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From https://www.dailyherald.com/news/20190621/how-a-garden-is-helping-naperville-students-learn-english

How a garden is helping Naperville students learn English
by Marie Wilson
June 21, 2019

When it comes to mastering a new language, it's often best to learn by doing.

That's the real reason English Language Learners teacher Melissa Eaton planted a garden at Cowlishaw Elementary School in Naperville.

It wasn't to grow produce to cook with students each fall in the teachers lounge, or to clean up an area that had turned to weeds amid a tight landscaping budget, or to teach students and parents what's a weed, what's a plant and how to make things grow -- although all those things have been positive side effects.

What Eaton originally was looking for, though, was a way to keep her students, who do not yet speak fluent English, learning through "realia" or "real stuff," during the summer.

"You do things, and then you read and write about it," Eaton said.

In the garden's first year, back in 2013, she quickly saw it worked.

Read the full article at https://www.dailyherald.com/news/20190621/how-a-garden-is-helping-naperville-students-learn-english