English as a Second Language
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Carol Diggs and Kathy Jones are Andrew Jackson's ESL team (English as a Second Language). Mrs. Diggs has been teaching ESL for 4 years and was previously a classroom teacher for many years in JMCSS. Mrs. Jones has also been an ESL teacher for 4 years. She was previously a math interventionist and classroom teacher in Florida and Texas Together, we help students who have other first languages learn to speak, listen, read, and write in English. Our goal is for English Language Learners to become fluent in oral and written English well enough to be successful in their general education classes and in our community. At Andrew Jackson, we have the privilege of teaching students who come from various language backgrounds, predominantly Spanish and Arabic.
We love working with these students because their growth is tangible and exciting as they begin to produce and understand stories we read in class, improve their writing abilities, and participate in vocabulary-rich conversations about different subjects and topics. We have a wide range of fluency and literacy levels in our classes, ranging from newcomers who recently arrived to the United States and are working on basic letter sounds and vocabulary all the way to students who grew up here and are deepening their vocabulary base and expanding their length and depth of writing and reading abilities.
The goal is for these students to reach a level of fluency and literacy high enough to pass the annual WIDA ACCESS for ELLs exit test and be able to function and be successful in school and at home without ESL supports.