• English Learners
    West Northfield School District 31 welcomes all families to our learning community. We provide English Learner (EL) and Bilingual services to meet the linguistic and academic needs of children whose native language is not English. The community we serve is diverse with children from more than 30 language backgrounds represented in our classrooms. Mongolian students compose a large majority of our English Learners followed by Spanish, Korean, and Russian speaking students.

    English Learner (EL) & Bilingual Program Values
    It is our mission to nurture, support, and foster excellence for students who are culturally and linguistically diverse through high-quality instruction, assessments, best practice, and professional learning. We embrace inclusion and equity. We believe cultural differences add to and strengthen the fabric of our school and community.

    The state requirements on how eligibility for EL/Bilingual Services is determined are summarized here.

    Meeting Students Needs
    District 31 meets the needs of our K-8 student population with limited English proficiency through two specific programs: 

    1. Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE)
      Designed for students whose primary language is Spanish, Mongolian, or Korean (if 20+ students).
    2. Transitional Program of Instruction (TPI)
      Designed for all English Learners whose native language is other than Spanish, Mongolian, or Korean and who, in terms of numbers, are less than 19 speaking the same foreign language.

    Elementary EL Services Provided by Language Proficiency Level
    Level 1 Entering: 

    • Learning opportunities to significantly increase language skills in the four areas of language development: listening, speaking, reading, and writing
    • Basic interpersonal English and introduction to academic language
    • Combination of push-in and pull-out instruction from the EL/Bilingual resource teacher

    Level 2 Beginning: 

    • Learning opportunities to significantly increase language skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing
    • Oral language acquisition and continued growth in academic language
    • Push-in instruction from the EL/Bilingual resource teacher

    Level 3 Developing: 

    • Focus on developing and applying academic language through speaking, listening, reading, and writing instruction within the classroom
    • Push-in support from the EL/Bilingual resource teacher or from the EL-endorsed classroom teacher

    Level 4 Expanding: 

    • Focus on applying academic language to content through speaking, listening, reading, and writing instruction within the classroom
    • Moderate support from the EL-endorsed classroom teacher

    Level 5 Bridging: 

    • Monitor the students who have exited by collaborating with the classroom teacher on the students’ academic progress
    • Monitored students may be brought back into direct EL services to work on specific English language skills, if needed

    Secondary EL Instruction
    Field Middle School offers three courses to meet the needs of ELs at the different levels of English proficiency: EL language arts, EL supported social studies and/or EL resource.

    EL Handbook
    View the EL Handbook.