WSU seeks to improve English language learner success

Jaime Winston BA ’22, Marketing & Communications

Weber State offers future teachers and education professionals the skills to help students who are not native English speakers thrive in school.

Along with offering an ESL (English as a Second Language) endorsement for undergraduate and graduate students, the Jerry & Vickie Moyes College of Education received a $2.78 million grant from the Department of Education. The grant will help teachers and administrators improve instruction for students who are learning English in a general classroom setting.

Professors Melina Alexander, David Byrd and Shernavaz Vakil will lead the professional development in public and charter schools throughout Utah. The five-year grant will support up to 100 teachers and administrators, admitting a cohort of 25 educators annually beginning the summer of 2023.

“Utah’s Hispanic population is growing faster than the national average and, as a result, our public and charter schools are seeing more English language learners,” said Byrd, WSU professor of teacher education. “Academic success is increasingly linked with children’s mastery of a wide range of skills, including literacy.”

Byrd said a significant achievement gap exists between English language learners and their native-speaking peers, and that gap widens as children change grade levels.

Amy Thomas MED ’17, GCT ’18 earned her Utah teaching license for grades one through eight in 2018 and ESL endorsement in 2019 at WSU. As an ESL teacher, she has seen that achievement gap first-hand.

“Think of how many words your average native-Englishspeaking child knows before kindergarten versus a child coming from another language background,” she said.

Thomas currently teaches ESL for adults in Weber School District, and previously taught fifth grade for Ogden School District and in WSU’s Learning English for Academic Purposes (LEAP) program. “ESL is my favorite topic to teach,” she said. “I love working with students from all over the world.”

Thomas’s students have come from countries such as China, Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan. Her ESL education has made her mindful, recognizing students may not understand cultural references like “The Three Little Pigs,” and some will be challenged by academic language used to explain math, science and other disciplines.

She hopes more teachers are able to access ESL training.

“We serve a lot of students who are coming from other language backgrounds, and, in the Ogden area, we’re starting to see more refugees,” she said.