NBPS believes in meeting the needs of all students through the adoption of culturally responsive teaching and learning practices. Cultural responsiveness is an approach that is grounded in the vision that all students’ culture and identity (including but not limited to race, ethnicity, and multilingualism) are seen as assets, and that learning experiences and environments should value and empower all students.
We offer the following programs to meet the needs of multilingual learners:

Sheltered English Immersion (SEI)

Description

The SEI program in Massachusetts includes both language and content as important instructional considerations for planning Sheltered Content Instruction (SCI) and English as a Second Language (ESL), also called English Language Development (ELD). Although each component of the program has a different driving instructional focus, both integrate language and content in different ways. Both approaches are also informed by the different levels of expertise and qualifications of the educators in the program, such as expertise in language acquisition or in a particular content area, to meet the language abilities and needs of the EL students they serve. As a result, both components of SEI programs in NBPS (SCI and ESL) contribute to ELs’ academic success.

Goals

The goal of SCI is to take challenging standards-based academic content and to contextualize it so that the language of the content is comprehensible to second language learners. SCI is a type of instruction within the SEI program where classrooms, composed of ELs, FELs, multilingual students, and students whose native language is English, are taught in English, using SEI practices. Mastering the discourse of each of the content areas (math, science, social studies), as well as the language and literacy demands of language arts, is a lengthy and challenging learning process for students. This model ensures that students in this program can engage meaningfully with grade-level content and develop content-based academic language.

The goal of ESL instruction is to advance social and academic English language development. ESL is delivered through a systematic, explicit, and sustained focus on language, using the structure of the WIDA framework, which includes a focus of language development at the word-, sentence-, and discourse-level of the content. Developing English language proficiency (ELP) includes the teaching of social language (i.e, the language of school) and academic language (the language of science, math, social studies and literature) in the language domains of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Both receptive and expressive skills are taught and integrated through the grade-appropriate academic content materials. 

Newcomer Program

Description

The Newcomer Program in NBPS, a specialized program that is part of SEI programming, serves ELs who have recently immigrated, or are native to the U.S., and are at the beginning levels of English Language Proficiency, such as levels 1 and 2 or have had no exposure to English. Newcomers may have emerging levels of literacy in English and varying levels of literacy in the language in which they have been educated in their countries of origin. This program is designed to meet the unique needs of this student population.  

NBPS Newcomer Programs exist at the elementary, middle school, and high school levels. Students in Newcomer Programs are typically placed in self-contained, embedded, or inclusion/co-taught classrooms with lower numbers of students in contrast to SEI or general education classrooms. Inclusion classrooms may be populated by newcomers, higher level EL students, former English learners (FELs) or native English speaking students. The smaller numbers of students in the classroom allows teachers to accommodate for the specific academic, linguistic, and social-emotional needs of the particular students. Students in the middle school program may be clustered across grades, but are clustered with students in the same grade level when possible. At the high school and middle school, students in the Newcomer Program attend core content classes that are scaffolded to meet their linguistic needs while also receiving an equivalent to two periods of ESL instruction. In terms of unified arts classes (electives), newcomer students participate in these classes each semester, which can include physical education, art, music, chorus, band, humanities, health, a world language, or research and technology.  

The Newcomer program is meant to be temporary and transitional. Students are placed in the program for 1-2 years with opportunities to integrate with other ELs in the SEI program with the ultimate goal of developing adequate skills in English to transition out of the program during or immediately following their first year.

Goal

The goal of the Newcomer Program is to meet newcomer students’ academic, linguistic, and social-emotional needs in a culturally responsive setting and prepare students for a successful transition into general education SEI classrooms within the first year of the program. Newcomer students develop grade-level academic, language, and cultural skills with their same-aged peers that are new to the school setting in the United States. As students new to schooling in the U.S., they will need explicit support developing the skills and language to navigate their new schooling environment and adapt to a new culture of learning. Students may be placed in the Newcomer Program for a second year if needed but the goal is for a transition after one year.

SLIFE Program

Description

The SLIFE program is designed to support students identified with limited or interrupted formal educational experiences in their countries of origin. Most SLIFE have limited literacy skills in their native language(s), lack foundational content knowledge, and demonstrate critical social and emotional needs. SLIFE students, generally new to the learning system in the U.S., need instructional models and environments that help them bridge their learning and life experiences with educational expectations. Educating students with interrupted education requires equitable, intentional, responsive, and strategic academic programming. With these supports, SLIFE can obtain a high school diploma, and go on to future academic and professional success.

The SLIFE program follows the same structure of the general education program. In the high school program, students attend seven different classes a week: three core subjects (math, science, and history), two electives, and two periods of English as a Second Language (ESL). SLIFE core courses are labeled as “foundational” with a curriculum designed to integrate the secondary subject content in lessons that are extensively differentiated and scaffolded so students can access the information.

Goals 

The goals of the SLIFE program in NBPS are:
To attend to the socio-cultural and emotional needs of students who are acculturating to a U.S. school system; 

To build foundational skills necessary to develop English language acquisition and to provide focused, initial literacy, and math instruction appropriate for adolescents that integrates language and content instruction;

To provide a culturally-relevant curriculum and research-based approach to teaching that is learner-centered, supports students in developing academic ways of thinking, and incorporates both shared responsibility and individual accountability for learning;

To create and teach differentiated lessons that are scaffolded, include tasks that are accessible to students with familiar language and content, are recursive and collaborative, incorporate tasks that range from oral to written, and address students’ interests and background experiences; 

To prepare students to transition successfully to SEI content area classes.

Long-Term English Learner (LTEL) Program 

Description

Goal  

The goal of the program is to accelerate Long-Term ELs’ progress toward attaining English language proficiency, specifically in the reading and writing domains, and to accelerate academic performance to become reclassified as Former English Learners (FELs).

Dual Language Education (DLE) Program

Description

Dual Language Education (DLE) programs are designed to promote bilingualism and biliteracy, cross-cultural competency, and high levels of academic achievement for both native English speakers and ELs from a single language background. DLE programs are considered ‘additive’ bilingual programs because all students develop and maintain one language, while adding a second language. DLE structures allocate time and schedules for both languages. The program compartmentalizes and protects separate instruction in the partner language and English largely by design. Students in DLE programs receive the same core curriculum as all students and are expected to become proficient in two languages. The academic content instruction is delivered in two languages, using a 50:50 model throughout the program. Partner teachers in the DLE program share the responsibility for cohorts of students, along with all of the planning and instructional delivery in either English or Spanish in each classroom. Multiple measures are used in DLE programs to assess students’ progress and to achieve program accountability and improvement. Best practices in DLE call for a program that is completely integrated into the school’s curricula and services. 

New Bedford Public Schools is implementing a DLE program at Alfred J. Gomes Elementary School of Language and Global Education. The Gomes program is a Two-Way Immersion (TWI) Spanish-English program with balanced groupings of speakers of English, speakers of Spanish, and bilingual speakers in each classroom. The Gomes DLE program began implementation at the kindergarten level in 2018-2019, and in each subsequent year, the school has added one grade per year. The program’s expansion from kindergarten to grade 5 is in alignment with research, showing that it takes students 5-7 years to build a student’s balanced proficiency in Spanish and English. Placement in a DLE program also requires a strong commitment from the school and the home.

The DLE program continues to grow with an expansion at the kindergarten level at Gomes and the expansion to grade 6 at Roosevelt Middle School (RMS). The RMS model will feature a similar balance of language proficiency, with the majority of students being those transitioning from Gomes DLE. Students within the RMS DLE program will have an English Language Arts (ELA) class and a Spanish Language Arts (SLA) class. In addition to SLA, one of their core content classes will be taught completely in Spanish. ELA and SLA teachers will work closely together to ensure efforts are made to bridge both languages.

Goals

The overarching goals of the DLE program focus on student achievement in the following areas:

Academic achievement;

Bilingualism and Biliteracy; and

Socio-Cultural Competency  “a term encompassing identity development, cross-cultural competence, and multicultural appreciation” (Howard et al., 2018, p.3).