Building skills, building friendships

Three boys at North Pines Middle School hang out the way friends do – in classes, hallways, sometimes playing soccer outside. Originally from diverse corners of the globe, these friends have spent three years learning a new language together.

They are part of a Central Valley program at North Pines for all district middle-school students who are non-native English speakers, called English Language Development, or ELD. Originally from Mexico, Vietnam and Liberia, Daniel Lemus, Nhat Minh Nguyen and Darlington Bah see ELD teacher Betsy Casteel one period a day for language arts. They and the other ELD students also attend classes with native English speakers.

In language arts, Casteel helps all of the ELD students with questions about homework or their classes and covers lessons in English language, writing and grammar. Additionally, Casteel and para-educator Kimberly Koch work with other teachers to make sure the kids understand their courses.

“At North Pines, we have at least eight different languages,” said Casteel, who has separate beginning, intermediate and advanced language arts classes for 20 total ELD students. “We love it because we get to have the diversity here.

“This year we have more Spanish speakers. Last year, we had more Russian speaking students.”

Her current students are from Venezuela, Colombia, India, South Korea, Russia and Ukraine. Casteel uses written translations, language dictionaries and body language, especially with her beginning-level students.

In the district, ELD students at the elementary level attend their neighborhood schools where support is offered. For middle school, Central Valley encourages ELD students district-wide to go into the specialized program at North Pines and provides busing.

Program focus at North Pines helps in a number of ways, Casteel added. Students in ELD may be speaking English understandably but their reading comprehension or other study knowledge may not be where it should be because of language barriers.

“Here, I can work one-on-one with them,” Casteel said. “They take other classes here in math, science, social studies with all the other students. I also monitor their grades and work with teachers – are they not understanding something? We try to figure out strategies.”

Overall, the district’s ELD program has a K-12 population of about 200 students and encompasses 19 different languages, said Mary Jo Buckingham, CV’s director of special programs.

“We’re working closely with parents,” Buckingham said. “We provide a translator for crucial parent-teacher meetings when the kids are young or for a parent night.”

With this early support and relationship building, the parents feel more confident over the years and often don’t need a translator later on, she added. Those who don’t choose North Pines can still receive help and monitoring from Casteel, but if any student at another middle school is struggling, she recommends the centralized program.

Casteel said North Pines teachers are great about working with her and the ELD students. As a para-educator, Koch often follows beginning students into classes such as social studies to support understanding.

“She works with the students on note-taking, vocabulary and rephrasing directions,” Casteel said, but the students are still responsible for doing the work and studying for tests. Other times, Koch assists students in Casteel’s classroom.

Casteel said another advantage at North Pines is that the students feel more comfortable discussing challenges when together one period a day among their ELD peers. Class size is small so that she and Koch can do more individual instruction and support. Friendships form as the students tackle challenges.

“They definitely find friends in class who are going through the same thing,” Casteel said. “When they are here they don’t feel uncomfortable speaking their native language.”

Lemus, Nguyen and Bah met in the ELD program at North Pines and still sit together at a table in the back of Casteel’s class.

Lemus came to Spokane three years ago not knowing any English, he said. He is now in the intermediate level language arts class. “It really helped,” he said. “When you have homework you don’t understand, they can explain it better.”

Bah started out understanding English but not speaking it well. “I learned new vocabulary,” said Bah, “and it helped me with my homework and helps me with my speech.”

Nguyen appreciates having one class a day with other ELD students. “You feel like you can talk and no one will laugh at you.”

The three of them are looking forward next year to Central Valley High School, where ELD is centralized for grades 9 through 12, and they hope to play soccer there.

Their banter about the sport sounds about as all-American as it gets.

“We’re going to play sports together and we’ll play soccer together,” said Bah, grinning. “I’m the best, though.”

“Whatever,” replied Nguyen, also smiling.