EAL STUDENTS ARE THOSE WHOSE FIRST LANGUAGE IS NOT ENGLISH.
With a concerted blended learning language immersion and acquisition model, our school will help EAL learners succeed.
Our EAL program has seven guiding principles:
- Allocate resources to expand EAL teachers’ reach and content while promoting higher-order learning
- Provide professional development to all staff to meet the needs of the EAL population
- Use blended learning to manage and maximize personalization and language acquisition
- Use a family-centered approach that fosters relationships with the school and supports parents’ English learning along with the student’s, as needed
- Offer differentiated instruction
- Use research-based and industry best practices for explicit language and literacy development
- Have clear entry and exit measures; upon exit from the EAL program, offer support as needed.
Our EAL program is designed to foster student success by providing instruction in the development of English skills in listening, speaking, vocabulary, reading, writing skills, and grammar. EAL support will be provided in English by a qualified EAL teacher. Whenever possible, EAL support will be provided to students in an integrated manner with mainstream classes to allow learners to stay part of their core group. “Pull out” and “Push In” language support will be determined on a case-by-case basis for each student who qualifies for the program. Specific strategies will be utilized to support students’ conversational English learning as well as academic language to access course materials.
For identified learners who need additional support, the EAL teacher will work with the student and parent to provide additional targeted support with the goal of bringing the learner to proficiency levels appropriate to their grade level.
When and as appropriate, technology will be utilized in a blended learning approach to offer personalized instruction support catered to each student’s individual needs. Technology-enabled language learning can help EAL learners improve their English skills while freeing teachers to spend more time with students in individual and group situations using immersion techniques to practice contextualized and authentic English language usage while getting immediate performance feedback from the teacher on usage and pronunciation.