Parkway Schools

The ESOL program offers intensive instruction to students whose first language is not English and who have limited English proficiency. Students learn to understand, speak, read and write English and are helped to adjust to a new culture. This intensive instruction in a supportive and non-threatening environment helps students learn English quickly and allows ESOL (English Speakers of Other Languages) students to make necessary academic and social adjustments. Current federal guidelines require that English Language Learners receive academic support. The ESOL program is designed in such a way that ESOL students receive help with learning English immediately upon arrival in Parkway.

The English for Speakers of Other Languages program strives to:

• provide a caring, non-threatening learning environment where students can be
• supported in a small group setting at their level of proficiency.
• develop students’ linguistic knowledge and skills in English and bring these skills to functional use for academic and social purposes in listening, speaking, reading and writing.
• develop students’ understanding of the American culture and help them to function in that culture.
• assist ESOL students with learning in content areas where they need support.
• provide a special English class that newly arrived ESOL students can enter at any time during the school year.
• mainstream ESOL students gradually, by reducing the support services of ESL over a period of time.
• maintain and promote ESOL students’ native languages and cultures in school and community contexts.

Coordinator - Nancy Urnes
Email
Phone 314-415-7050

Parkway's ESOL Guidelines and Practices