This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

A teacher of English as a second language is thetwo-thousand-four Teacher of the Year in the United States. KathyMellor of Rhode Island will spend the next year as an internationalspokeswoman for education. President Bush and his wife, Laura,honored her during a ceremony at the White House last week.

For the past nineteen years, KathyMellor has taught English as a second language at Davisville MiddleSchool. Davisville Middle School is in North Kingstown, RhodeIsland, in the northeastern United States.

Mizz Mellor redesigned the program for E.S.L. students at herschool. She designed a program to provide each student with one tothree periods per day in classes for English learners. How muchinstruction the students get depends on their level of skill inlistening, speaking, reading and writing.

The amount of time they spend in these classes is reduced astheir level of English increases. They spend more and more time inclasses with native speakers until they no longer need E.S.L.instruction.

Another teacher describes this as the most successful E.S.L.program in North Kingstown. She also praises Kathy Mellor forproviding help to students and their families. Kathy Mellor formed alocal parents group for speakers of other languages. This improvedtheir ability to help their children.

One parent of a former student praised Kathy Mellor for herunderstanding of the difficulties in learning a new language. Shesays Mizz Mellor was always there to answer any questions the familyhad. And she says Mizz Mellor urges her students and their familiesto speak their first language at home and not forget their culture.

Kathy Mellor was born in Providence, Rhode Island. She earned amaster's degree in education from Rhode Island College. Later sheearned a master's from Brown University. She studied teachingEnglish as a second language.

She was chosen for the national honor of Teacher of the Year fromamong top teachers in each of the fifty states. The Council of ChiefState School Officers and the children's book publisher Scholasticorganize the program.

As Teacher of the Year, Kathy Mellor will travel around theUnited States and to other countries. She will talk about theimportance of education and the work of teachers.

This VOA Special English Education Report was written by NancySteinbach.