Title III- English Language Learners
The mission of the Madison County Schools EL Department is to promote student learning and English language acquisition through collaboration, advocacy, coaching, and teaching.
The Madison County Board of Education (MCBOE) offers an English language instruction program for English Learners (ELs). The goals of the Madison County EL Program are:
- To advance student English language acquisition (for students to attain proficiency)
- To successfully meet yearly AL state Title III EL goals
- For students to achieve high levels in core academic subjects
- To develop high-quality language instruction educational programs and employ highly qualified teachers
- To use the coaching/partnership model to provide EL professional development for educators
- To promote parental and community involvement
- To advocate for English learners
The MCBOE EL Program Goals are connected to The Cornerstone of the WIDA Standards: Guiding Principles of Language Development:
- Students’ languages and cultures are valuable resources to be tapped and incorporated into schooling.
- Students’ home, school, and community experiences influence their language development.
- Students draw on their metacognitive, metalinguistic, and metacultural awareness to develop proficiency in additional languages.
- Students' academic language development in their native language facilitates their academic language development in English. Conversely, students' academic language development in English informs their academic language development in their native language.
- Students learn language and culture through meaningful use and interaction.
- Students use language in functional and communicative ways that vary according to context.
- Students develop language proficiency in listening, speaking, reading, and writing interdependently, but at different rates and in different ways.
- Students’ development of academic language and academic content knowledge are inter-related processes.
- Students' development of social, instructional, and academic language, a complex and long-term process, is the foundation for their success in school.
- Students’ access to instructional tasks requiring complex thinking is enhanced when linguistic complexity and instructional support match their levels of language proficiency.