EL TEACHERS & PROGRAM

Mrs. Park

Co-teaching with 2nd, 3rd, & 4th Grade Teachers

Hello families! This is my 3rd year as an EL Teacher at Orrington! I love being an EL Teacher here because I get to meet so many amazing bilingual/ multilingual students.

In the past, I was an elementary school teacher in Florida. I have also taught English in South Korea for 6 years. In my first year in Korea, I worked in an elementary school in a rural town. Then, I worked in Seoul with elementary students and adults for a few years. During my last year, I worked in Chonbuk University in Jeonju. I loved being an EL Teacher so much I received my M.Ed in TESOL.

I'm very excited to work with our great ELLs this year! My goal is to have our EL students increase their English proficiency skills while maintaining their home language. I think it is very important for students to be proud of their culture and to learn from each other to create a loving multicultural environment.

Ms. Stellberg

Co-teaching with Kindergarten, 1st, and 5th Grade Teachers

Welcome Families! I began in District 65 as a Spanish-English dual language teacher in 2007. I moved to a new role as an EL teacher in 2016 serving students from all around the world as Evanston's multilingual population began to grow.

Before arriving in Evanston, I worked at Darwin a dual language academy in Chicago for 3 years, El Colegio Americano de Guatemala (a bilingual international school) for 5 years and did my student teaching in rural Australia. Prior to that I worked in experiential museum education at The Chicago Botanic Garden and The Chicago Academy of Sciences.

As a Fulbright Fellow, I worked with a World Bank development project growing multilingual schools in Uruguay and am a National Board Certified Teacher.

I firmly believe multilingualism and intercultural competence are skills of enormous economic value and create a more peaceable world.

Sheltered Instruction

This year, Orrington has created a sheltered instruction English Language Learner strand with a classroom in each grade. EL students at all levels will receive instruction that focuses on the development of language through content (math, reading, etc). Classroom teachers (not just EL teachers) are receiving training on how to create lessons that include the following:

  • language and content objectives

  • comprehensible input - through images, videos, movement, etc. that help students make sense of the words

  • focus on vocabulary teaching in context

  • hands-on learning experiences

  • building students' background knowledge

  • structured language practice opportunities in each lesson - listening, speaking, reading and writing about reading, math, science and social studies

  • alternative assessments - that focus on content knowledge, not only the ability to communicate that knowledge.

How will this work?

Each day your child will receive the majority of their instruction with their peers in class. They are not ‘leaving’ the class for special English classes and missing the learning. Instead, the teachers are modifying the lessons to make them more understandable for English Language Learners. Ms. Park and Ms. Stellberg ‘push in’ to those classrooms to teach lessons, work with small groups and 1-on-1.