On the first day of school, seven ninth- through 11th-grade students showed up for Alejandro Lopez’ fifth-period English as a Second Language class at Tooele High School. The class was mixed, in terms of nationalities and English language abilities, although fairly homogenous in terms of the students’ first language, with six of the seven students being native Spanish speakers.

English as a Second Language classes have been growing as Tooele County’s Spanish-speaking population has been growing.

“I’ve been working with ESL for seven years now,” said Bobbie Roberts, director of curriculum for Tooele County School District. “And every year the number of ESL students has gone up.”

“While a majority of ESL students are Hispanic, they all are not necessarily Hispanic,” Lopez said. “We have had students that speak Chinese, Japanese, Tongan and a variety of other languages.”

Three of Lopez’ students are in their second year of ESL, and have been in the country now for at least two years. Two students, Laura and Mara, from Chihuahua, Mexico, have been in the country only a few weeks and speak very little English. Ruri is an exchange student from Tokyo, Japan. She has studied English in Japan but has been here for only a week and is still working to understand conversations.

A question from Mr. Lopez inquiring about their reasons for learning English elicits a variety of responses.

“I want to be able to talk to girls,” said David, one of the second-year students and a native of Sacatepequez, Guatemala.

“For a better life and to get into college,” said Saul from Guadalajara, Mexico.

At Tooele High School, there are about 90 students in the ESL program. Students are identified by a home language survey that identifies the languages spoken at home and their country of birth. Parents of prospective students are contacted and given information about the program, and students are tested for basic English skills, according to Lopez.

Lopez has been teaching at Tooele High School for 5 years. He teaches Spanish and English as a Second Language. A native of Utah, Lopez graduated from Grantsville High School and attended Utah State University. He learned a little Spanish at home from his mother, but his real introduction to Spanish came when he served an LDS mission in Argentina. When he returned to college at Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho, he changed his major to Spanish with a minor in English as a Second Language.

“I always knew I wanted to be a teacher,” Lopez said. “And using my Spanish language skills I felt I could make a difference.”

Tooele High School also has a paraeducator, Adela Quinonez, who assists the ESL students. She talks to the teachers the students have for other subjects, and helps the students understand their lessons and assignments. The students are also paired up with a friend in each class that speaks both English and Spanish.

Quinonez also offers her cell phone number for students to give their parents if they need to call the school, as none of the secretaries speak Spanish.

The school district has also equipped a designated ESL classroom with the latest technology to help students learn. The room not only has a ceiling-mounted LCD projector with an interactive white board, enhanced sound system, and a document camera, but it also has its own set of 30 laptop computers for the students.

Mr. Lopez also hosts an after-school tutoring program for all students in his classroom, and there are bilingual tutors available.

Success of the program is difficult to measure. Individually the students take language assessment tests to determine their progress.

In statistics released this fall by the Utah State Office of Education, the graduation rate for Hispanic students statewide was 72 percent. Only two schools in the Tooele County School District have a large enough Hispanic enrollment for the report to list a separate graduation rate for Hispanics in those schools. They were Wendover, with a 78 percent rate, and Tooele High, with a 71 percent rate.

Lopez says he sees the success of ESL classes every day.

“Most of the students in my ESL class have come to Tooele either from California or Mexico because their parents are seeking a better life for their families,” Lopez said.

“We don’t want these kids to get lost because they don’t speak English,” Roberts said. “To often they [the students] shut down academically and socially because they don’t understand what is going on around them. They are smart kids, but to not to be able to make yourself understood as well as to be able to understand can be very frustrating.”

Tim Gillie: tgillie@tooeletranscript.com