Welcome to the
 Department of
  English Language Acquisition

Bonjour! Konichiwa! Al salaam a'alaykum! Ni hao! Hello! ¡Hola! Chào! Bon giorno! Guten Tag! Jambo! Zdravstvuite! Shalom! Dobar Dan!

The English Language Acquisition (ELA) Department is responsible for providing English language acquisition services within Denver Public Schools.

As of October 1, 2011, there are 27,781 English Language Learners (ELLs) in grades Early Childhood through 12 in Denver Public Schools.  These students enrich the linguistic palette of our city with the sounds of over 135 languages spoken across our district.  Among them, 19,568 ELLs receive English Language Acquisition (ELA) services in one of our ELA program schools.  Spanish is the primary language for 16,852 of these students.  Other prevalent languages include Vietnamese, Arabic, Karen, Burmese, Somali, Amharic, Russian, and Nepali.

The goal of the ELA program is to use efficient and effective educational methods to provide students with the English language skills they need to meaningfully participate in the district's mainstream English language instructional program. Parents of students who speak a language other than English choose whether or not they want their child to participate in the ELA program. For those children who do participate in the ELA program, it is expected that they will have sufficient proficiency in English to meaningfully participate in supported English language classrooms after three years in the program.

This website is designed to provide you with valuable information about the Department of English Language Acquisiton and the services it provides in the Denver Public Schools. If you have additional questions, please contact the ELA Hotline at 720-423-8155.

 

What's New?...

ELA Teacher Qualification Training  

Schoolnet Online Registration is open - There is still space available in the DPS-delivered ELA Teacher Qualification Training courses.  Please login to Schoolnet and register for courses now.  Listed below are the quick step-by-step instructions for getting registered:

Assuming the Teacher logs into Schoolnet using his/her user name and password to register himself/herself…

·          Go to http://schoolnet.dpsk12.org

·          Log in to Schoolnet with your DPS user name & password

·          Go to Educator Development Tab (right side of screen) and click “PD Search ”

·          Type into the keyword search field to return list of open sections:

  •         DPS ELA  for DPS-delivered training courses: DPS Literacy Development for ELLs, DPS Transitioning Strategies (differentiated for ELA-E or ELA-S) and DPS Language Acquisition & Cultural Understanding
  •         DPS ELA 101 for the DPS ELA 101 course (moodle)
  •         NEI ELA for the NEI Makeup Sessions
  •         ELA UCD for UCD LALC 5010, UCD CLDE 5030, UCD CLDE 5820 and UCD LCRT 5770

·          Review list of open Sections & identify the one you want

·          Click on the Activity title to access the Registration screen or view Section details

·          Click on the Register button under the Section you want to attend

 

Other important program information: