfeld & Dove, 2008; Mabbott & Strohl, 1992; Young, 2006).
 According to ESL researchers, ELLs acquire a second language faster
and more effectively when academic language is taught at the
same time as the mainstream content material (Dove & Honigsfeld,
2010; Short & Echevarria, 2004; Thomas & Collier, 1997).
 Since mainstream teachers usually have limited training in second
language acquisition and pedagogy, collaboration between ESL and
mainstream teachers allows ELLs to not only learn both content and
language, but also to develop socially and academically (Honigsfeld
& Dove, 2008).
How do we plan to use a full
time ESL instructor at the high
school?
Proposed Course
Students (Based on this year’s numbers)
English Beginner ESL
(2Periods of Instruction)
Abdullah Reem (B)
Costa, Prottoy (B)
Muya, Christopher (B)
Muya, Florence (B)
English Intermediate ESL
(1 Period)
Abdullah, Mahmood (I)
Abdullad, Reem (B)
Costa, Prottoy (B)
Muya, Christopher (B)
Muya, Florence (B)
Nguyen, Minh (I)
English Advanced ESL
(1 Period)
Abdullah, Mahmood (I)
Nguyen, Minh (I)
Amin, Madeline (A)
Amin, Roni (A)
Attal, Huda (A)
David, Aira (A)
David, Arva (A)
Roh, Jiyoung (A)
Salahijang, Kiarash (A)
How do we plan to use a full time ESL
instructor at the high school (continued)?
ELA 11 (Co-taught section with ELA teacher
and ESL teacher)
*targets intermediate and advanced ESL
students (1Period)
Abdullah, Mahmood (I)
Nguyen, Minh (I)
Amin, Madeline (A)
Amin, Roni (A)
Attal, Huda (A)
David, Aira (A)
David, Arva (A)
Roh, Jiyoung (A)
Salahijang, Kiarash (A)
Vertsiakhouskaya, Dziana (A)
Younis, Abdullhak (A)
Global 2 and US History(1 period dedicated to
push-in support/co-teaching support in Global
2 and US History every other day.)
Global 2
Muya, Christopher (B)
Amin, Madeline (A)
Attal, Huda (A)
David, Aira (A)
US History
Costa, Prottoy (B)
Nguyen, Minh (I)
Vertsiakhouskaya, Dziana (A)
Esaleh, Ammar
Colon, Christian
Colon, Emmanuel
Esaleh, Ammar
How will these changes
strengthen our ESL program?
Based on population
trends, each year our ESL
population grows in the
high school building.
Currently, we are
struggling to balance
State regulations with
specialized instruction.
•A full time ESL position will allow us to handle increasing class
sizes.
•A full time ESL position will allow us group students far more
effectively and keep numbers manageable.
Right now, the vast
majority of ESL instruction
pulls students out of
mainstream classes.
•A full time ESL position will allow us to couple specialized
instruction based on specific language levels and co-taught
ESL within the mainstream ELA classroom.
Our ESL students do not
receive additional
support with their
broader coursework.
•A full time ESL position will allow us to offer AIS to every ESL
student and support their language development within the
context on academic discourse and vocabulary.