ESL

Star Tribune Sun, 27 Apr 2008 02:59:26 GMT
Second thoughts on ESL programs

With more immigrants, Burnsville-Eagan-Savage schools will reconsider how it teaches English to them. With growing numbers of immigrants moving into the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District, the number of students using English as a Second Language programs has almost tripled in the past decade. Burnsville-Eagan-Savage District students this year speak 57 languages and dialects, and a little more than one out of every eight students use ESL services. Since the 1997-98 school year, however, the district's total enrollment has declined and the district has tried to better coordinate its curriculum, rather than leave it up to each school. ... Committee members wanted to include a program, based on one in the St. Paul School District, that puts kindergarten students learning English in an all-day kindergarten program. Students would spend a half-day in the mainstream classroom, focusing on reading and literacy development, and a half-day with an ESL teacher focusing on oral language development. St. Paul's program has been successful, the committee's report said, because it gets to students when they're young. Instead, Novak said, the district is focusing on the professional development and content-based courses to help comprehension.

[[keywords: Schools;Metro;]]