ESL students losing ground during pandemic, educators fear

"First we eat something, then we read books and then we go outside and play."

That's how five-year-old HalaAlodih describes a typical day at Ottawa's Carson Grove Elementary School.

But months away from the classroom and its comforting routine has the little girl missing her teacher and friends and forgetting some of the new English words she had just learned.

Alodih and her family are among a cluster ofSyrian refugeesliving in an apartment buildingnearSt. Laurent Boulevard.

Until the pandemic arrived, the childrenspent their days immersed in English, both in the classroom and on the playground. Now, there's precious little exposure to the new language.

Alodih's neighourFadel Alail, 10, also misses"the homeworkand playing games our teachers put for us" during his English as a Second Language (ESL) classes.

"Because you don't have teachers to help you," explained his big brother ImadAlail, 11.

The sudden absence of the ESL classes in these children's lives, along with the socialization the school setting provides, has some educators concerned that these students are losing not only their newly acquired language skills, but also their ability to adapt to their new lives in Canada.

"A lot of language acquisition and understanding of the new culture they find themselves in takes place in an unstructured setting," said FrancisPoti, executive director of the Canadian Association of Second Language Teachers.

"You're going to lose ground in other classes because you're having difficulty understanding and following."

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board says 12,451elementary and high school studentsare enrolled in itsESL program. When the pandemic struck, the board began issuing laptops and internet hotspots so kids could continue learning from home, even if their families lacked the tools they needed. Teachers weregiven strategies to draw up lesson plansand engage withtheir ESL students online.

But some educators say nothing can replicate the school environment when it comes to learning a new language.

"Interaction with other people, with other native speakers, is key," said Margret Norenberg, a professor at University of Ottawa's Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute who has developed the university'sfirst fully online course for ESLstudents.

Still, "there is no substitute for the real thing," Norenbergsaid. "I'd like to think that once this is over the rebound will be great and everybody will just be so enthusiastic and it will just rightitself."