New Adventures

Charter School

Welcome, students!

Welcome to New Adventures!

Our school is in Pennsylvania and there are five

grade levels; they are grades one through five.
There are four different languages spoken
throughout the school. The students begin school
at 8:10am and end at 2:20pm.
Each classroom has one lead teacher and the ELL
support teachers come in throughout the day to
assist the lead teacher.
There is a school wide behavior plan that all
classroom teachers in the school must enforce.
The lead teacher in each grade teaches all
subjects: language arts, math, social studies, and
science; the students do not switch.

Here is our schedule

Grade
One

Grade Grade
Two
Three

Language
Arts

90 Min.

90
Min.

Lunch

10:3011:20

10:3011:20

Science

30 Min.

30
Min.

Social
Studies

30 Min.

Math

90 Min.

Special

40 Min.

Grade
Four

Grade
Five

90 Min. 90 Min.

90 Min.

11:3012:20

11:3012:20

30 Min. 40 Min.

40 Min.

30 Min. 40 Min.

40 Min.

90
Min.

90 Min.

90 Min.

90 Min.

40
Min.

40 Min. 40 Min.

40 Min.

30
Min.

11:3012:20

Funding
Our school has funds to hire 5 teachers for ELL
support.
We incorporate programs like the English Language
Acquisition State Grants and the Pull-in English
program.
Our school uses these funds to implement language
instruction designed to help ELL students achieve
academically.

English Language
Acquisition State Grants

According to the article, U.S Department of Education the author

says, This program is designed to improve the education of
Limited English Proficient (LEP) children and youths by helping
them learn English and meet challenging state academic content
and student academic achievement standards. (U.S.
Department, 2016).

This program helps ELL students succeed academically through

direct instruction from support teachers.

The program involves the states annual measureable

achievement objectives for ELL students that measure their
success in achieving English language proficiency and meeting
the content and achievement standards.

Pull-in English
Another program that our school implements is a Pull-in
English Program where the ELL teacher and the
classroom teacher work together with ELL students. The
students will stay in the classroom and will work with the
teachers to receive the best academic success possible.
Our school use three positive strategies to help our ELL
students.

Pull- in English
Strategies
1. Team Teaching: involves classroom teacher and ELL
support teacher to deliver lesson with the ELL teacher
focusing on scaffolding the ELL students.
2. Small Group Instruction: ELL teacher pulls ELL students in a
small group in the classroom to help scaffold them during
independent work or reteach the lesson.
3. One-on-One Instruction: ELL teacher sits with an ELL
student one-on-one to assess reading and writing skills
during independent reading or writing time.

Assigning an ELL Student

to a Classroom

There are 20 ELL students throughout the school all who are either stage one
pre-production and stage two early production.
Our max of ELL students per classroom is four because we do not want the
classroom teacher to be overwhelmed even though we have ELL support. We
assign ELL students to a classroom based on their grade, students already
assigned to the class, and the classroom teacher.
We try to mix the stages of production for each classroom; we do not want all
stage one learners in one classroom and stage two in another. The idea is to
have ELL students learn from their classmates and their experiences.
ELL students are assigned based on teachers who know how to support ELL
students and make sure they succeed. Ideally all of our teachers can but there
will be teachers who are more experienced than others and students who need
more help will be assigned to that teachers classroom.
Once we assign a student a classroom and we find that things may not work
out and the student is not succeeding as much as we would like, we are willing
to change his/her classroom to try something new.

Parent Involvement

Parent involvement in our school is very strong. The parent teacher association
(PTA) invites parents to participate in many school event such as bake sales,
assemblies, and school dances. Teachers are encouraged to include parents in their
childs learning.

When communicating with parents who speak different languages, our school is
encouraged to send emails and letters in families native language so they can
understand what is written. In order to support families, our school offers a variety of
different activities parents can participate in. As a school, we are sensitive to
different culture.

We understand that every family has a different background; therefore

implementing diversity is key to having successful parent involvement. Every week
our teachers host a parent as teacher meeting to help parents learn what is being
discussed in the classroom. Parents become teachers in their homes. This will help
them assist their child with schoolwork. During these meetings, there is a bilingual
teacher who is there to translate information to parents in their native language.

Our Approach to
Instruction

Our approach to instruction is a hybrid

form. We use Bilingual and English
Education throughout our school. The
hybrid approach is more effective
because we reach all students not just
one group. We are sensitive to
everyones cultures and would like to
give our students unlimited
opportunities to succeed. The three
strategies we will embed into our
instruction are: SIOP lesson planning,
incorporate words from students native
language into lessons and activities,
and introduce new vocabulary into
meaningful ways.

SIOP Plan

We chose to implement the SIOP lesson plan

into our school because the number of English
learners is increasing in schools across the
United States. It is our job as educators to seek
effective ways to help them succeed in K-12
ESL, content area, and bilingual classrooms.
Research shows that when teachers fully
implement the SIOP Model, English learners'
academic performance improves (SIOP-Learn
about SIOP). In addition, teachers report that
SIOP-based teaching benefits all students, not
just those who are learning English as an
additional language. SIOP instruction also
benefits students learning content through
another language. CAL has conducted
research on adapting the SIOP Model for use in
two-way immersion (dual language) programs.

Native Language

Next, we picked to incorporate students native

language throughout lessons because
students native language has a huge
influence on the way they learn English
(Robertson, Supporting ELLs in the
Mainstream classroom: Language Tips).
Knowing the students native language will
help instruction because we can provide extra
support for the students to learn English words
because there may be some English-Spanish
cognates. Our instruction will help students
because teachers can provide a model how to
say things in English but use students native
language as a resource (Robertson,
Supporting ELLs in the Mainstream
classroom: Language Tips).

Vocabulary

Finally, we decided to embed vocabulary in a meaningful way to students because it is a key

for students to understand what students read and hear in school. There are many important
strategies for teaching vocabulary in a meaningful way. Students need to have correct
grammar to communicate successfully with their peers.

According to article, Vocabulary and Its Importance in Language Learning the author says
Vocabulary is central to English language teaching because without sufficient vocabulary
students cannot understand others or express their own ideas (Vocabulary and Its
Importance in Language Learning). Students need to know vocabulary in order to read and
write correctly. Vocabulary is very important for all ages of students.

According to the article mentioned above, the author says, Wilkins (1972) wrote that
while without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be
conveyed(Vocabulary and Its Importance in Language Learning, pp.111112). This is very
important because people will not be able to hold a conversation if they have no knowledge of
vocabulary (Shoebottom). Vocabulary is also important to embed because it helps students
with writing to learn. When students have a stronger vocabulary the students will be able to
write stronger using a more sophisticated vocabulary.

School Community
Our school is a community. In our
community, we have rules to help us get
along with each other.
Our rules are:

Be respectful and responsible.

Be organized and follow directions.
Be on time.
Be prepared.

Field Trips
We have a lot of fun field trips planned for
this year!

We will attend two plays at the Childrens Theater

as part of our reading units.
We will visit Nay Aug and take water samples
from the river as part of our science unit on the
environment.
We will tour a bakery as part of our social studies
unit on community.

Lets Have a Great Year!

References

Robertson, K. (n.d.). Supporting ELLs in the Mainstream

Classroom: Language Tips. Retrieved November 8, 2016, from
http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/supporting-ells-mainstreamclassroom-language-tips
Shoebottom, P. (n.d.). The importance of vocabulary. Retrieved
November 8, 2016, from http://esl.fis.edu/parents/advice/vocab.htm
SIOP-Learn about SIOP. (n.d.) Retrieved November 8, 2016.
http://www.cal.org/siop/about/
Vocabulary and Its Importance in Language Learning. (n.d.).
Retrieved November 8, 2016, from http://
www.tesol.org/docs/books/bk_ELTD_Vocabulary_974
ELL Programs. (n.d.). Retrieved November 8, 2016, from
http://www.washoeschools.net/Page/1933
English Language Acquisition State Grants. (n.d.). Retrieved
November 9, 2016, from
http://www2.ed.gov/programs/sfgp/index.html?exp=0