By Christie Duffy
Correspondent
Imagine it’s your first day of school. You don’t speak the language or know the culture. And your first test is in a few days.
“Some kids have never even been to school in their own country so they’re illiterate in their own language, through no fault of their own. And then they come here and have to learn English. How hard is that?” asked Cynthia Bellavance, ESL teacher at Atlantic City High School.
Teachers from across the state and even the northeast will soon be stepping into classrooms at Atlantic City High School, sitting alongside students whose roots span three continents. They’re coming to learn about how to teach students who struggle to speak English.
“When I came here, I didn’t know that much English, so I didn’t have many friends to talk to. You have to learn,” said ACHS Junior Karla Henriquez, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic. When asked if that was hard, she said, “Yeah, it was because you have to learn.”
Henriquez is a junior now. But her first day wasn’t easy. Like many of her classmates, her first language was Spanish.
More than a third of Atlantic City High School’s 2,100 students don’t speak English at home. They speak Bengali, Vietnamese, Chinese, Urdu or other languages.
Compared to students statewide, kids who arrive in New Jersey schools with limited English proficiency are less likely to graduate with a rate of 70 percent.
Teachers here at Atlantic City High said last year they had a student come into town from a remote mountain region of Burma. He didn’t speak Burmese and he didn’t speak Thai. So teachers did their research, and went as far as to find a casino worker who spoke his dialect. They brought him in and they say when that happened, a light bulb went on for that student.
“He very graciously came and spoke to the student and helped him along in the beginning,” Bellavance said.
Resourcefulness and diverse resources make up the program — named a model for the rest of the state by the state Department of Education this year. Teachers emphasize teaching in English while supporting students in their native language. A student’s first stop is the guidance department to assess their English proficiency and more concrete needs like food and clothing. Teachers get extra training on how to handle English language learners. Extracurriculars and in-school activities celebrate culture.
“Every year we have a culture day in school and we will participate in our traditional dress,” said Nabeel Azem from Pakistan.
“We have our students become a part of a community so they, first and foremost, have reasons to come to school,” said ACHS Principal John DeStefano.
From hip hop to Latino and Bollywood, music, radio and TV production studios in the school allow students to create and broadcast in English and their first language to the whole city.
“It’s sort of discovering yourself also. When you come into a program like this, you didn’t expect it. You know you’re going to a new school but then you find they have all these different programs and situations like this where you’re actually working on a live radio station,” said radio broadcasting instructor Pamela Lewis.
Henriquez says she plans to graduate, go to college and get a degree in business.
When asked how she feels now, three years later, Henriquez said, “I feel good. I have an accent but I talk in my English. Some people understand me. Some don’t. But you know, I’m confident in myself.”