By Victor Garcia
New to our Warrior Family this school year is Dr. Christine Wiley, who is starting the 2016-17 school year as a new ELD (English Language Development) teacher to educate students whose primary language is not English.
Wiley has a very eclectic teaching resumé. She taught for a while at the University of California (at Irvine) and even taught English in Japan to junior high school Japanese students. This is Wiley’s first year teaching high school students.
“I grew up in Tucson, so in essence I moved back home,” Wiley said. “I decided that I really wanted to teach ELD in public education. It seemed like a perfect fit considering my past teaching experience.”
There are four levels of ELD classes, and each ELD student is placed in one of these levels depending upon their level of expertise. Beginning English learners are enrolled in ELD 1; those students who are almost ready to transition to a “regular” English class are enrolled in ELD 4. This year, Wiley teaches ELD levels 3 and 4, which includes students in all four grades of high school.
Wiley said her goal for this year is to be the best teacher that she can be and help students achieve their academic goals.
“Even though this is my first semester here, I can tell that I already like Pueblo’s students,” Wiley said. “They are all very nice and very caring.”