Transitional English

Transitional English is a full-credit, one-year course designed to help advanced English Language Learners reinforce skills in the areas of reading, writing, speaking, and listening. The goal is to familiarize international students new to St. Stephen’s with the type of close-reading skills and literary analysis that will be expected of them in their mainstream English classes. Students read many of the same texts used in the mainstream curriculum, but at a slower pace to allow more time to focus on comprehension as well as on English grammar and vocabulary development.

There are two sections of the class--one for incoming 9th graders (English 9T) and one for incoming 10th graders (English 10T). The Transitional English instructor also offers individualized writing support as needed to ELLs in mainstream classes.

Transitional English students benefit from:

* the opportunity to engage in a comprehensive revision process for every writing assignment

* individualized writing support and grammar instruction geared specifically toward ELLs

* multi-sensory pedagogical approach

* unique opportunities for participation in discussion (due to small class size and all students being non-native English speakers)

* historical, cultural, biographical context provided for each text