English Language Development (ELD)
Welcome to Homestead’s ELD program! Our program offers special instruction for students learning English as a second language. We prepare students with an academic foundation that contributes to lasting student achievement. The ELD and Sheltered teachers use a variety of second language acquisition strategies to develop English vocabulary and comprehension skills. Our EL students have access to the same grade level core curriculum and textbooks and they participate in all of the same school activities as their mainstream peers. We have a diverse EL population that enriches our school community.
The curriculum for each level of ELD provides students the opportunity to learn academic English in all four language domains: speaking, listening, reading and writing. Students are asked to produce high-level work, including projects such as:
- A TedTalk to answer the question “Is technology helping or harming humans?” (ELD 3)
- A research paper that requires original data collection based on surveys and interviews (ELD 2)
- An argumentative piece of writing (ELD 1)
Students are asked to read articles from newspapers, magazines and other media to see how English is used authentically. The curriculum is designed based on the next generation California State Standards and meant to provide a rigorous and meaningful learning experience for students to develop the academic language, content knowledge and skills necessary for the 21st century both in the work place and in academia.
In addition to ELD, many of our English Learners also take courses in the content areas (e.g., math, science, social studies) that meet graduation and college requirements. Students are usually placed in a “sheltered” learning environment such that teachers can pay special attention to their students’ academic English needs. Not only are students learning math, science, history, and so forth, but they are also at the same time paying extra attention to the academic English of that discipline.
The goals of the ELD Program are for our English Learners to:
- Attain English Proficiency
- Achieve high levels in core academic subjects
- Understand and respect other’s cultures, traditions and values
- Develop a positive attitude and maintain acceptable standards of conduct and citizenship in everything that they do