Teacher helps students improve English skills

    Alecia Einspahr brought six years of experience to Chase County Schools when she was hired as the English Language Learner (ELL) teacher this fall.
    The Grant native has taught at Lincoln and Grand Island public schools. She has helped non-English-speaking newcomer students learn the language and improve their academic achievements.
    Einspahr was influenced to teach by her father, Dean Friedel, who was an administrator at Perkins County Schools.
    She obtained her Bachelor’s of Elementary Education degree from the University of Nebraska-Kearney in 2015, then added a Master’s in Eduction Administration degree from Wayne State College in 2018.
    Einspahr’s father told her that she needed to “tack something on” to an education degree. Then she realized that she loved teaching ELL.
    “I loved the kids. They learn so fast, are so funny and ask such random questions,” she smiled.
    “I think they grow more than the general education kids,” Einspahr added.
    Many people think that ELL is about translating a foreign language into English for students. That’s not the case.
    At CCS all of her students speak Spanish, Einspahr noted, but she speaks very little Spanish.
    She also doesn’t speak Arabic, Vietnamese, many African languages or many dialects of Spanish, but she’s taught students from all of those countries.
    What she does is use “lots of pictures, visuals and gestures” to help her students learn subjects in English. She translates some topics, however.
    Einspahr teaches about 40 ELL students in grades 7-12. She sees about 15-20 every day. They are pulled out of classes and spend a whole period with her every day.
    During that time, the students address math, science, history, “whatever they need to pass classes and understand those subjects.”
    ELL has its own English classes and curriculum, she added.
    Einspahr enjoys seeing her students’ growth from the beginning of the year to the end.
    She has taught at North Star High School in Lincoln and Barr Middle School in Grand Island.
    While at Barr, she was an ELL/Migrant teacher during summer school.
    Last spring Einspahr and husband Eric, who grew up in Sidney, were discussing their future. They had just become parents to Reagan, now six months old. They lived in Lincoln.
    What if they moved back to the Grant area, they wondered. The CCS job opened up, they moved and Alecia found herself working at the school with her father-in-law, Jeff, the technology coordinator.
    She doesn’t have much in the way of “free time,” but when she can, Einspahr walks her two dogs, a Chihuahua and a Black Lab mix. She loves dogs.
    She loves her students, too. Einspahr hopes that her students learn English, “keep their own culture but assimilate to America’s culture too, become more independent and graduate and have a hope for their own future.”