TOMS RIVER – The number of multilingual students is set to nearly double between this school year and the next, and teachers are learning how to teach a diverse population.
Adrienne Gold, director of secondary curriculum and ESL coordinator, said during a recent Board of Education meeting that certain teachers will be certified as ESL (English as a Second Language) to meet the growing demand.
During the current school year, there are 400 multilingual students. Next year, there are at least 355 who are joining, she said. Of the new ones, about 200 are new to the country, and have “interrupted formal education.”
Gold and Rachel Cicala, the director of elementary curriculum, have been working with Georgian Court University to train teachers to oversee a cohort of multilingual learners in district. They would be at South Toms River Elementary, Washington Street Elementary, Intermediate South and High School South, which are the schools closest to where the kids live.
A cohort, according to GCU’s website, means a group of students who learn together as peers as they progress through their education.
The training would be supported by the federal funding from the American Rescue Plan, Gold said.
This program will also prevent staff reductions that are being forced by the state cutting aid, she said.
The district would also reach out to neighboring schools who may be in similar situation to see if they want to join in the training.
Manchester Superintendent John Berenato said that last year, there were 103 multilingual students, and 157 as of June 1 of this year.
“In Manchester, we have already completed a cohort for our teachers in partnership with Georgian Court University,” he said. “We offer a SIOP (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol) in-house which equips non-ELL (English Language Learners)-certified teachers with strategies and supports that they can use in the classroom with students who speak a second language.”
“We are adding additional ELL teachers to provide support, as well. We added K-2 at Manchester Township Elementary School to do our best to have our students at their home school. And, we also started Babbel (language software) as a team this year. We support ELLs through six levels of proficiency, based on how well the student understands and can produce the language. Part of the challenge is considering the level of instruction necessary to move students across the continuum of learning English,” he said.
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