ELS students on a trip to Rainbow's End
The English Language Support (ELS) programmes address the specific language needs of ESOL students attending Aorere College. ELS courses are needs based and all students who have arrived in New Zealand in the last 5 years are assessed to ascertain the most appropriate course for them.
Students with extremely minimal English can attend Reception classes. This means that, rather than attending mainstream classes that might be too difficult, the students attend language classes where the focus is on vocabulary, reading comprehension and basic writing skills.
Junior students can attend ELS as an option. These classes focus on cross-curricular topic studies aimed at supporting the students in their other subjects and developing their comprehension and writing skills.
The English Language Support senior classes are double options and offer NCEA credits. Students who opt for this subject are offered ESOL Unit Standards between levels 1 and 3 and English L1 and 2. Students have the opportunity to gain their University Entrance Literacy in Years 12 and 13.