By: Maleah Evans / Wichita Journalism Collaborative
There are 2,074 students in the USD 259 district who speak a language other than English at home. When they come to Wichita Public Schools they enroll in the English for Speakers of Other Languages program, which teaches them English while making sure they remain on track to graduate.
What is ESOL?
“ESOL supports students with their reading, writing, listening and speaking until they reach proficiency,” said Krisina Bowyer, director of ESOL and migrant services for the Wichita district.
Students reach proficiency based on results from the district KELPA exam, which is taken annually. When a student is considered proficient through the exam standards, they are no longer an ESOL student.
At the high school level, ESOL teachers work with students who speak 72 different languages. The goal is to have them leave the ESOL classroom speaking English near fluently.
The program was implemented in the mid-1980s after Lau vs. Nichols (1974), a monumental Supreme Court case that set the precedent of requiring English language programs to students.
Though they started in the mid-80s, this is the first year ESOL programs are available at every district school, Bowyer said.
Newcomers Program
Within the ESOL program, the Newcomers program helps students who have been in the country for less than two years.
“We have newcomer programs at three of our high schools – Southeast, East and North,” Bowyer said. “These students are in classes with only newcomer students basically all day for all of their core contents, specifically, and even some electives.
“They are supported with a newcomer para. We’ve really shifted with that to make sure that students … get to choose what electives they’re in. We want them to have what they’re interested in and a variety of experiences and choices.”
Newcomer teachers often rely on technology and other tools, like pictures, to teach students at all levels. But teachers like Sarah Lewis at Southeast High School, who also serves as the co-department chair for ESOL, find it helpful with catching up students who enter the newcomer program at the high school level.
“They are basically learning even social skills and everything, because they’ve never been in a school environment, so we need to learn how to ‘school’ before we can actually perform academically,” said Yesenia Perez, co-chair of the ESOL department at Southeast High. “Some of them, given their background or situation, have never been exposed to things like scissors … holding a pencil, writing their name.”
Lewis said the first two months of the newcomers program is “filling the gap from kindergarten to ninth grade.”
“We start very slow, and then we have to hit the gas and go,” she said.
Students are in the Newcomers program for two to three years before they are placed in classes that fulfill the remaining credits they need.
Challenges posed in the classroom
Lewis said the biggest help with overcoming challenges is empathy.
“You have to meet them where they’re at,” she said. “You have to give them all of those scaffoldings. A lot of times I don’t speak every language, so it’s just pictures.”
Perez said that in the classroom, they don’t usually count on translations or translation devices for learning. They use pictures and other visuals to create an immersion into English.
“Students use technology, apps and things like that to help them translate as needed. But we try to make content comprehensible in all languages,” Bowyer said. “Especially for our newcomer classes … We’re using a lot of the same content that we use in our elementary classrooms to teach foundational language and phonics and all of the rules that students need so that they can then apply it to, you know, to more difficult words and in writing.”
Lewis said she doesn’t think a recent district-wide cell phone ban will have much of a negative impact on ESOL students, as they will still have access to online tools in the classroom, at least at Southeast.
Perez said she speaks Spanish, but typically not in the classroom.
“If it’s something crucial that we (need to) switch to their first language, have a translator or whatsoever (we will),” she said.
Lewis said for the languages she works with regularly, she learns simple phrases she may need to help students advance, like “Do you understand?”
AI usage and growth in the classroom
With the growth of artificial intelligence, both Lewis and Perez stressed the importance of teaching students the proper ways to use AI.
“Not as a tool that will do the work, but more of a tool that I can use to understand the work,” Perez said. “We have multiple teachers that have used it to help with the reading level … if they open a literature book and it’s too high to understand, AI will turn it into a lower reading level.”
Lewis said some high school students have already learned bad habits with AI usage.
“If someone taught them to use ChatGPT to answer this for you, those are the habits they come with. So we’re correcting those habits and teaching them the correct way to use it,” she said. “It’s a tool to help you, but not to do it for you.”
Avoiding Translation tools
In the ESOL program, there’s a shift away from using online translation tools, like translation dictionaries or software programs, as some teachers feel like it creates a hindrance.
If they use translation tools continually, “they depend on that instead of trying to understand the English language,” Lewis said.
There are instances of ChatGPT translating stories and papers into other languages, but Lewis and Perez said they strongly discourage the use of translating material overall.
“(Translating) is only for emergencies,” Lewis said. “If we need to know that we’re having a tornado drill today … Other than that, we rely on those strategies (of) pictures, actions.”
Perez said that once students have enough of a grasp on English, if they are struggling with a sentence, using a simpler word will help them to understand.
Barriers outside the classroom
On top of being in an unfamiliar classroom, in a new country and learning a new language, some students in the program have to deal with botched paperwork.
“Sometimes … paperwork is rushed, and not every country does the things the same way, as in passports,” Perez said. “Sometimes they come in with mis-written names, names flipped with last name or their middle name, and when they get enrolled, we have to go by the government paperwork.
“They have a lot more obstacles on top of having names that we’re not used to seeing.”
Some students make errors translating issues to their parents during important meetings and parent-teacher conferences, but district employees and the teachers have been trying new solutions to get around the issue.
“We really try to tell our teachers that if it is something that isn’t just a basic conversation that we are using our translators and interpreters that we have here in our district to help with that,” Bowyer said. “It is difficult because we don’t have all the languages available at all times. We’re working on that, we’re looking at new apps and new devices that can help with translation.”
A new tool called Propio helps with phone calls and face-to-face translation. Boyer said it has been especially helpful for languages spoken less commonly in the district..
“If it’s an IEP meeting or conferences, students are not supposed to be translating for parents … but Proprio is used on the telephone, and that’s what should be used, especially when having conferences, or maybe those more difficult conversations. …Parents need to know that we’re using those other services and not using students to translate that information.”
Perez said she’s had instances of students taking advantage of their parent’s minimal understanding of English, and so when possible, they rely on district translators or the other tools provided.
Students helping students
A new ambassadors program at Southeast High pairs new arrivals with other students who are fluent in both their native language and English.
“We want them to feel that there are other kids like (them),” Lewis said. “So they get their welcoming in their first language, with the student that was them years ago, and usually they make fast friends.”
Maleah Evans is the Spring Semester intern for the Wichita Journalism Collaborative. Maleah is a senior at Wichita State University and a member of The Sunflower staff.