General Philosophy towards instruction of English Essays - Education

General Philosophy towards instruction of English Learners. Ethel I Baker Elementary lies within the Sacramento City Unified School District. While the schools website does not offer a philosophy statement the Sacramento City Unified School District website lists a Learner Master Plan. The plan claims: "To provide the district and the schools with a clear statement of policies related to the development, implementation, and evaluation of English learner programs and services;" "To provide specific procedural guidelines for the identification, assessment, and placement of students; reclassification of students; notification and involvement of parents;" "the formation and functioning of the District English Learner Advisory Committee and site English Learner Advisory Committee; the annual evaluation of English learner programs; and the use of state and federal funds for EL programs and services; "In addition to aligning policies and procedures with current state and federal mandates, the district has created an "EL Electronic Toolbox," in which schools will find a variety of forms and other documents that were previously included as part of the district's EL Master Plan." Assessment of the English Learners/ Re-designation criteria of English Learners . At Ethel Baker Elementary all students who enter the school are administered the CELDT, the California English Language Development Test, to gauge their proficiency with English. They administer this test within the students first 6 days of instruction if the student's home language is one other than English and the test is re-administered every year until the child tests as "proficient" in English and moves beyond the "beginner" in English level. I could not find any information about the school's particular re-classification policies but I was able to confirm that they adhire strictly to the distrits policy of re-classification which is stated on their website: "Reclassification is the process that determines whether an English learner should be reclassified as Fluent English Proficient (R-FEP). Reclassification relies on evidence demonstrating that the student has achieved a level of English proficiency comparable to that of average native speakers of English in the district and is achieving and sustaining a level of academic achievement with students whose native language is English. District reclassification policies and procedures are aligned with California Department of Education guidelines." Number of English Learners in the district by language? SCUSD's demographics by language are as follows for EL students: 61% - Spanish 14.63% - Mong 6.10% - Cantonese 2.65% - Marshallese 2.61% - Vietnamese 2.06% - Russian 1.53% - Mandarin 1.18% - Other Non-English languages What instructional programs do they provide? The schools main method of instruction for EL students is Structured English Immersion Ethel Baker Elementary offers specialized instruction for their EL students that is provided by Mrs. Orvidal, the spouse of a faculty member at the school, she is a bilingual instructional aide who is fluent in English and Spanish. This is a full time faculty member who services any and all of the schools EL students. School or classroom organization to facilitate such differentiation. Mr. Saechou is one example of an instructor using student placement and seating arrangement to help organize his classroom in a way that benefits his EL students as well as himself. He placed his EL student in need of the most help with English next to a student who is proficient in both English and Spanish and performing at grade level in English. By having a friend nearby to help translate or clear up any confusion the students can work together Mr. Saechou himself has stated the negative aspects of this strategy and made it a point to not ground ALL of his EL students together and to not let these two students in particular keep each other from completing work. The desks in his classroom are formed into little clusters of 5 or 6, the cluster closest to his desk at the front of the classroom is where his student in need of the most help with English sits. This allows him to monitor her more closely and also offer little bits of help when he can. He also has a Spanish-Engilsh dictionary on hand for "emergency situations." In addition, Mr. Saechou makes use of visual aides as often as he can, he engages the entire class in discussions instead of singling out a student or a cluster of desks, he asks students to