by Leah Schroeder ‘13 and Darby Whitehair ‘12

Imagina que tú estás en un país hispanohablante y que estás en una clase y la profesora está hablando, pero no puedes entender lo que ella está diciendo. Es posible que tú puedas aprender un poco en las clases de ciencias o matemáticas, pero ¿piensas que tú podrías tener éxito en las clases de historia e inglés?

Most could not imagine going to school in a different country not knowing the language. This is a small taste of what ESOL kids experience every day.

“We have a one-size-fits-all approach to graduation requirements and what a diploma signifies in this state, but it doesn’t really ‘fit’ all students–it’s not fair to expect students who move to the United States not speaking a word of English at age 16 to be culturally and linguistically competent … especially if the education with which they arrived was less than stellar to begin with,” said ESOL resource teacher Laura Bernard-Sanchez.

In 2011, the Limited English Proficient (LEP) subgroup at Sherwood failed to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in reading proficiency by 15.1 percent. This marks the second year in a row that the LEP subgroup and the school, as a whole, has failed to meet AYP standards. As a result, Sherwood is in the Developing Stage, which requires a school to develop a formal action plan that will help it meet AYP targets.

There are five levels to being an ESOL student, ranging from base beginners to advanced. In order to exit the program one must either pass the highest level ESOL class or score “Advanced” on the English proficiency test that is given each spring. The amount of time spent in the program differs for each student. After exiting the program, one is still considered an ESOL student for two years. Sherwood serves as an ESOL center with approximately 200 students, five teachers and one part-time paraeducator. As a whole, the ESOL students represent 37 countries.

“Many of the ESOL students are amazing; they have good insight, good critical thinking and reasoning skills—but sometimes expressing these ideas ‘perfectly’ is difficult because they don’t have the vocabularies,” said Patty Jasnow, English 10 Bridge teacher. “Yet I do not think it’s at all fair to expect students, some of whom have only been in the country for two to three years, to be fluent enough to take the same test that native-born students with 11 years of U.S. education take. I think the fact that so many of the ESOL students do pass is amazing and is a testament to some of the hard work some of these kids put into learning the language.”

Senior Kriscia Lopez Aguilar came to the United States from El Salvador last year. In her native country, she was taught solely the basics of English; however, that did not keep her from pursuing her interest in it. Since kindergarten, Lopez Aguilar has been teaching herself English by listening to song lyrics. As a result, she started as an ESOL 5 student and was able to pass the English HSA.

“Even though English is hard because it is a different language from what I speak, which is Spanish, I really like it. The HSA wasn’t hard, it was just long. You just need to be practicing your reading and looking up words you don’t know in the dictionary. I would tell other ESOL students to keep trying to learn English. It’s okay if you cannot say or pronounce the words the way you would like to. Don’t give up,” said Lopez Aguilar.

As a result of repeatedly failing to meet AYP standards, the school enacted several strategies, including hosting HSA workshops during the day and after-school HSA blitzes, and improved instruction that would better prepare students for standardized testing. One effort to help ESOL students is the English 10 Bridge course, in which students complete the common tasks of English 10 while working on test-taking strategies.

After failing the English HSA last year, senior Marie-Yolaine Heles is now enrolled in the English 10 Bridge class as well as the HSA workshop where she practices reading, improves her vocabulary and completes test preparation activities.

“When I came here, they put me in ESOL 1 to learn vocabulary. That’s what is so difficult for me. When you speak another language and you never speak English, it’s difficult to learn,” said Heles. “The first time [I took the English HSA] it was hard for me, but now my grade improved. I think maybe the next one will be better.”

Many of the methods to improve ESOL students’ scores focus on individual learning. In his first year here, Principal Bill Gregory emphasized this point in the school vision statement. “Some people were saying ‘Rigor for all, respect for all.’ I posed I don’t believe in rigor for all, I believe in rigor for each. If I talk about ‘each’ I will get to ‘all’, if I talk about ‘all’ I can miss some. Our job as educators is to equalize the field,” said Gregory.

ESOL students have certain accommodations when taking the HSA, including extra time. Junior Cesar Martinez passed both the Algebra and Biology HSAs on the first try. He has not yet taken the English HSA. “I didn’t need to study that much [for the Algebra and Biology HSAs]. I had extra time as an ESOL student and did not have to rush it. If I pay more attention to the class and if I pay more attention to the vocabulary, [the English HSA] won’t be that bad. But if I need extra time, I know I have it,” he said.

Unless federal requirements change, schools will have to attain 100-percent proficiency in math and reading by 2014. “I think it’s inevitable that eventually all schools in MCPS will not meet AYP because the percentage and expectation is unrealistic; you can’t get 100 percent of high school students to even attend school every day, how can you expect 100 percent to ever pass something, especially a difficult test,” said Jasnow.