English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL)

ESOL is designed for students who need extra support in learning English. These students face the difficult task of learning to communicate and function in English, while adjusting to a different educational and cultural environment. Learning social English can usually take about two years whereas academic English normally takes five to seven years.

The ESL program uses a variety of instructional models designed to develop proficiency in listening, speaking, reading, writing, and structure of the English language.


Each delivery model is matched to meet the individual student's need. Some of the models ESOL uses include:

  • Co-Teaching Teaching : teachers plan and teach with classroom or content area teachers.
  • Pull-Out : Students go to the ESOL teacher's classroom in place of an elective class time or at another time that works during the day for elementary students.
  • Push-In/Inclusion : ESOL teachers go into the subject classes to assist ESOL and other ELL students with class work; we do not exclude other ELLs during this time even though they are not in the formal ESOL program; in fact, many students at ISM not in ESOL need support in English language learning.
  • Consultation : ESOL teachers meet with classroom or content area teachers to provide professional development related to instructional strategies for students and/or to help in planning for integrating ESOL strategies into classroom/content instruction.
  • ESOL Resource: ESOL staff preview and review subject area content and provide assistance with assignments, assessments, and homework.

ISM has three ESOL teachers: one in elementary school where she has two assistants; one in middle school; and one in high school.

Our Elementary School ESOL Program

The elementary ESOL program mainly uses a Pull-Out model, but it also uses Push-In, Consultation and ESOL Resource depending on students' needs and teachers' requests. Students needing support are identified by classroom teachers after testing, or if they are new to the school, during the admissions process. We will be using the WAPT test, used now in the ISM Middle and High Schools, rather than the test presently used by elementary teachers, to assess students' English levels. Identified students come to ESOL while their classmates are in Myanmar studies. The elementary ESOL staff works with students in listening, speaking, reading and writing activities to support them as they develop proficiency in English. The ESOL teacher and her assistants also work cooperatively with classroom teachers, at their request, to support students in vocabulary and concept development for various units of study.

Our Middle School ESOL Program

English Language Learners (ELLs) in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades receive extra support in English on 'A' Days so they have ESOL in place of an elective class. This is a small group pull-out class in which ELL students get concentrated help in grammar in the context of reading and writing. Often during this class, the ESOL teacher works with students on skills, vocabulary and content that are needed in their core or subject classes. The ESOL and core class teachers collaborate to ensure that the students understand and produce better quality assignments. The MS ESOL teacher also does some co-teaching with subject area teachers, and is available to help students with assignments and homework.




Our High School ESOL Program

The ESOL program at the high school groups students by grade level and provides supplemental English language support alongside their mainstream English course. In this way, students are not separated from mainstream students, but essentially receive extra support within and outside of the classroom.

As of the 2012-2013 school year, our ESOL approach will focus on improving the English of all Grade 9 and 10 students. All students in Grade 9 will therefore take a new one-semester 'Literacy' course and a similar course in Grade 10. We are taking this approach because all our students need to develop a special set of college preparatory reading and writing skills.