learning through ELD

How students with language barriers receive academic support

The English Language Development program helps students unfamiliar with English learn the language and helps recent immigrants adjust to life in a new country. The ELD program has modified school curriculum to hasten language learning and trained staff to support the needs of recent immigrants.

There are multiple levels of ELD at Cupertino High School: level two and level three. Each level corresponds to the degree of proficiency in reading, speaking, listening and writing English based on a diagnostic test administered at the beginning of the year.

ELD students enroll in two English classes. An ELD 2 student will take ELD 2 and Global Literature and Writing, and an ELD 3 student will take World Lit/Writ.

Sean Bui, the ELD coordinator, is responsible for helping the teachers adjust their class curriculums and run diagnostic language tests for students. He is also in charge of organizing the CHS division of a district-wide speech competition. Periodically, Bui and other ELD teachers hold meetings to identify struggling students and discuss ways to support them.

The ELD curriculum is developed by experienced teachers who teach the specific English concepts they want their students to learn. Teachers design speech assessments for the students if they wish to advance the class’ speaking skills. As an ELD teacher, Lynn Chen shared her view on teaching ELD students.

“I love being what I like to call the ELD mom,” Chen said. “It’s like I’m part of a welcoming community, because of a lot of recent immigrants, it’s scary and hard adjusting to a new environment.”

She explained that the majority of her students are recent immigrants, although some have been in the United States for more than five years.

Chen had wanted to teach ELD even before the start of her career. Said Chen, “I focus a lot on thinking abstractly about how language

Similarly to Chen, she explained that she sees herself as a mom for her students, and that her Asian heritage made her particularly susceptible to signs of students’ struggles, such as ragged clothing, posture and tiredness.

“I also don’t speak English very well, and I have a heavy accent, so the students view me as more of a ‘hey, she’s just like us!’ person, whereas they see the English teachers as more foreign, since the teachers’ English are very good,” Chien said. [Translated from Mandarin Chinese to English] is learned scientifically!”

Additionally, she uses her own experience learning Mandarin Chinese as a framework when creating assignments for her class. She knows from experience how difficult it can be to learn a new language and said she designs her lessons based on what she found helpful.

“It was fun for me to reverse-engineer that,” she said.

Tung Ching Chien, a trained ELD assistant teacher, provides help for students in seven courses, five days a week.

Chien provided in-depth information about numerous types of students, and how their backgrounds play into their language fluency and effort. For example, she helps students coming from China adjust to culture shock. Since the education system in China is much more tightly controlled, some Chinese students find it difficult to balance the leisure and studies upon arrival.

Bui advises CHS students to try and make everyone feel welcome in school. A friendly, welcoming environment, Bui said, can help ease the fear and stress of all new students – especially those with language barriers