ESL

The Bridgewater-Raritan Regional School District has a comprehensive program that is designed to assist English Language Learners (ELL) students in grades K-12 and help them to achieve the goal of communication in their home and school environments in English. The major goal of the program is to prepare students to participate fully in the English speaking world while encouraging students to maintain their cultural identity, native language, and cultural heritage as they learn a new language and adapt to a new cultural environment. Curriculum implementation supports the goals of developing language skills, critical thinking skills, and problem-solving skills. Teachers utilize intensive English instruction to help students develop listening, speaking, reading and writing skills in the English language.

Students who participate in the ELL program are identified by examination of multiple measures, including a state approved assessment (ACCESS). Intensive language instruction in a pull-out setting, language support during content area instruction, student-clustering in classrooms, and sheltered instruction classes that combine subject area/content specific instruction concurrently with language instruction according to the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) model are the mechanisms employed to address the range and variety of individual students' language service needs. Students who are successfully exited from the ELL program continue to be taken into consideration, with the ESL teacher as a resource for recommendations regarding differentiated instruction. In addition, at the high school level, Language and Literature Transition and Language and Literature Transition 2 bridge language study and literature study for advanced and former ELLs.