LAMAR COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT

ESL Program

(English as a Second Language)

Welcome to my homepage. This is my twelfth year teaching ESL in the Lamar County School District, but I have been teaching second languages (Spanish and English) for over 15 years. In addition to my teaching duties, this is the third year that I am serving as our district's ELL (English language learner) Coordinator. ELLs are students for whom English is not a native language. (In many federal documents they are referred to as LEP, or limited English proficient, students.) ESL is what is used to refer to the English language instruction that ELL students receive in an English-speaking country. (If they are learning English within a non-English-speaking country, the instruction is called English as a Foreign Language, or EFL.)

Lamar County's ESL Program has based one certified ESL Specialist/teacher and one part-time ESL tutor at each of our schools in Oak Grove because the greatest concentration of our ELL children is in those schools. However, we each travel in order to cover our schools in Baxterville, Purvis, and Sumrall. Below is the name of the home school, and telephone number of each of our ESL Specialists:

Rachel Carvajal          Oak Grove Lower Elementary          601-268-3862

Tobi Duckworth          Oak Grove Upper Elementary          601-264-6724

Giovani Lopez              Oak Grove High School                       601-264-7232

Gail Mayhall                Oak Grove Primary School                601-264-9764

Scott Nyary                  Oak Grove Middle School                    601-264-4634

If you have any questions about our district's ESL Program within any of our schools, all of my colleagues and I are very happy to receive an e-mail or phone call. As I am the coordinator of the ESL Program, I can provide you with almost any information you may need about our program, or at least direct you to the right person to contact.

Whether you are a student, parent, or educator, if I can be of service to you in some way, please contact me via e-mail, or you may call Oak Grove Middle School at 601-264-4634. I am proficient in both Spanish and English, and I find one of the most satisfying parts of my job to be that of serving as an interpreter/translator and helping to facilitate communication between our schools and our students' parents.

 With time, I hope to add links to this website for each of the three audiences listed above.