EL

EL - ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING - WITH MISS NICO AND MISS VERONICA

In our Pu’u Kukui Elementary English Language Learning (EL) program, we use acculturation activities and standards-based supplemental and core instruction to provide intervention services centered on students' individual needs. Through these services we celebrate and support our diverse cultures with a CAN DO and asset- based philosophy, while helping our students to develop the English language skills needed for academic and social purposes.

We create routines in daily work, celebrate and discuss U.S. and multi-ethnic holidays and subjects, participate in discussion about US Mainland and Islander English language register, using supplemental materials to deepen language acquisition via Common Core Standards understanding from their first instruction in their homerooms. We create an understanding that we all may be from different parts of the world, but we all can all understand and share the same basic values such as the 7 Habits, and what is right and wrong in and out of school. ELL students share their cultures with our school community through Morning Broadcast reporting (scroll down for examples), diverse cultural celebrations and collaborations, and through Leadership Day presentations to the community.

Our EL Vision is:  Progressing students towards English language proficiency through explicit instruction and synergizing support.  

Our EL students are language- learning students, here to acquire the speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills needed to succeed in and out of school, via EL instructors’ explicit teaching instruction, and working together with other staff involved in these students’ education.

The EL program is based on the WIDA (World-class Instructional Design and Assessment) Consortium’s 10 Guiding Principles of Language Development, 5 English Language Development Standards, and the Can Do Philosophy (why we do the work we do). Project GLAD Strategies are also incorporated into many lessons as routine, and focus on best teaching practices in a visually comprehensible manner, using repetition and research-based techniques for language acquisition. EL servicing’s focus is on holistic language development (grammar, spelling, phonics, phonemic awareness, academic and social vocabulary, comprehension strategies and skills, mechanics, structural analysis, high frequency and text specific words, oral and aural skills) on the word/phrase/discourse levels. We promote higher level thinking skills, using CCSS language, communication activities and student-to-student interactions and engagement.

"Language is both a means of communication and a carrier of culture." ~Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o