Languages of Success

Students adapt to new learning environment through English Language Development program

TEj kosaraju, jacob silverman, vivian zhu

Tucked in a corner of the QLC, Esther Perez ’23 reviews for her AP classes, feeling the pressure that comes with a demanding schedule. She anticipates a long night ahead, especially since she will need to spend more time reading and comprehending her work than other students.

Just before her freshman year, Perez immigrated to the United States from Mexico and entered an unfamiliar education system with minimal fuency in English. Perez was part of the current 4 percent of students considered multilingual learners at Stevenson. Many are recent immigrants and take supplemental English classes under the English Language Development (ELD) program to navigate cultural and language-based obstacles.

Since most courses at Stevenson are taught in English, many multilingual learners encounter communication barriers when listening to lectures and completing homework. Difering educational environments also pose a problem.

“Back in Mexico, I didn’t feel any academic pressure at all, but when I got here, I realized that everyone is trying their best to stand out, and I need to catch up,” Perez said.

In order to facilitate students’ transition to Stevenson, the ELD program provides students with “push-in” tutors who specialize in explaining content to non-native English speakers. According to Director of Multilingual Learning Justin Fisk, tutors collaborate with around six ELD students in each class and communicate with teachers to address any gaps in students’ knowledge.

The knowledge and resourcefulness of tutors helped Perez overcome communication divides in certain classes. However, since the ELD program must accommodate students’ academic abilities, the availability of tutors depends on a course’s difculty and popularity.

“During my freshman year, there were push-in tutors in my biology class, and they were helpful because they walked me through each problem, but I already knew the content so I was reviewing,” Perez said. “On the other hand, not many ELD students take business classes their frst year, so there were no push-in tutors in Intro to Business. I had to brace myself, and it was like, ‘I’m a little lost here.’”

The challenges Perez experienced in her frst business class were magnifed when she started taking AP classes. ELD students are nearly half as likely to take an AP class in comparison to non-ELD students.

In addition to the language barriers an ELD student may face while taking advanced courses, Perez said that some ELD students do not take AP courses in high school because they are planning to return to their home country where college credit earned through the AP system may not apply.

Additionally, Perez’s experiences in her frst AP class

initially discouraged her from pursuing similar courses.

“It felt like everyone already knew the topics I was learning for the very frst time,” Perez said. “There are no ELD tutors in AP classes so I had to visit the school tutors and my teacher frequently outside of class.”

In a school where approximately 55 percent of students are taking college-level classes—consisting of AP, dual credit and honors courses— both Perez and Yimi Liu ’23 felt pressured to distinguish themselves in a competitive atmosphere. Liu, who transferred to Stevenson during the end of her sophomore year, found it difcult to adjust to a new academic environment without a tutor who spoke the same language.

“When I frst moved here and I was still in the ELD program, I felt like having a Mandarin speaker to help me translate would have been really helpful, especially in history or English classes when I didn’t always understand what the teacher was saying,” Liu said.

Students in the ELD program speak over 20 diferent languages. While tutors work individually with students in order to explain class material, Fisk acknowledges that they lack tutors that can communicate in some of these languages.

“We don’t currently have a tutor for all the languages that we want to support,” Fisk said. “Many of our tutors speak Spanish, but we defnitely want to target other languages as well.”

Although Liu did not have access to a tutor who spoke Mandarin, she and Perez both attribute their eventual success in rigorous courses to the sense of community the ELD program fosters, which enabled them to adapt more quickly to student life at Stevenson. Perez’s experiences eventually led her to expand Friends International, a club composed of multicultural students, in order to create a more inclusive environment for ELD and non-ELD students alike.

“Friends International was founded many years before I got to high school, but it wasn’t well-known because it was targeted to ELD students,” Perez said. “Last year, as president, I wanted more people to know about this club so we could make more connections between ELD and other students.”

Friends International was originally created to polish ELD students’ interpersonal and communication skills. By expanding the club to include a greater variety of students, Perez continues to support multicultural collaboration in order to facilitate ELD students’ transition to Stevenson.

“The ELD program really helped me connect with other students that are going through the same situation,” Perez said. “Before I went into ELD, I never met any people that were not my ethnicity or culture. The ELD program helped us communicate and form bonds.”

by the numbers

31% 55%

of current ELD students take college-level courses

of all students take college-level courses

4% of students are in the ELD program

13% of students in Illinois take an ELD program

25% passing rate from ELD program

61 languages spoken at Stevenson

The ELD program really helped me connect with other students that are going through the same

situation.

ESTHER PEREZ ’23 PRESIDENT OF FRIENDS INTERNATIONAL