Teachers help ESOL students overcome the challenges of learning a new language in a new country.

by Sam Selby ’14

Sherwood students speak 23 different languages and come from more than 47 countries all around the world. This vast variety creates some difficulties and leads to many challenges to overcome communication issues for the students and the ESOL teachers.

Teachers consider it comparable to how most students learned English during their childhoods. “It’s like learning a first language, like when you are talking to a child, you use simple word structure and vocabulary,” said Laura Bernard-Sanchez, head of the ESOL department.

Some students come to Sherwood without knowing a single English word. The five levels of ESOL classes help students to expand their knowledge of the English language in hopes of preparing them for their future in the United States. ESOL 1 starts students off with basic phrases of communication, reality and lots of pictures. It is similar to Spanish or French 1, learning real world concepts and using bilingual dictionaries.

“[We use] a lot of smiling, pointing, sketching pictures, barking like a dog, crawling under a table: basically everything non-verbal you can think of, we do,” Bernard-Sanchez explained.

Although the five ESOL levels count as the students’ English credits, they must take other required courses as well. There are sheltered classes for ESOL students in Biology, Algebra 1 and U.S. History, which only have ESOL kids to ease the pressure of a normal high school class.

“Though many of our ESOL students are very well prepared and may even be ahead of students here, others may have missed months or even years of schooling due to war, civil unrest or educational systems that lack adequate resources.  These students need to be highly motivated to overcome the challenge of catching up academically in another language,” said ESOL teacher Jane Blacka.

Although the teachers are not always able to aid students in adapting to American culture, the students are usually able to acclimate themselves. Students get involved in extracurricular activities and clubs, which helps them expand their language skills and social skills with their peers.  “They observe a lot more about our culture than we do,” said Bernard-Sanchez. “It makes me really evaluate how American society works and lets me take a step back and look at our culture and why we do the things we do.”

Foreign families typically rely a lot more on their children because they are usually able to pick up the language faster than their parents would. In this case, the students grow up a lot faster and take on adult responsibilities like calling Pepco or going to the bank. ESOL students are amazingly able to conquer many language barriers in a short period of time.