I have taught English as a Second Language for nearly 20 years. I’ve taught ESL to students from more than a hundred different countries and who spoke more than 120 different first languages. In education, we call these students Limited English Proficiency (LEP ) students.
  Unfortunately, this simple fact also puts these children “at risk.” At risk for dropping out, at risk for failing out, at risk for “falling through the cracks.”
For the LEP student, it is paramount to become aware early on that having two languages will eventually be to their advantage.
  Unfortunately, the synthesis of the two registers doesn’t happen overnight. Children have to learn how to “tie information together,” how to pull knowledge from one language to the other, and how to think in more than one language. 

  This is much easier said than done.
  Understanding idioms and learning the differences between oral and written forms of communication can be difficult for students of just one language. Multiply that by two (or more, for some ESL students) and it can become a jungle of jumbled words and ideas, and sometimes hilarious misunderstandings.
  Learning to live with two (or more) internal dialogues can be overwhelming at first for anyone, especially a child, but teachers must assure them that what seems like a tangled mess at times will all eventually roll out straight and strong if they don’t lose hope.
  Keeping everything in perspective becomes Job No. 1. We have to teach them that if they just keep working at it, stay in school and struggle through the difficulties of language acquisition, there is still more opportunity for success in this country than anyplace else on Earth.
  We have to give our at-risk children enough of a taste of what mainstream life is about so that they can learn to have the “reach that exceeds their grasp.”

They have to know that there is more out there than what is available to them at this moment. They have to know that their current circumstances do not have to be a permanent way of life. They have to know that there is a way out of the cycle of poverty and that gangs are a dead end street that will only take them to prison or to the graveyard.
They have to know that Experience, English and Education are keys to a better life.
What it all boils down to is this: When these children have finished school, and are ready to compete in the workforce:
   No one will care that as a child they went to bed hungry every night.
   No one will care that they grew up in a housing project.
   No one will care that their father deserted them and that their mother worked three jobs to make ends meet and they had to move regularly because she couldn’t keep up with the rent and the bills. But the experiences they've had growing up under such adverse circumstances will make them stronger, more adaptable and more competative.  It will give them an appreciation of how far they've come, that their mainstream peers might just miss.

In the competitive world that these students are inheriting, they must know that knowledge is cumulative, and everything they learn contributes to who they are and who they ultimately become.

For these students even more than others it is imperative for them to be able to reason and question and wonder.

They must know what their mainstream peers will know: that education is a way of life, and the day they quit learning is the day they quit living.