English Language Learners (ELL)

Background

ELL stands for ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNER or ENGLISH as a LEARNED LANGUAGE or ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING.

ESOL stands for ENGLISH for SPEAKERS of OTHER LANGUAGES or ENGLISH as a SECOND or OTHER LANGUAGE.

ESL stands for ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE.

New Hampshire is a member of the WIDA (World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment) Consortium. In 2004, the New Hampshire State Board of Education adopted the WIDA English language proficiency standards. WIDA is dedicated to the design and implementation of high standards and equitable educational opportunities for English language learners (ELL). The WIDA standards provide educators of ELLs with a curriculum and assessment planning tool for content area objectives.

SAU #24 provides students with instruction to support competency in English, to give each student the opportunity to achieve at the same level as a student who is a native speaker of English. Our Districts respect all cultures and languages of all students in keeping to the goal of having ELL students become independent and successful in the classroom.

The goal of the English Language Learner Program is to provide students who qualify for the program's services to acquire proficiency in English in the areas of listening, speaking, reading and written language. As students acquire English proficiency, the ELL students transition out of the program so that they can successfully compete academically with their same grade peers in the mainstream classroom without ELL support. Following the attainment on ACCESS Testing of an Overall Score of 5.0, with no subtest score below 4.0 on the ACCESS for ELLs, an ELL student is fully mainstreamed, without ELL support. This ELL student is then monitored for a two-year period prior to being exited from the ELL Program.

School/District Contact List

If you believe your child is eligible for English Language Learner (ELL) services, please contact our ELL Coordinator, Martha LeMahieu at (603) 428-3269.