English Immersion Newcomer Class Gives Students Don’T Speak English A Chance To Acclimate To A New Language And A New Culture

Havermale’s Room 139 occasionally sounds like a European cafe, with languages melting into each other like thick pats of butter on warm bread.

At other times, though, the class sounds more like what it really is: a crash course in how to succeed in American high schools.

A recent lesson started with a rundown of the day’s weather. Students decided the appropriate adjectives were “cool, cloudy and dry.”

“What’s `dry?’ ” teacher Connie Henry asked the class.

One boy raised his hand and, after some hints in Russian from his classmates, answered confidently, “No water.”

The voluntary Newcomer Class targets non-English-speaking students who will be attending high school in the United States for the first time. The class is a relatively new addition to Spokane School District 81’s English as a Second Language program.

After spending at least a semester in the class, students transfer to Shadle, Rogers or Ferris - the high schools with ESL support.

“The hard part is that here they have constant attention,” said tutor Martina Smith, who’s been assisting Henry for the past two years. “In the mainstream high school, they might have questions that don’t get answered.”

But at least the Newcomer Class gives them enough English to be able to ask if they don’t understand. Officials started the class about three years ago after seeing a need for a more gradual transition to mainstream high schools.

“It gives them a much better start in high school,” Henry said. “They have a semester to settle in.”

“We don’t want to dump a kid who might be traumatized into a 2,000-person high school with lockers slamming and people running into them,” added ESL facilitator Howard De Leeuw.

District 81’s ESL program started in 1976 with 174 foreign students who were all bused to and taught in one self-contained center. Gradually, however, parents started opting to keep their children at the mainstream schools, closer to home. As officials scrambled to provide support for those students, they realized it was time to take a closer look at the program.

The district now serves more than 800 ESL students. Non-English-speaking elementary school students start immediately with their mainstream class, occasionally working with a tutor. Non-English-speaking middle school students have one or two periods a day for specialized instruction and spend the rest of the day with their mainstream class and a tutor.

Most non-English-speaking high school students start with the Newcomer Class, then transfer to their mainstream high school where they have a few special classes, a few mainstream classes and a tutor.

All students work toward having less tutor support as their English ability increases.

Students in the Newcomer Class come from diverse countries - such as Russia, Bosnia, China and Vietnam - and have varied backgrounds. Some haven’t had any schooling for eight years. Some have escaped war. Some have moved so often that English is the fourth or fifth foreign language they’ve had to learn.

So, Henry teaches “survival basics” in English, math, geography and keyboarding. Students also do some art and, this year, have started physical education classes.

As she teaches academic basics, Henry teaches essentials like how to put the proper heading on an assignment, how to read signs on restroom doors and how to use lockers. Students learn to ride the city bus to get to school and around town. They practice American social customs such as looking people in the eye when they’re talking.

“There’s a whole range of things they learn,” Henry said. “You have to try to put yourself in their spot and say, `If I was coming from another country, what would I need to survive?”’

New to the class this year is a community component. Speakers ranging from police officers to school counselors and librarians stop by to provide information about such things as driving and post-graduation options.

The lectures are translated by interpreters who spend about an hour with the students each Friday. They make sure students have a good understanding of things covered that week, see if there’s anything students need to ask Henry, or check if they have any complaints.

Students agree that the Newcomer Class is an important step in the transition to life as an American teen.

“I come here to the United States and don’t speak English, then to Havermale, then to Shadle,” explained Dashnim Hashani, 16, who was part of the Newcomer Class last semester. “For me, it is better.”

Other Newcomer Class grads at Shadle Monday agreed that Henry and Smith are “very nice” and “very good.” They said the class helped them better understand what Shadle teachers would expect and provided an arsenal of handy vocabulary words.

Others liked the chance it provided to linger in the familiar.

“I like Havermale because there were many Ukraine students,” said Paul Aleksandrov, 15, who came from Ukraine.

This semester, the Newcomer Class has 11 students, down from a high of 60 last year. Among the students are speakers of Russian, Spanish, Bosnian and German - just a small sample of the 31 different languages spoken by students of District 81.

Having such a mix of cultures in one room brings another dimension to the class. As students struggle to understand English, they struggle to understand and accept each other.

When asked to label world maps, some students have left countries blank because they are enemies, Smith said.

“They have to learn to live with different cultures,” Henry said. “They might have to sit next to someone from a country they have hated for hundreds of years.”

But among their differences, students find similarities. Everyone is frustrated by the crazy irregularities of English, such as why is “y” sometimes a vowel and sometimes a consonant?

And, they’re all facing the same challenges.

“They know everyone is learning so they don’t feel bad if they make a mistake,” Henry said. “It becomes a community. They feel comfortable here.”