Overview of the ELA/ESL-Bilingual Curriculum

Our ELA/ESL programs emphasize those aspects of the SED Learning Standards that focus on the improvement of literacy. Specifically, our curriculum is aligned to meet the Standards for reading, writing, speaking/listening/viewing, conventions/ grammar and usage, literature, public documents, and functional documents.

Mainstream ELA

In place of grade-cohort sequenced ELA courses, we offered the following courses for our mainstream students:

Basic Reading/Writing (Remedial English). This is a double-period initial course for students who have been identified at admission to have low literacy levels, based upon placement exam results, transcript history, and in-person interview. The course focuses on decoding/metacognitive techniques in reading and on grammar skills/rhetorical devices in writing.

ELA Regents Prep. This double-period course is for students who have passed Remedial English, or have failed the ELA Regents in their previous schools or are scheduled to take the ELA Regents for the first time. It is literature- and writing-based course and focuses on the four tasks of the ELA Regents.

Our Core English Curriculum consists of singleton courses for students who have already passed the ELA Regents, but still need English credits. The courses are designed to improve students’ reading and writing skills as well as to increase their enjoyment of literature from all cultures and to deepen their appreciation and understanding of the human condition. Courses include: Humanities 1-2 (Survey of World Literature), American Literature 1 (19 th Century), American History 2 (20 th Century), Genre Studies: Understanding Drama, Understanding Fiction – The Short Story, Understanding Fiction – The Novel, and Understanding Poetry.

AP English (College Board). This course is for students who have scored 75 or better in the ELA Regents and have earned Core English Curriculum credits. This is the only annualized English course at our school.

English as a Second Language (ESL)

ESL is an academic discipline designed to allow students to acquire the English language proficiencies across the major skill areas of listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing, and critical thinking in a systematic and spiraling fashion. Hence, the standards for ELA above also apply to ESL with the additional benefit of language accommodation techniques based upon levels of proficiency.

We have a freestanding ESL Program that generally follows the citywide Levels 1-7 sequencing, but unique in four ways:

• Placement in or promotion to Levels 1-4 is based upon in-house assessment tools that are consistent with the form and content of the ELA Regents exams. Hence, we have beginner and intermediate level versions of the ELA Regents tasks. ESL Level 5 is designated as an ELA Regents prep course. Students who score a Regents local pass remain in Level 5, those who score 65-74 are promoted to Level 6, and those who score 75 or better to Level 7.
• We provide 6-12 hours a week of supplemental ESL instruction for beginner students. We have “mandated” a 6 th day of instruction for such students to enable them to catch up on Regents requirements before they age out.
• We have balanced the prevailing “communicative/conversation” approach with a reasonable return to articulatory phonetics and grammar in the beginner levels.
• We have trained our content area teachers (math, social studies, science) on ESL methodology so they are able to provide linguistic accommodation to non-native speakers of English.

Bilingual Programs.

We have a sizeable number of students for whom courses in both English and their native language are mandated. We have two bilingual programs, one in Spanish and the other in Chinese. Students in these programs take Social Studies, Mathematics, and Science in their native language. They also take, respectively, three periods of ESL if beginner, two if intermediate, one if advanced or transitional. In addition, these students also take the mandated Native Language Arts in Chinese or Spanish that focus on literary selections, from the classical to the contemporary. The course offerings in the bilingual program are the same in content and pacing as those offered in English.