Aims and goals
The primary aim of the ESL department is to assist ESL students in achieving their maximum academic potential. ESL teachers, parents, administrators and, of course, the students themselves have key roles in this endeavour. In many respects, however, the most significant contribution is made by the mainstream teachers, since the mainstream class is where students are for the majority of their school day and where they learn the subject content.

This workshop has been designed, therefore, to give essential advice and information to mainstream teachers in their efforts to get the best out of the ESL students in their classes. The workshop has major 3 goals. At the end of the eight units, the participants will:

• have an understanding of the Upper School ESL program at FIS, including ESL support services
• know what students in the different ESL levels can be expected to do, and what will be linguistically and culturally difficult for them 
• have an understanding of the various adaptations that make content more accessible to ESL students - without preparing separate lessons or reducing cognitive demands

Workshop presentations
These webpages contain the slides that were used in presenting the ESL workshop units. Click a link below to go to the unit you want to view, then click the Next button to advance through the individual slides. (Slides open in a new window.)

• Unit one - overview of Upper School ESL
• Unit two - key issues concerning ESL students in mainstream classes
• Unit three - making subject content accessible to ESL students
• Unit four - language learning: what mainstream teachers should know
• Unit five - making spoken language comprehensible
• Unit six - making written texts comprehensible
• Unit seven - writing ESL-friendly worksheets and tests
• Unit eight - helping ESL students with writing / workshop review

[Workshop links - coming soon]

• Unit nine - For administrators



• Unit ten - For mathematics teachers

Please contact Paul Shoebottom if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.