District adjusts to influx of ELL students

By MARK NEWMAN Courier staff writer

OTTUMWA — At Ottumwa High School, Latino students on the first floor were learning English one sentence at a time.

“Don’t change words,” says teacher Barbara Murray, speaking English.

Her students, all English language learners, are doing an exercise where they put together a sentence about changing weather: It is starting to rain.

Not every student who goes to Murray’s class speaks Spanish. Some ELL students have been from Asia or Eastern Europe.

That doesn’t matter. The class is taught in English, and students are coming and going all day long.

“In the beginning, we didn’t have an English as a Second Language class,” said OHS Principal Steve Hanson. “Seven years ago, before the influx of English language learners, we didn’t have need for the class.”

To get children to graduate, especially if they came to the United States as older teens, the school system needed to get them speaking, reading and writing in English.

“The younger they are, the faster they tend to learn the new language,” said Ottumwa Superintendent Jon Sheldahl. “When they are older, they struggle a bit more. But that’s not unusual.”

In Murray’s class, a couple of students said the best way to get better in English is to practice.

Even just “hanging out with friends,” said Spanish-speaking student Austin Kelly, can result in better English.

“Out of seven periods in the day, they can take two periods of English Language Learner classes,” said Hanson.

“We’ve added a number of associates in ELL because we’ve needed that,” said Sheldahl.

But placing a student in a more technical class, like math, requires a curriculum adapted for people who are just starting to learn English.

“There is a special math class for them to learn the language of math, [as well as] a history class and a science class that is adapted for the needs of English Language Learners,” said Hanson. “And P.E. (physical education) is a class that is not language heavy. Then depending on their level of skill, maybe they can go to a music class, or auto mechanics or [other] hands-on class, [plus] maybe a study hall.”

Hanson said the district has come a long way in meeting the needs of new students.

“You are [in] seven periods a day, then. You can be brand new in the country and still have courses you can be successful at,” he said. “So we’ve made the transition to meet their needs.”

Starting with this freshman class, he added, requirements to graduate are even tougher, with heavy core requirements in math, social studies, English and science.

“So it’s important in the very first year they can be earning credits toward graduation, not wasting any time,” he said.

For the district overall, it’s important for the parents to know what requirements are, too.

“Besides offering English Language Learner and academic support, which we’ve expanded greatly, we’ve tried to communicate in both languages,” said Sheldahl. “All of our standards and benchmarks are in English and Spanish, and we have bilingual employees at most buildings.”

There is a sign at the high school telling visitors that the front door is locked and directing them where to sign in. The sign has raised some questions. Occasionally, said Sheldahl, a district resident will ask an Ottumwa school employee why, if people are supposed to be learning English, a sign is put up in both English and Spanish.

Sheldahl said he usually answers it’s because the district needs to get students into school in order to teach them English.

“Our experience has been the non-English speakers who come to our district are motivated to learn English — and we want to teach it to them,” he said.

That, he hopes, will help with the district’s second challenge with new English learners: getting them involved.

Hanson has seen students who keep to themselves, or stay with people who speak their own language.

“When you’re just learning, you’re quiet and observe,” Hanson said.

And he feels he understands why that happens.

“Whenever you’re new in a place, or a minority in a place, you tend to stay close to your group, to give each other support. That makes it more difficult to integrate with native speakers. As a beginner you tend to spend your time with other beginners,” he said. “It’s the way we humans tend to interact with each other.”

This can carry over into the classroom, or out in the community

“You see people being a little more hesitant and quiet,” Hanson said.

So outside of teaching English, do Hispanic students get some sort of special treatment students of other ethnic backgrounds are denied?

“I don’t think we do things differently based on a student’s ethnicity,” Sheldahl said. “We’re still talking language [changes], not culture.”

But newcomers are learning culture as they go to school. While there is no class called “How to act in America,” kids learn by doing, Hanson said.

“[Cultural obstacles] can be anything from how to address the teacher, which may be different in the country they came from, to just being shy and perhaps not asking questions when they need to, for fear of being misunderstood or sounding silly.”

That’s common among many new language learners, not just Spanish speakers, he said.

Students in the ELL class said one of their biggest problems with English is not learning their vocabulary words, it’s fear of using them. The students said if native English speakers in the community see the Spanish speakers making an attempt to use English, some extra patience would be appreciated.

“I’m afraid I’ll say the wrong thing,” said student Alma Ramirez. Even worse for any teenager: Her fellow students said they are afraid people will laugh at them.

Sometimes, said Hanson, that results in some pretty quiet, withdrawn young people.

But that can change. Getting young people to try something new, especially something outside of normal class time, can be extremely healthy, he said.

“Those who get involved in sports, music or drama tend to make a variety of friends faster, which accelerates adaptation,” Hanson said

“We want new students to participate in the full school experience,” said Sheldahl.

“It’s so much easier to make friends [for example] playing together on a team — and a variety of friends,” said Hanson. “You join the soccer team, and all of a sudden, you have friends from your ELL class, but also your new Ottumwa friends who are on your team.”

Students in the ELL class said it was hard to tell if making local friends was more difficult because of racism or because they couldn’t understand each other. Most thought it was a mixture of both.

“Language seems to become a much greater barrier for students than ethnicity,” said Sheldahl. “You may walk into the cafeteria and see a group of Hispanic kids talking, but language may be the bigger barrier to integration.”

Other students have agreed with the superintendent. Though hardly a scientific study, those Latino students who speak fluent English have told the Courier they had an equal number of Latino and American friends in the Ottumwa school district.

The district’s accountants certainly appreciated the new students. For the past five years, the population of Caucasian children has been shrinking. It just didn’t show.

Immigrants lured by the promise of jobs in Ottumwa brought their children to the district, keeping the numbers — and the state funding — from shrinking.

“We had such an influx of Hispanic students it offset our declining enrollment of Caucasian students,” Sheldahl said.

But that part of education in Ottumwa is changing, too.

“This is the first year we’ve had declining enrollment in ELL,” said Sheldahl.

Mark Newman can be reached at 683-5358 or by e-mail at mgnewman@mchsi.com.

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