Mission

The mission of the Shorewood School District Multilingual Learner Program is to prepare bilingual and multilingual leaner students for successful participation in mainstream American society and academia. We will do this by providing students with an opportunity to be immersed in English in a natural setting as they learn the grade level curriculum. Classroom teachers and ML teachers will collaborate to address the multiple needs of ML students, establishing an environment where all teachers are skilled in supporting students’ academic language and content skills.

Program Goals

We will provide:

• supportive instruction to help students develop the ability to communicate in English.
• instruction to develop listening, speaking, reading, writing and thinking skills for competence in social and academic English.
• an environment that encourages students to value and maintain their first language(s) and culture.
• an environment that fosters insight into the diverse cultural patterns and heritage of the United States.
• a program aligned with the national and state ML goals and standards.

Lake Bluff ML Programming

Most ML support at Lake Bluff takes place within the regular classroom, with the ML teacher collaborating with the classroom teacher, working with students in large groups, small groups, and with individual students. There is also a separate Newcomer curriculum for newer learners of English who need support in building early English language skills.​

EL (Expeditionary Learning) Education

Lake Bluff is an EL (formerly Expeditionary Learning) school. Please visit https://eleducation.org/what-we-offer/our-approach to learn more about the EL school design and curriculum. Through crew, case studies, authentic field work, and working with experts from the community, EL students master knowledge and skills, grow their character and sense of responsibility for the world and those around them, and create high-quality work.