Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Sarahi Tapia-Garcia takes a test during an upper-level math class for English language learners while her teacher watches.

Manishimwe Leoncia turns over a card to reveal a picture of a hat. She stares at it, long and hard. You can almost see the thoughts whirring inside the preschooler's head.

"What's this?" asks Julé Basham, a teacher's aide at Fallon Park Elementary School in Roanoke.

Leoncia, who recently arrived from Burundi, is silent.

"It's a hat," Basham tells her after a short silence.

"A hat," Leoncia repeats, feeling the strange word in her mouth.

As more and more students who are learning English as a second language show up in Roanoke schools, teachers and administrators are increasingly relying on summer classes like this one to help them master the language and the skills they will need during the school year.

A few months ago, Leoncia and the other refugee and immigrant children at Fallon Park could barely speak English. Soon they'll be chattering away with their friends and teachers.

It's because of English Language Learners summer school, a monthlong program that ends today and which draws children from all over Roanoke to help them learn English.

"It's amazing just in that short span of time how much progress these kids can make in reading and math," said Barbara Carper, who directs the program for Roanoke schools. "They can go up a grade level."

The number of English language learners in Roanoke has been growing sharply in recent years. In 1997, there were 129 such students in city schools; by 2007, that number had increased to 800 and officials expect the numbers to continue growing. Carper expects an influx of students from Iraq and Myanmar this year.

The summer English language program, which started at Westside Elementary three years ago, has grown as well. In its second year, it expanded to Fallon Park as enrollment doubled to roughly 260 students, mostly in elementary grades. This year, it increased by roughly 25 students.

Already, about 60 of Fallon Park's 82 English learners are in summer school. The students come from 10 countries, many in Africa, and speak 12 different languages at home. The school has two Spanish-speaking teacher's aides and two bus drivers who speak Kirundi, a language spoken in Burundi. Roanoke's Refugee and Immigration Services also provides interpreters.

Many of the students have already had some schooling in their home countries. Once they can unlock the language, they often thrive in school here, Carper said.

Take the group of six first- and second-grade students sitting around Susan Kern at Fallon Park on Tuesday morning. Although they may know their numbers, they need to learn the English words for them.

"Help me find a five," Kern asks aide Abigail Rincon-Garcia.

A girl looks at numbered cards on the table and points to a six.

"Good guess," Kern says encouragingly.

Later, she has the children count in unison to 11.

"11?" she asks when they're done.

"12," the children shout. It sounds as though they've played this game before.

"Bravo."

It takes barely a few weeks for students to learn to speak to their classmates. What takes longer is "academic English," the words they need to know in order to succeed in school, said Ann McGhee, a teacher of English as a second language at Fallon Park.

For that, teachers use games, art or little theatrical skits. For instance, one class of third-grade students spent part of the day Tuesday playing word bingo, with commonly used words such as "about," "clean," or "drink."

Abdisalam Yerrow won the round, even though he needed help pronouncing "better."

Soon, the students will have learned enough English to serve as interpreters for their parents and their teachers. Then they will help their younger siblings and cousins find their way in their new American school.

"They all remember that first day at school, what it felt like," said McGhee.