Norma Morales, the school link services supervisor of well-being and immigrant support, is helping relaunch the English Language (EL) mentorship program this year at MHS, mainly to support students who just immigrated to the country but also to help students failing two or more classes, she said.
Morales created the program not only to teach foreign students English but also to help them culturally adjust to living in a new country, she said.
“It is not just tutoring,” Morales said. “It’s to create a mini belonging place, where they can feel part of a community and that they belong. Some of them come alone, so it’s just a place where they can feel safe.”
To make foreign students more comfortable, Morales wants them to have the ability to access some of the resources easily available to other students, like clubs and sports, she said.
“Belonging to a school that they don’t know what the culture is, what prom is, or what is a club so they might miss deadlines, or the language is really just a barrier for them to be able to, for example, apply on a timely matter when everything has to be in English,” Morales said. “For example, for sports, when some of them come without parents, it’s really hard to go through the physicals or find doctors. So, those are the barriers that I’m trying to help them navigate through the system.”
The EL Mentorship program used to exist with more teachers compared to now, but because of budget, they couldn’t maintain the program, Morales said. To combat that, Morales created the Mentor program which has been running for 3 years now, she said.
“The mentor program is kind of like tutoring, but it is more one on one and the teacher gets to know you,” Morales said.
The EL Mentorship classes are held from 3:45 to 4:45 after school on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, with math and English teachers helping failing students and international students, Morales said. Sitting down with some students made teachers realize that some are really behind and need guidance, she said.
“Some students struggle with basic multiplication or adding because they might not have an adult at home that can guide or teach them or have the time to sit down with them,” Morales said. “This is where we provide a trusted adult that can teach you and guide you. They notice that we have a lot to catch up on, but they make it because of summer school and other stuff they get to do.”
Counselor Julie Jones supervises EL tutoring one day per week and makes sure that the EL students can be as organized as possible, she said.
“My role is to go after school with the students to make sure they are signing into the program for their attendance purposes, making sure they have a Google Sheet that they have to fill out, and checking their grades on Aeries to make sure that if there’s any work that they need to do, that they would work on that during tutoring,” Jones said.
Jones also provides supplemental work for students who already have completed their homework in their core classes and tries to teach them some basic English concepts through that, she said.
“For a lot of students who come to EL tutoring for English, they may need more practice with reading, writing, and reading comprehension in English,” Jones said. “So one of the supplemental assignments we might give them is giving them a paragraph to read, and then maybe pull out some vocabulary or some main ideas, like who the main character is in the paragraph, the setting, to help them to practice identifying these specific qualities in reading.”
Dina Chavez is an English and English Language Development (ELD) teacher, with her 1st and 2nd periods being specifically devoted to teaching English to students who recently arrived in the country, she said. The best way to help newcomers who speak minimal English is to involve the bilingual kids or more advanced ELD kids to help each other, Chavez said.
“For example, I got a student from Nicaragua who’s very advanced in math, but doesn’t speak any English at all,” Chavez said. “So that math teacher would pair him up with someone who’s bilingual in his class to help explain the instructions to him.”
Another great way for some kids in Chavez’s ELD class to fit in is through sports and clubs, Chavez said.
“I have a student right now who’s in the Diablo Club,” Chavez said. “I’m the advisor for that club, which is mainly around Chinese yo-yos. And so she came to my room a lot and she started talking to some of my Chinese-speaking students who don’t speak any English at all. And now they see her on campus as a friend and it really helped them become part of the school.”
To best help the recent immigrants, students should continue interacting with them and just being a helping hand in general by saying “Hi” to strangers, Morales said.
“We all came here from different backgrounds,” Morales said. “So, just think about how it would feel for you to be in a country when you’re alone, but then at least somebody from the same age is talking to you or even showing a smile. That makes a difference.”