What is the English Language Learner program?
Research tells us that it can take five to ten years to become fluent in a new language, and we also know that students cannot wait until they are fully English proficient before starting school. The English Language Learner (ELL) program exists to provide language development services and support to students and their families so that they are simultaneously learning English and academic content and can progress successfully through their academic career.

How does my child become part of the ELL program?

1. When a child is registered for school, the family completes a Home Language Survey. If languages other than English are recorded on the survey, the school notifies the Office of English Language Learning.

2. The ELL department gives the child placement assessment to determine the child’s proficiency in listening, speaking, reading, and writing in English.

3. The results of the placement assessment determine if the child is eligible to receive English language development services.

How does my child benefit from being a part of the ELL program?
Students receiving ELL services will work with certified ELL teachers and ELL teacher assistants to improve their English proficiency. They will also have accommodations and modifications appropriate for their English proficiency level for their classroom assignments, tests, and standardized assessments.

What is the WIDA ACCESS assessment?
The WIDA ACCESS assessment is the annual language proficiency test for ELL students. The assessment measures the students’ ability to listen, speak, read, and write in English.

How does my child exit the program?
Students scoring an Overall Proficiency Level score of 5.0 or higher on the WIDA ACCESS assessment will exit the program. All exiting students are rigorously monitored for two scholastic years to ensure their ability to achieve in the classroom.

What is an ILP?
The ILP, or Individual Language Plan, is a document created by a student’s ELL teacher and classroom teacher(s) to outline the services the ELL student will receive and recommended modifications and accommodations for classroom assignments and assessments.

How does ELL fit with UDL?
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is the framework used by BCSC to create instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments. The goal of UDL is to remove barriers in the learning environment and provide options for how students receive, engage with, and express information so that all learners have equitable access to the content. The ELL program incorporates instructional strategies that make lessons comprehensible for the English learner and focuses on developing the academic and social language of the EL student. The ELL program complements UDL by targeting needs that are specific to students learning English.

WIDA Language Development Standards
WIDA’s five English Language Development standards represent the social, instructional, and academic language students need to engage with peers, educators, and the curriculum in schools. These standards address the need to prepare students to be college and career ready by focusing English learning on academic, instructional, and social language.

1. Social and Instructional Language

2. The language of Language Arts

3. The language of Mathematics

4. The language of Science

5. The language of Social Studies

WIDA’s Can Do Philosophy focuses on the assets these diverse learners bring to their classrooms and what the students are able to demonstrate regardless of English proficiency. These view language as an asset and understands that the knowledge and experiences English learners bring enhances our classrooms.

WIDA's Can Do Descriptors describe how English language learners process and use language for each language domain (listening, speaking, reading, writing) and level of language proficiency by grade level cluster. They are a sampling of the language expectations of English language learners as they travel along the continuum of English language development.

Can Do Descriptors can be used:
  • as a resource for teachers to develop lessons and units with differentiated language objectives
  • to set language goals with English learners
  • to share with classroom teachers and administrators to describe second language acquisition
  • many more

For more information about WIDA's Can Do Descriptors and to download the the Can Do Descriptors for your grade level cluster, visit http://www.wida.us/standards/CAN_DOs/.