Special programs greet immigrant students

Classes help ease transition to U.S. schools, culture

An American flag hangs in the window of Agnes Csaszar's eighth-grade English as a Second Language classroom, welcoming students to their new home.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- For many students, going back to school each fall can be a time of mixed emotions. New teachers, new buildings and new social cliques can cause the happiness of being back among friends to be tainted by anxiety.

For a particular group of students, however, walking through the school doors this fall will represent far more than a simple shift of environments. For this group, labeled Limited English Proficient, or LEP, they will enter a whole new world.

According to Marcelo and Carola Suarez-Orozco, immigration experts with the Harvard Graduate School of Education, one-fifth of America's youth are children of immigrants. As of 2000, more than nine percent of students enrolled in U.S. public schools were defined as LEP, the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition (NCELA) reports.

The U.S. Department of Education defines LEP students as those "whose native language is a language other than English and who (come) from an environment where a language other than English is dominant."

Once enrolled in U.S. schools, these students usually qualify for academic help via an "English as a Second Language", or ESL, program. While the programs vary across school districts, they consistently involve either classroom help from an ESL tutor or completely separate classes of intensive English instruction in place of other subjects.

More than five million students are LEP and they bring more than 400 different languages into American classrooms every year, the NCELA reports. Even previously homogenous regions of the country like the South, Midwest, and Northwest are becoming more culturally diverse.

Cobb County, Georgia, is one such region. Home to more than 600,000 residents, the quickly developing county on the outskirts of metro Atlanta has experienced an influx of immigrants throughout the past decade.

Since 1987 the number of LEP students in the county has mushroomed from about 100 to 5,000, according to Evelyne Barker, supervisor at Cobb County public schools for the ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) and foreign language program.

"What's interesting about [Cobb's] current statistics," Barker said, "[is that] for an area that had been homogenous for a long time, [we] can report that one out of every ten students has a foreign birthplace."

Of Cobb's 100 public schools, 70 of them have enough LEP students to receive state funds for an official ESL program.

Tolerance, open-mindedness essential

As the number of immigrant children in the nation's public schools continues to grow, the culture within schools changes, too.

ESL teacher Agnes Csaszar says she sees herself and all ESL teachers as diplomats between immigrant students and American society.

"(Culturally-diverse) children on the playground are exchanging expressions among themselves," Barker said. "And those changes have been integrated into the curriculum. There's a heightened interest (in) learning about other countries, especially when you have a child in the classroom who can talk to you about their homeland. It has brought challenges to the schools that they never had before."

In addition to helping LEP students learn English, ESL teachers must act as diplomats, making the transition for students new to the country as smooth as possible.

"Try to understand how hard it is to come to a different country as a child where you personally (might not) have even wanted to come," said Agnes Csaszar, an eighth-grade ESOL teacher at East Cobb Middle School.

"You're here because your parents are here. And maybe they're telling you that this is best for you, but you have to be of a certain age (before) you really understand and agree with (their) position," she explained.

"When you're working with children from other places you have to be open-minded to the fact that they bring some (positive) differences," Barker said.

"We can learn from them. They can create an environment in the classroom where the children who are from the mainstream can get another view of world reality," Barker added.

Finding success

The time students may spend in ESL programs may vary, but ultimately, many students find success. Seeing the phenomenal progress their students can make in a relatively short amount of time often rewards ESL teachers.

"It's really amazing from one day to the next how much a student can progress if (he or she) wants to," Csaszar said. "If the student's attitude is positive, involved, willing to work, we are absolutely confident. The limit to our patience is the sky. Time is on our side."

Minor adjustments in the classroom can help nudge ESL students along by making them feel comfortable in their new environment.

"I've seen teachers label just about everything in the classroom," Barker said. "And they'll put up a bulletin board that represents the different cultures in their classroom. That makes the child feel accepted."

Luciana Silva emigrated to the United States from Brazil in July of 1995. Entering the country speaking very little English (her native language is Portuguese), Silva spent the first half of eighth grade in the ESL program at East Cobb Middle School. By her second semester, she was proficient in English enough to exit from the program. Silva even made the school's honor roll.

Now 20 years old, she modestly attributes her success to parental support and profound self-motivation.

"I was never the kid to just sit there and let things happen. I would ask a thousand questions if I needed to," Silva said.

"Of course, (the teachers) would help me, because I was asking. There were students that would just sit there and not ask for help, so it was very difficult for teachers to help those kids," she said.

In addition to formal ESL help, many schools offer extra help and tutoring before and after school.

"School offers (so many) opportunities to get (ESL) students involved," Silva said. "It's something that has to start from the individual."

Now a psychology major and honors student at the University of Georgia, Silva plans on going to graduate school and pursuing a career in counseling.

"Don't underestimate the kids or people that come (to the United States)," Silva said. "There is a language barrier, but (we) are very able people."