HSE High School ENL Students Lead Language-Learning Lesson at New Britton Elementary

LarryInFishers.com
HSE High School ENL students and New Britton Elementary learners with a cross-grade level project focused on communication and connection.

Hamilton Southeastern High School students enrolled in the English as a New Language (ENL) program recently brought their classroom learning into an elementary setting, leading an interactive language lesson for younger students at New Britton Elementary.

The visit was part of the culminating assessment for the Speech and Ethnic Literature course, a yearlong class co-taught by ENL Department Chair Becky Schroeder and English teacher Kelsey Habig. Throughout the fall semester, juniors in the course have worked to build confidence in their speaking skills. For the final project, they partnered with New Britton ENL teacher Kelly Darragh to design and deliver a lesson on “voice” to kindergarten through third-grade students, many of whom are also English learners.

The high school class includes students representing nine languages—Arabic, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Vietnamese, Shona, Karen, and Indonesian. The elementary collaboration offered them opportunities to practice public speaking, leadership, and cross-age mentoring while modeling effective language-learning strategies for younger peers.

The HSE School Board highlighted this program at this week’s meeting.

This is the second year for the co-taught course at HSE High School, but the first time it has incorporated an elementary-level partnership.

View a video on this program at this link.

Other Board Action

In other business Wednesday night:

  • Interim Principal Named: The board appointed Brent Farrell as interim principal of Riverside Intermediate School. His contract will run through June 18, 2026.

  • Summer School and Course Approvals: Board members gave final approval to new course offerings and plans for the 2026 summer school program. Due to the district losing money on physical education courses offered during summer school in 2025, the fee for that class will rise from $180 to $220 for 2026.   For more on the new course offerings, check out this link.   For more details on summer school, use this link.