Staff Writer: Ammy Jensen
My name is Ammy, and I’m from Honduras, so I speak Spanish and English. I’ve been here in the United States for almost two years. I learned English with help from the teachers. It was hard for me to keep up with assignments and for teachers to teach me, but there is one teacher that always helps most by giving me extra work: Mrs. Danielewicz.
Minelly Viera is my best friend. She is from Puerto Rico and came to the United States when she was in third grade.
She learned a lot over the six years she has been here, but there are still words that she doesn’t know.
“I learn a lot of English every day but I never will be able to speak perfectly, like an American."
Allison Jensen, my sister, speaks better English than me; she began learning English in elementary school. When she came
here, she was very shy, but the teachers helped her to show her knowledge.
- “All kids who want to learn a new language, go for it! Don’t be shy to demonstrate what you [know].”
- Mrs. Danielwicz works at Eagle View Middle School as an ELD teacher because she knows English is important. English Language Development (ELD) is the new term for ESL, since English may be the third or fourth language a student has learned, not just the second language they are learning. All of the classes are taught in English, and it is essential for the students to understand English. She loves all the languages, and she wants all the students to learn a new language.
- “Languages open doors to new friendships and understanding,”Mrs.
- Danielewicz says. “You can understand people's stories so much better when you know their language because some
- things just don’t translate the same.”
The reason why we, the ESL students, get the extra help we need is because it is given by the teachers who make the classes fair for everyone. Everyone gets what they need to help them understand what they must to learn.
“With the help that I need, I’m able to learn more; it is not difficult,” according to Allison Jensen Vasquez, a sixth grader at Eagle View.
Teachers help the students when they don’t understand by giving extra work, so they can earn the points they lost. When we have vocabulary quizzes, they are sometimes in math, reading, and science. We can write the vocabulary in Spanish or any other language to create a bilingual dictionary. The teachers sometimes don’t ask ESL students questions if they don’t want to. During FLEX in ESL, when students have already finished their homework, they can go to the ELD classroom and learn more vocabulary. Every week in ELD class, we have vocabulary development, and we also have to read extra material at RAZ- PLUS, a program that helps you understand another language. It is a great learning experience.