Peirce English Language Development International Luncheon

Peirce ELD International Luncheon                                               Ivan Tellez and Mr. Zickler

English Language Development (ELD) students at Peirce Middle School recently spent some quality time with teachers at the school's annual ELD International Luncheon. The gathering is a culmination of a weeks-long project where students selected a staff member to compare to a famous person that they read about in a biography of their choosing. Upon completion of the book, students had to write an essay, in English comparing and contrasting their selected teacher to the person featured in their book.

"Writing the essay was a huge task for many of our students, but with scaffolding and support they were each able to do it," said ELD teacher Jenny Kinch.

Kinch's classroom was festively decorated for the event. Dishes prepared by the students and their families lined the table offering a taste of the cuisine from the students' respective homelands. As students and staff sat side by side enjoying their meals, students quizzed the teachers about their essays. Prizes were awarded to the pair that correctly answered the most questions.

6th-grader Ivan Tellez and Peirce Tech Ed teacher Cody Zickler were among the winners. Tellez was a student in Zickler's manufacturing class. He compared Zickler to Thomas Edison.

"Thomas Edison was an inventor and liked to make stuff, and so does Mr. Zickler," said Tellez. "He taught me how to make pretty much anything. He's my favorite teacher."

"I was very honored to be chosen for Ivan's project," said Zickler. "I'm almost as smart as Edison, right, Ivan? " Zickler joked.

The goal of the ELD program is to develop English language proficiency and cognitive academic language proficiency in ELD students so that they can function independently in the mainstream classroom setting. ELD students in the West Chester Area School District represent over 40 different languages and countries.