United in English, divided by native tongue

"It's about doing a lot of pointing, doing a lot of reinforcing," she said. "Making sure that you make it come alive for them, so they can make it come alive in their own language."

From their English Language Arts class, the group of roughly 20 students walked together across the school's quad to another room where they study science and build their English vocabulary during a special class for beginning speakers taught by James Cooks.

On this morning, Cooks had cleared out the desks in the adjoining room and made a dance floor, where students will make a routine out of a collection of choreographed moves that relate to geology terms and ideas.

"It's fun," 13-year-old Farid Yousufi-Mohamed said. "You can see what they are talking about."

Farid, who speaks four languages -- including Russian he uses at home with his dad and Turkish he uses with his mom -- said having vocabulary classes has given him more confidence and make school enjoyable.

The mix of languages that can be heard in the classroom, he said, makes it interesting.

For classmate Jenny Seo, the diversity has helped her learn about people and countries.

"I can speak Farsi," Jenny said, smiling. "I can speak like three different languages … a little bit."

She explained that because some of her closest friends on campus speak languages other than her native Korean, she is able to pick up parts of other languages as they talk.

"(English) is the common factor that bonds them all," Stowe said. "They all know that they are learning together, so they tend to work as a team."



