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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
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:
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
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.
African ESL student 
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