English as a Second Language Program

Vision Statement

PA Leadership Charter School’s English as a Second Language (ESL) program exists to provide an option for public education tailored to the unique and diverse needs of English Language Learners (ELLs) and their families.  PALCS partners with culturally and linguistically diverse parents to provide an academically sound program with a multi-cultural perspective bridging between home and school.  PALCS’ ESL program is created to systematically develop English language proficiency skills of ELLs to meet the demand of American cultural and linguistic opportunities while respecting the home language and culture that each student brings to the school community.

Mission Statement

PALCS ESL program teaches the four English language skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing by beginning at the student’s own level of proficiency.  The goal is to develop the academic and social language skills of each ELL to the appropriate age and grade level to assure both short-term and long-term academic success.

An effective ESL program is defined as being:

• Focused on language skills development (listening, speaking, reading, writing)
• Designed to coordinate with the regular education program’s content area subjects
• Use academic English in content area subjects to develop vocabulary and text structure understanding
• Foster an understanding of school-related and American cultural issues

PA Leadership has a 3 tier approach to meeting the needs of the ELLs at all proficiency levels.

1. ESL Instruction - ESL instruction is based on the excellent ESL book series, Avenues (K-6) and High Point (7-12).  ESL courses are created and adapted to the PALCS online format.
   
   
2. ESL Support Services – Support services include weekly contact with the student and home facilitator, office hours, open chat sessions for conversation and homework help, and live tutoring sessions at locations close to each ELL home.
   
   
3. ESL Monitoring with Course Modifications – ESL teachers work with the regular classroom teachers to make modifications or adaptations to coursework and course expectation for each ELL.  The ESL teachers also closely monitor the success of each English Language Learner in their courses throughout the year.