Welcome to the ESL (English Second Language) web page. We currently have over 100 ELLs (English Language Learners) attending our classes throughout a week. Students come from all levels throughout the school, Years 1-6 inclusive, and from a variety of different backgrounds. Students may come for one, two, or three sessions each week to learn/ further their skills in using English in speaking, listening, reading and writing. Year 1 and 2 students come together and years 3-6 are grouped according to their individual language learning needs. Students are enriched through a variety of approaches but one thing you can be sure of, is that there is lots of talking.
So what is an ELL?
Within our ESL Department the definition of an English Language Learner can be
- someone who was born overseas and English is their second language
- he or she can also be a New Zealand born student but one or both of their parents were born overseas and English is mum and/or dads second language.
The Ministry of Education provides extra support for these students and we are delighted to be the providers of this service within our school.
TERM 2
This term in the ESL Department we have been Loving Literature through the topic of Fairy Tales. We have enriched our learning through a variety of activities and there has been lots of talking, sequencing visual pictures so that they retell a story, increasing our vocabulary, creating sentences and ultimately texts, but more importantly we have been having FUN whilst we have been learning. Some groups have even linked our fairy tales to Poetry.
At the side of this page there are links to the Fairy Tales we have focused on. These stories have been written co-operatively. The hardest part for some groups was to write ONLY ONE interesting, well-written sentence, including as much detail as possible, about each visual. Two groups wrote Acrostic Poems linked to the tale of Little Red Riding Hood. Enjoy reading what we have written. A lot of the visuals we have used are freely available on the internet.
If you would like to provide constructive feedback I can be contacted through my email address jparkes@baverstock.school.nz
Jude Parkes, Marjorie Parkes, Adelle Reynolds, and Kate Brown
ESL Teachers
(This is a work in progress, and work still has to be added.)