District's summer classes for foreign speakers winding down

Look at the colorful picture in your workbooks, teacher Adle Elstein told students in her class at Solis-Cohen School, and "tell me what it is."

"Take a chance," Elstein coaxed the children, who had made their way to the Northeast school from such places as China, Egypt, Pakistan, and Sudan.

"There are two pieces of cheese on my table," ventured Rawan Musa, 12, from Jordan.

"Very good," said Theo Wood, Elstein's teaching partner in the beginners' English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) class, congratulating her for correctly using are.

The fourth through sixth graders have been spending 90 minutes weekday mornings learning to read, write, and speak English. The class, which is a portion of their day, is part of the Philadelphia School District's monthlong summer program that ends this week.

For this day's multi-sensory lesson, which focused on food, the Solis-Cohen students were introduced to words such as pineapple and lemon. They touched and tasted the fruits and then described the experience in their workbooks.

They also reviewed some basics of English grammar, such as when to use is and are in sentences.

While enrollment in the district's summer learning program grew from 38,000 to 50,000 this year, the number of ESOL students doubled, district officials said.

A total of 4,000 students from all levels of proficiency spent a chunk of their summer honing English skills at 52 schools.

"We're really pleased with the enrollment and the fact that they are willing to continue their learning during the summer," said Lucy Feria, deputy chief of the district's new office of multilingual curriculum and programs.

The ESOL offerings included a refugee program for 250 foreign-born high school students who have lived in the city less than a year. In addition to language classes, the students learned about Philadelphia culture, and visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the National Constitution Center.

At Solis-Cohen, where 40 languages are spoken in students' homes, ESOL beginners participated in a program that was new to the district this summer.

They were among 2,500 students at more than 30 elementary schools who used publisher Pearson Longman's Backpack learning program, which incorporates colorful textbooks, workbooks, music, DVDs, activities, and games in the instruction.

The goal, Feria said, was to improve language skills through activities and lessons that promote communication - and are fun. She said the district will look at results of unit tests and teacher surveys before deciding whether to use Backpack again.

Elstein, for one, is a fan. "This is great," said Elstein, who is in her fourth year at Solis-Cohen. "There are stickers in the back of the book, so it's really hands-on for the kids. . . . And there's a lot of music. We have never had anything with music before."

She said the student workbooks reinforce lessons. The varied activities, she said, get students out of their seats and encourage them to talk in English.

"It's conversational," she said.

Wood, her teaching partner, pointed out that although some of the children are labeled as beginners, their skills vary. Some "are speaking pretty fluently and others are very timid," he said. "We try to get them out of that shell and use English."

A few students demonstrated their increased confidence and improved skills by talking about the class.

"It's great because I learned a lot of stuff - vocabulary and reading," said Rawan, who will attend Wilson Junior High School in the fall.

Ibrahim Ayad, 11, said that even though the second-floor classroom sometimes was hot, the lessons helped him a lot.

"I like the class because we are learning more," said Ibrahim, whose family recently came from Egypt. "Before, we didn't know English."