Morris High School’s Custer uses soccer, surroundings to teach new students English

Teachers, by trade, are constantly busy, but Steven Custer takes that to another level with all the hats he wears at Morris Community High School.

He teaches U.S. history, English as a second language, world history for those speaking English as a second language, and coaches both varsity girls soccer and junior varsity boys soccer.

Custer said he took the path toward becoming an English as a second language, or ESL, teacher, because he asked Sara Piotrowski, his adviser at Illinois State University, where she thought he could make an impact on the most students.

“She said that if you really want to make an impact on students, especially those students who need it the most often, our students learning English need the help the most,” Custer said. “For me, I love history, but ESL is a way to work with students who need that extra support. That extra support comes not only through translation. I help translate documents for other teachers, materials for other teachers like science and math, but I also teach them their English skills, American English, and also American culture.”

Custer said some students come into his classes having lived in America for a bit, but he also has students who are new to the country. These students are mostly Spanish speakers, but Custer said he’s prepared in case he gets new students who speak other languages.

That preparation comes from the training that comes as part of his TESOL endorsement, college courses he took about linguistics that help him understand the roots of languages, even though he doesn’t necessarily speak them.

“It’s basically the skills of learning a language,” Custer said. “All languages, even English versus Spanish versus Ukrainian versus Korean, share similarities in their structures. Even when they’re different, you can use those differences to learn about the new language.”

Custer said his ESL courses focus on American culture and life, and he uses students’ surroundings in Morris to help them with words. They talk about the post office, banks, schools and libraries, and then relate them to the places in Morris or in Chicago.

“We were going over vocab related to sports,” Custer said. “It was a fun day, so we were talking about stadiums, like the word for stadium in Spanish is estadio, similar to the English, stadium. It has the same roots.”

When he discusses stadiums with the students, he uses locations like the field at Morris Community High School or Wrigley Field, or Rate Field.

Custer knew he wanted to teach when he was a young volunteer working with kids who played soccer. He played soccer from age 4 to age 18, including playing in high school and in the Chicago Fire’s academy program for youth players while growing up in Arlington Heights. He played mid-central midfield.

“The biggest thing is making a personal connection with your students,” Custer said. “Soccer is the big one for me. It helps me make that connection.”

His experience working with kids helps because, as the junior varsity soccer coach, he often ends up with freshmen who are also in his class.

New students who don’t speak English, or speak it as their first language, often come from places where soccer is something they know.

Custer said it helps the kids acclimate and it’s good for the school’s soccer numbers. He called it natural learning: The kids know soccer already and as they play, they learn which words in English correlate to the words they use in Spanish.

“I knew I liked working with kids,” Custer said. “That was the first reason. The second reason is, honestly, I think teaching is the best way to impact future generations. If we want a better society in the future, it starts with education.”