Tagalog, Bangla and Fulfulde.
They might sound like characters from a video game or a cartoon, but they are among the 84 languages from 105 countries spoken in Aurora Public Schools.
The 32,000-student school district, like others throughout Colorado, enrolls an increasing number of students who speak languages other than English or Spanish.
Those students must learn English quickly because they are held to the same standards and requirements as English-speaking students.
In Aurora, there is no translation, no memorization or any of the more traditional ways students are taught English.
So education often becomes theater.
“You pinpoint vocabulary, use visuals, hand gestures showing them how to do something,” said Jenny Passchier, principal of Aurora’s Park Lane Elementary School, where 64 percent of the students do not speak English as their primary language. “There’s a lot of sharing and a lot of talking before they get to writing.”
Bweradrik Aisen busily worked on an essay recently about why moving to the United States was a good thing.
The 9-year-old from the Marshall Islands speaks Marshallese as her first language, but less than a year removed from the Micronesian country, Bweradrik was completing the assignment in English.
With the help of an English- language-acquisition instructor, who asked her questions in English, Bweradrik wrote that she likes living in Colorado because “it snows here and not in the Marshall Islands.”
Then the two read the essay together.
“You have to put it in context for them,” said instructor Carol yn Hernandez. “If you just tell them to memorize something, it’s not going to happen.”
Newcomer centers
Other districts also must accommodate non-English speakers.
In Denver Public Schools, 124 languages are spoken, prompting the district to create “newcomer centers” at three schools. There, the students receive English instruction that focuses on listening, speaking, reading and writing improvement through low student-adult ratios and state-of-the-art computer programs.
Place Bridge Academy has a newcomer center where students spend up to four semesters in the program to prepare for English as a Second Language classes.
It also has an area where parents can practice English on a computer, access community resources and receive assistance with immigration issues.
Principal Brenda Kazin said 30 languages are spoken at the school and that many of her students come from refugee camps in Myanmar and other places.
“We’re like the United Nations,” Kazin said. “We could have (people from) the same country but different dialects.”
Just as at Aurora’s Park Lane Elementary, there is a lot of acting and pantomiming, Kazin said. Paraprofessionals who speak Burmese, Somali and other languages are in the classroom to help if something needs clarification.
Students with no English skills are exempt from the Colorado Student Assessment Program for one year, but after that, they must take the test in English and their grades count.
“In general, our students who are non-English-proficient score unsatisfactory or partially proficient on the CSAPs,” said Park Lane’s Passchier.
But, she said, once those students are fully proficient in English, they often outperform native English speakers on the standardized tests.
It can take two to three years for students to be fluent in “social” English but up to seven years to have a thorough academic understanding, said English-language-acquisition instructor Hernandez.
But Kazin said she sees beyond the testing.
“We may not have the best CSAP scores, but our kids are extremely gifted,” she said. “When you speak two languages, you are certainly gifted.”
It’s also important to involve parents in education, Passchier said. The school holds numerous events for parents, including movie night, family night, math night and multicultural events. School officials meet with parents before parent- teacher conferences to go over issues.
And the school encourages students and parents to remain fluent in their native language.
“If they are literate in their first language, it’s easier to learn English,” Hernandez said.
Place Bridge Academy is building a welcome center where immigrant parents can receive help paying bills or learning English.
At Aurora’s Park Lane, six languages other than English are spoken, including Tagalog, Marshallese, Vietnamese, Arabic and Tousin.
But Spanish is the most common foreign language heard in the hallways and throughout the district.
Alex Maldonado from Juarez, Mexico, has been in the United States for about eight months. The fourth-grader says his quest to learn English is a community effort. His parents speak English to him as much as possible, and sometimes his friends translate for him if he is stuck.
And he learns in other ways as well.
“I see the Cartoon Network when I was in Mexico because I have DirecTV,” Alex said.
Carlos Illescas: 303-954-1175 or cillescas@denverpost.com
Wide variety of languages
Other than English, languages spoken most by Aurora Public Schools students:
14,782 Spanish
329 Vietnamese
164 Amharic (spoken in Ethiopia, Israel)
115 Korean
101 French
75 Chinese, Mandarin
Spoken by one student each Bemba (Zambia, Congo); Cherokee; Dari (Afghanistan); Dutch; Fulfulde, Nigerian (Senegal, Mali); Grebo (West Africa); Hungarian; Kpelle (Liberia, Guinea); Malinke (Ivory Coast, Guinea); Nyanja (Malawi, Zambia); Slovak; Susu (Guinea, western Africa); Wolof (Gambia, Mauritania)
