It takes time to build vocabulary in a new language. For English as a New Language (ENL) students at Kent Primary School, a reading passage about the stars in the sky introduced both new vocabulary and reading comprehension skills. The focus of the lesson, led by ENL teacher Sarah Albrecht, was how to identify main ideas and supporting details.
Albrecht used the example of a table with the students, where the tabletop is the main idea of a story, and the legs of the table are the supporting details. After reading the passage about stars – or estrellas – the students created their own paper tabletops, filling in the main idea and details that they identified together.
“The idea is that you use speaking, listening, reading and writing in English every day and you are building vocabulary and grammar through that,” said Albrecht of the ENL lessons. “To reach full language proficiency, it takes people 7-10 years, no matter when you start learning.”
ENL students at Kent Primary receive support based on their level of English proficiency. While all ENL students spend time with their ENL teachers in their main classroom every day, those who are not as proficient also get dedicated daily time outside of the classroom to focus on language learning.
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