Welcome to ESL

English as a Second Language
For students who qualify, a comprehensive program in English as a Second Language
(ESL) is available. The ESL program provides structured language instruction designed
to teach English to students whose English language skills are limited. ESL instruction
considers students’ learning experiences and cultural backgrounds. ESL is taught
through second language methods for teaching English and reading.
Beginning ESOL students associate utterances with meanings as they make
inferences based on actions, visuals, text, tone of voice, and inflections. Receptive
language with some comprehension is acquired earlier than oral production. Beginning
ESOL students produce spoken English with increasing accuracy and fluency to convey
appropriate meaning. They read English using graphophonic cues, syntax, visuals, the
context of the text, and their prior knowledge of language and structure of text.