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English as a New Language

Each year an ever-increasing number of students from other cultural backgrounds is enrolling in Goshen Community Schools. GCS has the largest English as a New Language (ENL) program in the state of Indiana for a school district of its size.

The goal of the ENL program is to help students from other language backgrounds learn and use English effectively, while continuing to cherish their cultural heritages, ensuring all students acquire knowledge and apply skills and enhancing tomorrow’s opportunities.

While most ENL students in Goshen speak Spanish as their primary language, the program also includes children whose first languages are Japanese, Khmer, Marshallese, Portuguese, Arabic, Russian, French, German and Cantonese. Currently the program serves Goshen High School, Goshen Middle School, and the seven elementary schools. ENL provides direct services to a total of 862 students and provides support to an additional 554 students on a consultation basis.

What is ENL Instruction?

ENL instruction is an instructional approach which requires specific and appropriate second language development goals and objectives, methodologies, instructional materials, and performance assessment instruments. The ENL curriculum runs parallel to the standard curricula. ENL is not a remedial or compensatory program and does not reteach content and skills previously taught to the students in English. Instead, it is a discipline which prepares students for integration into the English-speaking community and school as well as prepares students for learning content and thinking authentically in English.

At the elementary level, ENL teachers collaborate with mainstream teachers, using the curriculum of the classroom as a vehicle for language acquisition. Beginning level students are pulled out for basic English vocabulary instruction. First grade students who do not speak English are offered a sheltered first grade class at Chamberlain, Chandler, and Model. The middle school and high school both offer sheltered English content area classes for students who speak no English at all. Once students are fluent enough to join mainstream classes, they continue attending ENL classes for English, reading, and writing and receive tutoring in their content area classes.

Home-school Communication

Many immigrants must adjust to a different type of educational system in addition to learning a new language and getting to know the community. Parent liaisons at each school facilitate communication between schools and families. This home/school communication link includes:

• Referrals for home visits from principals, nurses, and guidance counselors
• Interpretation services for parent-teacher conferences
• Translation of notes and documents sent to students’ homes
• Parental support and education

Resources

ENL staff provide classroom teachers with ideas on how to modify curriculum and assessment for ENL students. They maintain regular contact with the classroom to coordinate ENL lessons with the curriculum of the mainstream classroom. ENL teachers also can provide school personnel with information on the diversity and rich cultural backgrounds of the ENL students within GCS.

Questions and Concerns

• Those students don’t need an ENL program. If they listen and pay attention in class, they should be able to learn English without a special ENL teacher. Besides, they understand their friends on the playground and English television programs.

Language acquisition research indicates that learners acquire a second language not through being exposed to the language, but rather through “comprehensible input.” This means that the English language learner understands the communication. Classroom strategies such as using lots of visuals and models, pre-teaching of vocabulary and concepts by the ENL teacher, and cooperative learning ensure that the students understand the classroom input.

Full proficiency in English cannot be assessed solely on the basis of social, day-to-day language that is based on everyday situations and face-to-face communication. Students in upper grades are required to use academic language in all of their content area classes. Research shows that the language proficiency needed to be successful in academic classes may take from five to seven years to develop.

• If the Latino students are allowed to speak Spanish, they will never learn English. Shouldn’t they be banned from speaking Spanish on the school grounds?

Successful language learners tap into their first language skills in order to learn the second language faster. It is stressful to be immersed in a second language all day in an academic setting. Speaking the first language allows those students to take a short rest from the stresses of listening, speaking, reading and writing a new language.

• I know ENL students who still don’t speak English correctly even after they have had ENL help. Is the ENL Program really helping the limited English proficient students?

A recent longitudinal study of the GCS ENL students shows that they are gaining a minimum of one level of English proficiency each year. There are five levels of English proficiency: Level 1 (beginner); Level 2 (early intermediate); Level 3 (intermediate); Level 4 (advanced); Level 5 (fluent). The ENL staff works hard to ensure that all ENL students reach full proficiency in English in the shortest time possible. Sometimes a student will be delayed because of his/her educational background or ability to learn.

Are the ENL students keeping the Goshen Community Schools from reaching the goals required by the state Department of Education and the federal government?

Non-English speaking immigrant students who have been attending school in the United States less than three years do not take the ISTEP. Instead, they are assessed using an alternative test provided by the State of Indiana. ENL students who have attended school in the United States for over three years participate in the ISTEP readiness classes and take the ISTEP test with the rest of the students. We are in the process of analyzing the data to determine to what extent the performance of the ENL students on the ISTEP impact GCS's overall performance.

Trends in Local ENL Population

Percent of Language Minority Students by School (2004)

Chamberlain Elementary – 48.3% (172)
Chandler Elementary – 39.1% (187)
Goshen High School –27.6% (472)
Goshen Middle School – 34.6% (481)
Model Elementary – 52.1% (354)
Parkside Elementary – 33.1% (116)
Waterford Elementary – 24.4% (143)
West Goshen Elementary – 41.1% (219)

Trends in National ENL Population

*42 states had an increase in LEP students between 1990 and 2000
*9 states had a growth of over 100%
*14 states had a growth of 66% to 100%
– from NCELA web site: www.ncela.gwu.edu

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