Friday July 17, 2009
Meeting the needs of linguistically diverse students
UW Oshkosh is helping fill this need through Project ESTRELLA (Excellent Schools, Teaching and Research for English Language Learner Achievement). COEHS Dean Fred Yeo is project director; project co-directors are Don Hones and Kathryn Henn-Reinke.
This project, which received a $1.45-million, five-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education, is having a strong impact on area schools. It’s preparing teachers in 10 school districts (Appleton, Fond du Lac, Green Bay, Madison, Manitowoc, Menasha, New London, Oshkosh, Ripon and Sheboygan) to work effectively with LEP (Limited English Proficient) students. In addition, the project is preparing UW Oshkosh pre-service teachers with skills needed to effectively teach LEP students.
Why is it important to better serve LEP students? On statewide tests, LEP students have scored below average. Secondary schools in the project’s 10 districts are troubled by high truancy and dropout rates for their LEP students. Surveys suggest that more than 50 percent of secondary teachers express a lack of knowledge about how to work effectively with LEP students.
Beginning with 2007 UW Oshkosh graduates licensed for ESL and/or bilingual education, the project has conducted post-training assessment and collected post-training data to measure program effectiveness.
“Graduates of the UW Oshkosh program have presented workshops in the 10 districts to more than 500 teachers, administrators and other staff this year,” Hones said. “These workshops have helped to provide area teachers with skills and strategies to promote success for the English Language Learners (ELLs) in their classrooms.”
Also, there is evidence that in the project’s 10 school districts, teachers are meeting the needs of linguistically diverse students.
“Green Bay, one the largest districts in the grant consortium, is moving in the direction of two-way bilingual programs, which prepare heterogeneous groups of native Spanish- and native English-speaking children to become fluent and literate in two languages by the end of fifth grade. Green Bay pursues this initiative with the support of more than100 bilingual teachers who have been licensed through UW Oshkosh,” Hones said. “And with the support of Project ESTRELLA funds, Menasha has established a Hmong literacy program for children of Hmong refugees.”
Copyright UW Oshkosh
