African ESL student

[teacherkev]

Hello,
I am a teacher in a public school in the US. I have a student this year who has been in the US for only about 3 years, originally from Africa. This student's native language is said to be Swahili. The student is late-deafened due to meningitis 3 years ago, and reportedly also has an undetermined communication disorder.

I seek to assist this student in learning English, but I am floundering because I am not even sure what this child knows in her own language! Her case file indicates that she spent at least some years in a refugee camp, so it seems likely that she's not had a lot of formal education. Does any one have some tips on how I can get started on this task?
Thanks for any assistance, I really appreciate it!
Sincerely,
J. K. Calkins

[Casiopea]

Hello, and welcome.

In addition to the advice you might receive here at UsingEnglish, you may also want to consider visiting the discussions boards at teachers.net and pro.teacher.com:

http://teachers.net/chatboard/

http://www.proteacher.net/cgi-bin/as...g=ESL&number=0

[teacherkev]

Thanks, Casiopea! I'll check those sites out. Not many responses on my post so far, though I guess it probably takes a day or two. I'll keep checking!
Thanks again!
Kevin

[Casiopea]

Well, we're more than willing to help you out, teacherkev - even if we have to redirect you to another site - but please understand that your topic deals with a specialized area: special needs ESL, so you may want to consider doing a search using those keywords. Look for sites where teachers, like you, are dealing with similar situations.

All the best,