Students whose primary language
is not English represent a steadily increasing percentage of student’s
enrolled Arizona’s
schools. At the present time we have approximately 115 English Second Language
(ESL) students at Hohokam speaking a variety of
languages, predominately Spanish.
In the ESL classroom our focus
is on the 4 main areas of language acquisition: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing.
Research has shown that children acquire a second language in the same way as
they do a first...when they receive a great deal of comprehensible input in
natural, communicative situations in a non-threatening environment...language
(first or second) is acquired!
In our ESL classes at Hohokam, we are attempting to nurture and encourage all of
our students so that they can attain their maximum level of achievement as they
become proficient at communicating in social settings, succeed academically in
all content areas, and use English in socially and culturally appropriate ways.
