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It sounds so simple, but if we as teachers put more effort into who we are teaching, more of the what would take care of itself.

- Katie, Elementary Teacher (Freeman & Freeman, 6)

When asking veteran teachers of English language learners (ELLs) to share the secret of their success, I usually hear the same answer. It is not the name of a particular language instruction model, learning strategy, or new district-wide curriculum. It is, instead, this: getting to know their students. As Katie observes in the quote above, it sounds so simple - and yet it is a necessary step that is often overlooked by teachers and schools at the beginning of the school year and as ELLs arrive throughout the year, leading to misplaced students and missed opportunities.

When these experienced teachers refer to "getting to know their students," it is true that they are referring in part to a student's English language proficiency, as well as strategizing the best way to assess the student's language and literacy skills with valid, reliable measures in order to place student in the appropriate classrooms. But they are also talking about much more than a number or language level - they are talking about prior academic experiences (or lack thereof), cultural and religious traditions, hobbies, personality, family circumstances, and background about the student's home community or native country that can inform their instructional decisions in the classroom.

This related excerpt from ASCD's February 2016 edition of Educational Leadership, which focuses on ELLs, offers more ideas for building productive relationships with diverse ELL families. While the full digital edition is only available to subscribers, a hard copy of this issue can be purchased from ASCD.

Gathering this information not only opens the doors to more fully meeting the student's needs and addressing challenges that may arise, but it also provides an opportunity to create a welcoming classroom environment, engage the student and family, increase the student's confidence, and create opportunities for classmates to learn from each other.

It allows teachers to build upon the student's strengths and successes, which is particularly important as students are acclimating to a new classroom and potentially a new country and culture. And it has the potential to improve classroom management and teacher interactions with the student as certain behaviors are explained and understood (such as not looking a teacher in the eye out of deference and respect).

This article provides some guidance on what information will be helpful to gather about your students, ideas on how to gather what you need and who will be able to help, and recommendations for useful resources. You will also find the video clips below useful as they contain valuable ideas from veteran teachers.

When you are done reading the article, scroll down to the comments section where we welcome you to share your own ideas on how you get to know your students!

Whom to ask?

Students

While it may seem challenging to gather the information you need from students who are still learning English, a little bit of effort can go a long way. Students' actions, body language, drawings, and behavior in the classroom can tell you volumes, even if they aren't speaking English yet. As their English improves, they will be able to share more through speaking and writing. Here are some ideas for ways to learn more from students (with special thanks to Becky Corr and Susan Lafond for their input!):

Start with "get to know" you games and icebreakers at the beginning of the year but don't stop there - keep looking for opportunities to allow students to share information about themselves throughout the year.

Ask a lot of questions to continue building that relationship. Ask about family members, pets, academics, sports, what they do outside of their school day, how they spend their weekends, after-school jobs and prom dresses!

Look for ways to build your student's trust. Share (appropriate) stories of your own about topics such as your family, pets, or favorite activities.

Listen to your students and let them know you're listening by the questions you ask. Tune in to what they are saying.

Take notice of changes and talk to your students about what you are observing.

You can also find ways to incorporate these topics into standards-based classroom assignments and discussions and continue learning about your students through their academic work. For example, you can give students the chance to write about their experiences through journals and autobiographical assignments, even if they start out with very basic information about themselves. (See Christine Rowland's video clip below about her autobiography assignment for her high school ELLs.)
In their 2011 book, Between Worlds: Access to Second Language Acquisition (3rd Edition), David E. Freeman and Yvonne S. Freeman share additional relevant ideas that teachers use when getting to know students:

Provide students with questionnaires that ask them how they feel about reading and writing in English, as well as about their individual strengths and challenges.

Have students interview each other about past schooling experiences and report to the group.

Ask students to submit writing samples and discuss them with students (p. 29)

Families

In addition to building a relationship with your students, meeting with parents, guardians, or family members (referred to as parents in the rest of the article) can provide you with a rich pool of information. If the parents don't speak English, be sure to have an interpreter available when you meet with them in order to make your time together as productive as possible; you may wish to meet without the child present in case the parents want to share any sensitive information.

Colleagues

Another important source can be found within your building - your colleagues. ESL teachers, bilingual teachers, guidance counselors, previous classroom teachers, paraprofessionals, parent liaisons, or other bilingual staff members might have helpful information about the student or about the larger community to which the student belongs. These individuals are often an underutilized resource within their building, so don't hesitate to ask for their input!

Community

Finally, you may also be able to find valuable information about a particular family or group of families from community members, staff from community organizations, or other parents whose children attend your school. These individuals are likely to have insights on language, religion, culture, or background information on a particular country or conflict. Building relationships with the community at large can also lead to other opportunities throughout the year for your students, and while you may be unsure of how to start the conversation, most people appreciate being given the chance to help their community.

Guidelines for Meeting with Families

In addition to making sure an interpreter is available, there are some important considerations that can help your communication with families go more smoothly.

Start by talking with ESL teachers, bilingual teachers, or family liaisons. Ask them for guidance on partnering with families to learn more about their students' experiences.

Once you have a little context, you may wish to set up a conversation with the family to learn more about the student's educational background. Explain that knowing a little bit more about the students' past experiences can help the school provide the right kind of instruction.

Take some time to get to know the family a little bit rather than jumping in with a lot of questions. Keep the questions focused on your student's schooling, unless the families wish to discuss other issues.

Some families will welcome the chance to share information about their child's experiences. If families are reluctant to answer many questions, however, don't push. Look for clues and continue working on building relationships that will create trust.

Keep in mind that some families may not be comfortable talking about certain aspects of their experience, such as their immigration journey, past traumatic events, or even their cultural identity and home language, as in the case many Indigenous families from Latin America.

While each family's situation is unique and it's important not to make assumptions, families from the same country or region may also share some experiences in common that can inform your work. Noting these trends can help the school partner more effectively with students as they get to know students' better.

Never ask questions related to immigration experiences. All K-12 students have the legal right to attend public schools regardless of immigration status.

What do I need to know about my ELLs?

Learning to Pronounce Students' Names

Taking the time to learn to say students' names correctly can make a world of difference. Read more about why it matters and strategies for learning to pronounce names that are new for you in our related resource section.

Focusing on the following questions will help guide your research as you begin.

1. Where is my student from?

This question may be easy to answer, but you may also find that it isn't as easy as it first seemed! Your students may have:

Recently immigrated from their country of origin

Recently arrived from a different country than their country of origin (as in the case of a refugee camp)

Been born in the U.S.

Moved frequently between multiple countries, such as the U.S. and Mexico

Moved around the U.S., as in the case of migrant farmworkers

Finding out this single detail will also provide your first clues as to the student's prior experiences with schooling, the family's socio-economic situation, and any previous traumas (see below for more information). To learn more about the dangerous conditions that children may experience on their journy from Latin America to the U.S., see this report from Buzzfeed.

Sources of Information: You may be able to learn about the student's background from students themselves, parents, siblings, the home language survey, or student records.

Once you know more, it may be helpful to learn more about:

Country of origin

Cultural and religious traditions

Political or historic situations that may be affecting patterns of immigration

"DOs" and DON'Ts" of social behavior and communication (Cary, 34).

It is easy to get overwhelmed, but focus your research on information that seems most relevant to your student and the family situation.

Recommended Resource: One useful tool is a set of books written by Jeffra JoAnn Flaitz about international students and immigrant/refugee students. Both books include profiles of the most common countries of origin for ELLs in the U.S. with information about culture, language, education, teaching styles, and classroom behavior. A sample chapter about El Salvador is available online.

Note: Since the books were written in 2003 and 2006, they may not have recent information about ongoing global conflicts or trends that are affecting your current students, although they will provide useful background information to more recent developments.

Classroom Ideas: You may wish to have students share information about their background with classmates through use of a globe, world map or class projects. You can also look for related materials such as children's books to share with the class and ways to integrate information about other countries throughout the curriculum so that students can continue to share information about their background as their language skills progress during the year. This is also an important step in helping students develop pride in their heritage.

Keep in Mind: Be mindful of what Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calls "the danger of a single story" in her 2009 TED talk; in other words, when learning about another country, remember that what you learn may not reflect your student's experiences in that country. In addition, remember that students who speak the same language or who hail from the same country may not have all that much in common, and in fact may experience some tension if they come from different ethnic backgrounds or groups with histories of conflict.

For example, it is important to recognize the diversity within the Spanish-speaking population in the U.S. Spanish speakers may hail from Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Spain, or another part of the world! Students are likely to identify more with their nationality ("Salvadoran" or "Colombian") as opposed to the broader term "Latinos."

In addition, Spanish may be the student's second (or third) language if the student grew up speaking an indigenous language, such as Quechua, a language spoken in the Andes. Remember that cultural traditions and language vary not only across countries but within countries, just as in the U.S.

Vignette #1: Teacher Amber Prentice Jimenez learned this lesson when she discovered that two of her Somali students came from different ethnic groups that had been directly linked to the violence that led them each to come here as refugees, and she was very careful about managing their work together as the students became more comfortable with each other. Learning more about each student's background and the history of the conflict that had affected each of them helped her address these challenges.

Vignette #2: ELL education professor Stephen Cary shares the story of Lenny, a teacher who received a new boy, Ka, in his classroom. Ka told the class that he was from Laos and was "Mung" (as Lenny understood it). Lenny's first search on information about the "Mung" people was fruitless, until he looked for information on Laos and discovered information about the Hmong people. Then the floodgates of information opened and he spent hours online, reading about the Thai refugee camps where many Hmong families waited to receive permission to come to the U.S., as well as learning about the Hmong language and traditional Hmong beliefs.

Lenny's efforts were quite admirable, but he became so absorbed with what he learned about the traditional Hmong beliefs about sickness (as documented in the book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down) that he when he heard from an uncle that Ka was sick and would miss school, he envisioned an "evil spirit, animal sacrifice, and shaman scenario."

As it turned out, Ka had strep throat, and the uncle reported that they "went to the hospital and got antibiotics." It was a wake-up call for Lenny, who was reminded that adjusting to life in a new country takes place on a continuum and may not be an all or nothing proposition. (Cary, 22-32)

2. What brought my student and/or my student's family here?

People move to a different country for all kinds of reasons. Those might include a new job, a chance to reunite with relatives, cultural exchange, political asylum, or escape from a war zone. For students who were born in the U.S., their parents or grandparents may also have come to this country for the same reasons. When getting to know a student, it's important to ascertain the situation that brought the family to this country to the extent possible.

You may learn that the family is in a very comfortable position and is enjoying the benefits of a new position or scholarship. You may also learn that the family has recently experienced significant trauma, that a parent or sibling is still living in a different country, or that the parents are working multiple jobs here in the U.S. and are not able to provide much supervision to their children.

You may also find, however, that students are afraid to talk about what brought their family here or where they came from. If questions about the student's past provoke anxiety, don't pressure students to respond. You may find the answer from another source or from the student in time.

Sources of Information: Some students or families may be reluctant to share too much information about their personal lives at first, particularly if they are unable to discuss it in English. With time, they may feel more comfortable sharing information with the help of an interpreter when they understand that your primary aim is to support their child.

You may also be able to learn more from community members or organizations who have ties to the family's country of origin. Did a refugee placement bring the family here? Is a new food processing plant opening up in town that is hiring workers? Is the family attending a religious institution where they are receiving support? Look for answers in your community, and keep your eyes and ears open in the classroom as well may to look for clues through the student's conversation, artwork, writing, or play.

3. What should I know about my student's family?

Some questions that may be helpful to answer about the student's family include the following:

With whom does the student live?

Is there a family member at home who speaks English and can serve as a primary point of contact?

Does the student have family members who are living far away?

Does the student have responsibilities such as caring for younger siblings or relatives?

Does the student have a job?

Are there any other stressors that may be affecting the student, such as financial difficulties, immigration status, pressure from parents, difficulty fitting in, or an unstable home life?

Sources of information: If the student is in a fluid situation (such as in a family of migrant farmworkers or in a family where the parents are separating), it might be difficult to determine where the student lives and with whom. Even if the basics can be learned, however, it may not tell the complete story. Nevertheless, it is important to know who the adults are in the student's life with whom you can begin to build a relationship, such as a grandparent or an aunt or uncle.

Some ways to get to know your student's family include:

organizing home visits at the beginning of the year

holding parent meetings in the communities where ELLs live so that it makes it easier for families to attend

looking for ways that parents can help out or volunteer in the classroom.

Keep in Mind: Even young students may have big responsibilities in their family; being aware of those responsibilities and establishing a line of contact with the families may provide an opportunity to find solutions together if those responsibilities conflict with the student's schooling or extra-curricular activities (think Ana's after-school job at her father's restaurant in Stand and Deliver!).

4. What language(s) does my student speak?

Learning about your student's home language or languages can be useful because you can:

Determine if the language is closely related to English (such as Spanish) and if so, build on those similarities with cognates

Find clues to the student's syntax, pronunciation, or communication style in English (called "language transfer")

Look for materials such as books or other educational resources in that language to have available in the classroom

Discover that an otherwise quiet student with "limited" English is in fact fluent in 2, 3, or 4 other languages! Such was the case of one of Michelle Lawrence's students from Buffalo, NY featured in the beginning of our Watch and Learn Story Set-up clip. She was very shy, but we soon learned that she spoke 4 languages, and we finally convinced her to list them on camera!

Sources of Information: You might find information about the student's home language on the home language survey, although it is important to take that information with a grain of salt in case the family is reluctant to have a child placed in ESL or bilingual classes. Speaking with the student and family in person is likely to give you a better picture of their language background; however, they may need more information about the kind of language instruction and its goals available at the school first before they disclose much detail about their language background.

Keep in Mind: Students who have been living in the U.S. may have moved between different kinds of language programs and classrooms even within the same school, and there may be significant gaps in both their home language and their English skills. As you learn more about their language proficiency levels, look for signs of both social and academic language in both languages in order to inform your instruction. Remember, too, that even if students can read in English, they might not be literate in their home language if all or most of their prior schooling was in the U.S.

Classroom activities: Once you know what languages your student speak, give them opportunities to teach their classmates and teachers words or phrases from their language.

Vignette: Stephen Cary describes the approach in Dolores Espinosa's K-1 class, in which students take turns being the "language teacher" for one week at a time. Students teach informal phrases to the class, which the students naturally incorporate into their interactions with each other over time. Native English speakers also have the opportunity to teach a heritage language of an earlier generation. Phrases are posted around the room, and a parent or relative will come in to do an activity with the class in the language of the week, such as a game or song. (132-133)

Not only does Dolores' approach provide a rich, multilingual experience for all students, it validates the student's background and identity, creating an opportunity to be an "expert" - a welcome break from being the one learning (and learning in) a different language all day long!

Recommended Resources: Jeffra Flaitz's books on understanding international, refugee, and immigrant students, mentioned above, include a guide to the linguistic systems of the featured languages as well as information about nonverbal behavior.

Additional information about language transfer for particular languages can be found in these tip sheets from Cengage Learning and MacMillan.

5. What kind of schooling has my student had?

This question may be fairly straightforward if a student arrives with a transcript or summary from previous schools, or if the student can demonstrate proficiency in other academic subjects such as math (even without advanced English skills). However, the picture may also be incomplete; records may not be available or the lack of information may reflect inconsistent, interrupted or limited schooling experiences, as in the case of refugee or migrant students.

Sources of Information: The student might be able to tell you about prior schooling experiences, but the input of a parent would probably yield more information. In addition, having another adult from the child's home country, such as an interpreter, school aide, or community member present may offer more context on a likely schooling scenario.

For students who have been in the U.S. at least a year, you may also be able to glean useful information from prior student records, portfolios, or teacher notes, particularly if the student attended your school the previous year.

What to look for: Useful information to determine includes:

Years of schooling

Types of school attended

Literacy background

Academic record

Prior English instruction

Any learning disabilities or special needs

Areas of giftedness

Favorite subjects

If possible, it may also be useful to find out about the student's school experiences; did the student like independent work or group activities? Did the student struggle with any subjects in particular? What was the student's behavior like?

Learn more: To learn more about other countries' educational systems, take a look at Jeffra JoAnn Flaitz's books mentioned above, which include detailed information on educational approaches, classroom behavior, teacher and student interactions, and how schools operate in the profiled countries.

6. What are my student's interests?

Last but not least, don't forget to find out about the fun things! What are some favorite hobbies, sports, and activities? In some cases, those activities may be a hook to student engagement, speaking more English or to making new friends - although there are no guarantees!

Vignette: In chapter 4 of his book (also available online through the Heinemann website), Stephen Cary shares the story of Cathy, a second-grade teacher who tried using her students' personal interests to engage them in the classroom. In the case of Erica, who loved music, some encouragement to look through the class CD box and write music reviews brought her out of her shell and provided a foundation for what soon became rapid language development; however, in the case of Gustavo, an avid soccer player, all of Cathy's soccer-themed activities fell short. Then over winter break, Gustavo made a friend who was also a soccer player, and his English took off (Cary, 53-55).

Even if your efforts don't yield big dividends in the classroom, though, knowing what those favorite activities are and talking about them with your students will show your student that you care about him or her as a person and that you see the student as more than an English language learner.

Sources of information: Look for signs of student interests in book selections, writing assignments, conversations, and artwork. Even if your student can't communicate very much about those interests at first, the signs may still be there. Parents are also an important source of information and will likely be happy to talk about the activities that their child enjoys when given a chance, such as in the case of Clara's parent letters mentioned above.

Concluding Thoughts

There is never enough time to do as much as you would like, and at first you may feel discouraged at all the information that you won't be able to learn. Nevertheless, taking some small steps may yield big results in your classroom and you will learn information that will serve you well when teaching other students in the future as well. Just remember Katie's message - if you focus on the who, the what will start to care of itself!

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Getting to Know Your ELLs: Six Steps for Success

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It sounds so simple, but if we as teachers put more effort into who we are teaching, more of the what would take care of itself. - Katie, Elementary Teacher (Freeman & Freeman, 6) When asking veteran teachers of English language learners (ELLs) to share the secret of their success, I usually hear the same answer.

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A MiddleWeb Blog

In the early years, students (ELs or not) generally love when their family comes up to school. They look forward to open house so they can show mom, dad, aunt, uncle, sister, brother, grandparents, anyone around the building.

They can't wait for family to come eat lunch with them in the school cafeteria. It's the highlight of their day. But then something happens.

As kids grow older, a shift occurs. They no longer invite family to visit school. In fact, they discourage it completely. Kids in the middle grades become increasingly aware of their differences, and many of them work hard to hide those differences for fear of being teased.

For English learners and newcomer students, the differences can be vast. Traditions, accents, clothing, food, spatial proximity, and social norms are just some of the contrasts that English learners and newcomers may face. Often these dissimilarities can lead to embarrassment, especially when students are picked on or bullied for being different.

Who Am I?

Not unlike a typical preteen or teen at this age, many ELs struggle with their identities. I distinctly remember asking myself...Am I American or am I Yugoslavian/American or am I Yugoslavian? And I didn't quite realize why this was so confusing to me.

The cultural struggle is real. At home, I was immersed in my Yugoslavian culture and traditions. But at school, I felt so much pressure to hide my Yugoslavian self and identify as "American." So I was essentially left with hybrid identities. My parents were not like my friends' parents. They didn't speak like them or do the same things they did, and I noticed. But I didn't want anyone else to take note.

Family at school...maybe not so cool...

This can make family engagement rather challenging for schools and for families. When students no longer want their family members to come up to the school to participate, volunteer, or learn, it can break down the team (school, student, parent) that is essential for student achievement and success.

Those of us who seek to engage families and communities begin with the recognition that we can't successfully educate students on our own. Most likely, you are reading this because you already hold this to be true, or suspect that it is.

Yes, it's easier to shut the classroom door and teach from the lesson plan book alone. Yet we know that partnering with families and community members leads to greater achievement for all students, lower absenteeism, better behavior, and higher graduation rates.

So what do we do? How do we create campuses that are places that unite families, communities, and educators?

1. Relationships

First we can work intentionally to strengthen the relationships we have with ELs and their families. When English learners believe that we truly care about them, who they are, and their success, they trust us. Our students need to know that we are here for them. That's why we do what we do each day.

Not only are the relationships with students important, but the relationships with families are just as important. When students and families speak a language other than English, we may need to work harder or in a different way to break the language barrier. Some teachers use a translator and others use digital translation tools.

No matter how you do it, remember that even non-verbal communication speaks volumes. How we stand, the way we hold our arms, our posture and proximity, our eyes, and a smile. All of these transcend languages.

Many families are unable to come to the school because of child care or transportation, or because they fear a lack of communication will hinder them. Home visits not only solve those problems but also show families that we care deeply about their child. In addition, visiting a family's home can provide many answers to questions.

Building relationships with community stakeholders is just as essential. The world around our school can offer excellent real-life learning opportunities for our students. Partnering with local companies can support students, families and educators towards a path to lifelong success. Local companies are often able to provide resources that schools alone cannot.

Utilizing the assets that your community offers allows you to shine a light on the valuable ways all our students and families can contribute to society. Some teachers invite local community members and/or family members to teach lessons or share their knowledge in specific areas. For example, one teacher had a student whose father was a doctor at a local clinic. She invited him to come speak about the dangers of vaping and the importance of taking proper care of your body.

2. Respect

As we build relationships with families, it's essential for family members to feel respected. It can be especially strenuous on a family when they leave a country where they were able to effectively communicate and contribute. If an EL's family is learning English, they may need a little extra support from us.

Families of English learners have a lot to offer their children and our schools. They are the biggest experts on their child. Tapping into their expertise and partnering with them to enhance their child's educational journey will prove beneficial.

However, this means that we have to embrace differences in what family engagement may look like and feel like from culture to culture. Traditional forms of family engagement vary. What you might expect may not be the norm for all families. Being respectful of how each family engages with their child's education is essential.

As we work to respect families, we can provide them with platforms that will amplify their voices. They are our partners in educating their children and their voice is important. Collaborative practices such as inviting family members to be part of leadership teams on our campuses will give us a new perspective on teaching and learning.

3. Communication

At the beginning of the year, reach out to families and find out what language they prefer to receive communication in. Never assume the language of choice for a family. Once you know, do your best to send home all communication in the language of their choice. Keeping family members involved in their child's education through language-friendly messaging creates a welcoming environment.

Families that are learning English may need some additional support from us. There are many translation tools available to us now that are getting better and better. Google Translate has improved greatly. TalkingPoints is another one that I like for texting parents in their language.

One of the best things about TalkingPoints is that it allows for transparent two-way communication between families and teachers even when there isn't a common language. As the homepage says, it's easy to "reach all your students' families In their home languages to build strong partnerships" using a web or a mobile app ( see these tips).

Prior to meeting with parents, send home questions or discussion points. This will help them prepare in case they need help or want to do any advance research. For instance, if you are planning a parent-teacher conference, contact the family to arrange a time/date. And send them a note (translated if that's helpful) with the discussion topics. For example:
We will be discussing Bianca's progress in my class. I would like to share with you her strengths and some areas of growth. We will also talk about goals for the rest of the year and her future. Please feel free to share with me any questions you may have about our class and about Williams Middle School. I will do my best to guide you.
Some teachers include students in conferences as a way to empower student voice and strengthen the link between home and school. Including students in conferences with families sends a message that we are in this journey together. The opportunity provides a place for each key member to hear the same information: this is what is going well, this is where we are headed, here's what each member can do to help us achieve our goal.

If a translator is necessary find out ahead of time and secure a qualified adult to translate. Avoid using the child or another student to translate. The vocabulary used during the conference may not be "child-friendly" and put stress on the student.

Sustaining communication is essential. Parent-teacher conferences and home visits are excellent, but they should not be something we check off the list and say, "Well, I did that. So I'm finished communicating with that parent. Done." In many cases, that's what happens - especially with families of ELs - if educators find ccommunication challenging. Yes, it takes effort, planning, and heart. That's what we signed up for.

In order to sustain a two-way path of communication, some teachers offer many platforms to meet the needs of all families:

Email

Texts

Paper newsletters

Online newsletters

Webpage

Facebook group (closed or private)

4. Family Centers

Family centers are excellent resources for families of ELs. If your district or school doesn't have one yet, advocate for such a service. A family center is a place where families of ELs can come to:

learn English,

learn about American schools,

get plugged into volunteering opportunities in the school system,

connect with other parents,

find out about job opportunities,

learn about the community.

And much more! Effective parent centers provide families of ELs with a voice in the district. They empower families as advocates for their children.

Family centers are also perfect places to plug in community stakeholders. I worked in a district that invited local community partners to visit the family centers often and speak with the EL families about the amenities locally accessible to them.

Physicians, dentists, bankers, officers, legal advocates, local community colleges, business owners, etc. were invited. They shared with families information about job opportunities, health services, housing, financial literacy, state and local laws, and more.

Things change...

It's inevitable that as kids grow older, they change, and their needs do as well. This requires us to follow suit. Students in middle and upper grades won't need the same type of family engagement as students in younger grades. Families and educators of older students will need to adjust. On the other hand, both younger and older students need:

families and educators to work in partnership

open, warm, and sustained communication between educators and families

families to be linked to their education

Here are some questions to ask yourself as you reflect on family and community engagement practices:

Additional Resources
WIDA Family Engagement Resources Harvard GSE: Letting Go, Staying Close (the Teenage Years) Larry Ferlazzo's Resources on Parent Engagement Institute for Educational Leadership: Serve the Whole Child in Community Schools

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Partner with the Families of Your English Learners

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A MiddleWeb Blog In the early years, students (ELs or not) generally love when their family comes up to school. They look forward to open house so they can show mom, dad, aunt, uncle, sister, brother, grandparents, anyone around the building. They can't wait for family to come eat lunch with them in the school cafeteria.

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#146. Changing the Narrative about Immigrant Families - TanKHuynh

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How we perceive parents shapes our collaboration with them. This article shares a more assets-based perspective on immigrant families.

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Kagan’s FREE Articles - Cooperative Learning Helps English Language Learners (ELLs) Succeed

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Read Dr. Spencer Kagan�s provocative and insightful articles on Kagan Structures and how they have the power to transform education. Cooperative learning, multiple intelligences, the brain, character development, Win-Win Discipline.

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Choosing from: Cooperative Learning Structures

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Choosing from: Cooperative Learning Structures

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An important first step in helping English language learners (ELLs) succeed is making them feel welcome in the classroom.

This will:

increase their confidence

make them feel more comfortable in the class

build a foundation for positive relationships with you and their peers.

Here's how you can get started!

The ELL student population includes students who were born in the U.S. and students who have immigrated from another country. For ELLs who have recently arrived in the U.S., they will face the challenge of learning a new language in addition to adjusting to an unfamiliar cultural setting and school system.

On a daily basis, ELLs are adjusting to new ways of saying and doing things. As their teacher, you are an important bridge to this unknown culture and school system.

In the same way that ELLs go through stages of English language learning, they may also pass through stages of cultural accommodation. These stages, however, may be less defined and more difficult to notice. Being aware of these stages may help you to better understand "unusual" actions and reactions that may just be part of adjusting to a new culture.

Euphoria: ELLs may experience an initial period of excitement about their new surroundings.

Culture shock: ELLs may then experience anger, hostility, frustration, homesickness, or resentment towards the new culture.

Acceptance: ELLs may gradually accept their different surroundings.

Assimilation/adaptation: ELLs may embrace and adapt to their surroundings and their "new" culture.

It is also common for students who are learning a new language to be 'silent' for a period of time, when they are listening to the language around them without speaking yet (much as a young child listens to language first before learning to talk). This is considered the first stage of language acquisition.

Patience and creating opportunities for small successes in speaking with you and peers can help build students' confidence. In addition, keep in mind that students' silence could also be a sign of respect for you as an authority - and not a sign of their inability or refusal to participate.

Students may also have experienced trauma or face different kinds of hardship in the U.S. You can better prepare yourself for this possibility by:

Learn more from the following:

This award-winning documentary highlights how the Dearborn, MI public school district is helping its immigrant students succeed. Learn more about this project and see related videos.

Getting to Know Students

Learn how to pronounce students' names correctly

Don't forget to smile and use positive body language!

A lot of communication happens through expressions, body language, and tone. Smiling and using positive body language can go a long way in making students feel welcome and comfortable, particularly if they are newcomers, as seen in the vignette shared by a teacher below.

Build relationships with students

Veteran teachers of ELLs always point to building relationships as the most important step in their work with ELLs. Not only does it increase engagement and support students' later academic success, it also provides invaluable information that can inform your instruction and family engagement.

In addition, it can help build bridges with students who may have particularly unique experiences, such as children in migrant farmwork families or Indigenous students.

See more ideas on how to build these relationships from the following:

Video: Showing students you care

Corpus Christi teacher Christine Price talks about the importance of showing students you care early on.

Identify students' strengths and interests

It's important to remember that ELLs bring lots of strengths, talents, and rich experiences to the classroom. Getting to know students' interests can help:

build rapport

engage students in learning

find connections with new friends.

Families are also an important source of information and are often happy to talk about the activities that their child enjoys. They may also appreciate the fact that their child's teacher is taking an interest in the child's strengths and talents. (This is especially true in special education settings.)

Teacher Omar Salem describes a student who not only sings and dances but manages her own YouTube channel and edits all of the video she posts of her performances.

Video: Using parent letters to get to know my students

Albuquerque teacher Clara Gonzales-Espinoza asks her parents to write her a letter at the beginning of each school year telling her about the child's personality, interests, strengths, and anything else they think she should know. In this interview, Clara speaks more about this strategy and its impact on her relationships with parents and students.

Ensure that students have information about activities and clubs

Make sure that students have information about extra-curricular activities, sports, and clubs related to their interests. You can also encourage them to start their own club within the school.

ELL educator Christine Rowland notes, "Many students find involvement in school clubs and teams to be extremely helpful, as they are often experts in these areas, and they can provide a space where they more easily feel they belong."

Welcoming Students' Language and Culture

Invite students' cultures into the classroom

Encourage ELLs and their families to share their culture with you and your class. Show-and-tell is a good opportunity for ELLs to bring in something representative of their culture, if they wish.

Invite students and families to:

share photographs, visuals, or meaningful artifacts such as flags or mementos

tell a popular story or folktale using words, pictures, gestures, and movements

share information about important holidays or celebrations.

Looking beyond the classroom

Imagine that you are walking into your school for the first time as a parent.

What do you see on the walls?

If your first language weren't English, would you see signs in your language?

Would you see flags, maps, or books representing your home country?

Would you see your child's work on display in the hallway?

If you think more could be done to make families feel welcome, consider:

sharing some ideas with colleagues or administrators and taking small steps that you can point to as successes

looking for opportunities to celebrate all families and their languages, customs, and cultures, whether in the classroom or at a school-wide event

keeping a lookout for a special part of their lives that other families might appreciate getting to know.

See more ideas in the following:

Video: What happened when the students realized the Yemeni flag wasn't on stage

ELD Specialist Diana Alqadhi tells the story of some students who realized that the Yemeni flag was not featured prominently enough on stage before a school show.

Invite students' languages into the classroom

Label classroom objects to allow ELLs to better understand their immediate surroundings. These labels will also assist you when explaining or giving directions, and it gives peers an additional opportunity to learn some words in their classmates' language.

Start with everyday items, such as "door/puerta," "book/libro," and "chair/silla."

You may wish to ask students who can write in their first language or family members to help you with this project.

You can also invite students to teach the class some words from their home language.

Learn more about the resources available in students' home languages

Students benefit from support in their home language - what Dr. Fred Genesee calls their " most valuable resource." You have may have access to learning material in students' languages, or you may be able to find resources that support those languages.

Language access for multilingual families

In addition, it's critical to understand what language access resources you have available through your school and district, particularly for communication with families. Keep in mind that all families have a legal right to information in their home language. Family liaisons, interpreters, ESL teachers, or administrators may have more information about what language access resources are available in your district.

Video: What Do School Districts Need to Know About Language Access?

This helpful overview about what language access means for school districts is a great introduction to the requirements, best practices, and funding streams related to language access in public education. This interview features Dr. Jennifer Love, the Supervisor of Language Access and Engagement in Prince George's County Public Schools, Maryland.

Video: Language Access for Multilingual Families

What does appropriate language access mean for multilingual families? This interview also features Dr. Jennifer Love.

Ensure your students see themselves reflected in the classroom

Ask yourself if students can see representations of their culture, race, gender, and other aspects of identity reflected in your:

classroom materials and library

lesson plans and activities

classroom visuals (both in-person and virtual).

In addition:

Success in the Classroom

Encourage your students

Some ELLs may not answer voluntarily in class or ask for your help even if they need it. ELLs may smile and nod, but this does not necessarily mean that they understand. Offer one-on-one support and encouragement as much as possible. For convenience, it may be helpful to seat ELLs near your desk.

Assign a buddy

Identify a classmate who will make a good buddy for new students - someone who is friendly, patient, and a good communicator to be a buddy. This student can make sure that the new student understands what he or she is supposed to do during class activities. It is helpful if the peer partner knows the ELL's first language, but not necessary. However, remember to never use another student as an interpreter in any situation.

Learn more about ways to increase peer interaction and collaboration in these related strategies.

Ask the class how they can help welcome new students

Ask students to brainstorm ways to help ELLs in particular. You may wish to make a list of ideas on how to welcome new students at the beginning of the year so that students have these strategies in mind if a student comes with little advance notice.

Be vigilant about health issues, dietary concerns, and allergies

Students may have specific health issues or dietary restrictions due to health, cultural, or religious reasons. Be sure that you learn all essential information you need to know about student health and diet from parents or guardians. For ELLs, be sure to confirm and clarify this information with the help of interpreters.

If you learn information about a student that would be helpful for other staff to know, particularly regarding health or food allergies, talk with administrators about how to keep the child safe. In addition, be sensitive to cultural or religious norms, such as fasting for religious reasons.

Keep an eye out for signs of culture shock

Moving to a new country and leaving a familiar life, relatives, friends, and language behind can be traumatic for children in the best of circumstances. Those challenges are compounded if children have experienced trauma, violence, or upheaval. Learn more about how culture shock can impact students in the classroom and affect student behavior so that you recognize signs if newcomers act out.

Encourage students to take ownership of the classroom culture

Ask students to answer the following questions through drawings or written responses.

How can I be a good classmate to others?

What are examples of unkind or disrespectful behavior in the classroom?

To support ELLs in their discussions of these questions:

Encourage students who speak the same language to discuss their ideas in groups.

Provide scaffolded materials such as graphic organizers, sentence stems, and sentence frames.

Use a picture book to talk about different kinds of behavior with students.

Create a shared set of classroom expectations together

Return to your earlier discussion of what a respectful classroom looks like.

Brainstorm ideas on possible class rules based on that discussion.

Streamline the list of class guidelines or rules.

Add any rules or guidelines that are missing.

In order to establish appropriate consequences for disrespectful behavior, you may wish to come up with ideas with the class or determine those consequences yourself.

Post the final list classroom rules in the classroom.

Translate the rules into ELLs' native languages so that they can keep the list handy and share it at home.

To see an example of this proces in action, take a look at ELL expert Carol Salva's process for developing a community contract each year.

Help your ELLs understand expectations for the classroom

ELLs may need some extra support in understanding expectations for classroom behavior. Helping them understand these expectations can avoid misunderstandings, discipline problems, and feelings of low self-esteem.

At the same time, it's important to remember that students bridging two cultures may need guidance which behaviors are appropriate in which setting (such as eye contact, physical proximity, etc.). If you have questions, talk with a cultural liaison in the school to learn more about appropriate responses and ideas for helping students navigate a new culture. You can also learn more about cultural norms of your students, particularly related to schooling, to help inform your approach.

Here are a few strategies that you can use in class:

Use visuals like pictures, symbols, and reward systems to communicate your expectations in a positive and direct manner.

Physically model language to ELLs in classroom routines and instructional activities. ELLs will need to see you or their peers model behavior when you want them to sit down, walk to the bulletin board, work with a partner, copy a word, etc.

Be consistent and fair with all students. Once ELLs clearly understand what is expected, hold them equally accountable for their behavior.

Post a daily schedule. Even if ELLs do not yet understand all of the words that you speak, it is possible for them to understand the structure of each day. Whether through chalkboard art or images on Velcro, you can post the daily schedule each morning. By writing down times and having pictures next to words like lunch, wash hands, math, and field trip, ELLs can have a general sense of the upcoming day.

Finally, remember ELLs can make unintentional "mistakes" as they are trying hard to adjust to a new cultural setting. They are constantly transferring what they know as acceptable behaviors from their own culture to the U.S. classroom and school. Be patient as ELLs learn English and adjust - and remember that you will learn a lot from this experience too!

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How to Create a Welcoming Classroom Environment for ELLs

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An important first step in helping English language learners (ELLs) succeed is making them feel welcome in the classroom. This will: increase their confidence make them feel more comfortable in the class build a foundation for positive relationships with you and their peers. Here's how you can get started!

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Asking “Who are you?” and nine other ways to encourage, activate and support student voice

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Culturally Responsive Teaching: 5 Strategies for Educators

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Culturally responsive teaching is more necessary than ever in our increasingly diverse schools. Here are five strategies to consider.

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Translanguaging, Interlanguage, and Code-Switching - What’s the Difference?

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How to make use of language blending in the classroom.

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Making Assessments More Equitable for Multilingual Learners

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Teachers can take steps to make sure that tests only measure students’ content knowledge rather than their reading comprehension.

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Last month, I reviewed Zaretta Hammond's fantastic book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. Now I'm proud to have Zaretta here as a guest writer to share some specific strategies with us.

Culturally responsive teaching. Everybody is talking about it. The big question is: How do you actually make lessons culturally responsive? That comes up regularly when I am working with groups of teachers to improve outcomes for diverse students who are struggling. I remember working with a group of sixth grade teachers on improving learning for their at-risk students. These teachers were frustrated that their students, 95 percent of them students of color and English language learners, were not applying themselves to learning.

I suggested that we explore making lessons more culturally relevant in order to accelerate student learning. I remember the reaction of Janice, the science teacher. "I am not going to be rappin' about the periodic table," she said defiantly as she crossed her arms and sat back in her chair.

I couldn't blame her. Google "culturally responsive teaching" and you can find a dozen videos of well-meaning teachers leading some call-and-response chant about exponents or rapping about the Boston Tea Party while students sit back and giggle. That's because we usually talk about culturally responsive teaching only as an engagement strategy designed to motivate at-risk students to take learning seriously. Or we try to find a race-based connection to the content to make it "relevant" to minority students.

One of the biggest misconceptions about culturally responsive teaching is thinking you have to tie the lesson's content to African American or Latino students' racial background. The common belief is if you mention Africa, Mexico, or famous black and brown high achievers, it will spark students' attention. Then they will be motivated to participate.

In reality, culturally responsive teaching is less about using racial pride as a motivator and more about mimicking students' cultural learning styles and tools. These are the strategies their moms, dads, grandmas, and other community folks use to teach them life skills and basic concepts long before they come to school and during out-of-school time.

Culturally responsive teaching leverages the brain's memory systems and information processing structures. Why? Many diverse students come from oral cultural traditions. This means their primary ways of knowledge transfer and meaning-making are oral and active. It's a common cultural tradition that cuts across racial groups: African American, Latino, Southeast Asian, and Pacific Islander communities all have strong oral cultures. Each of these cultural groups uses the brain's memory systems for turning inert information into useable knowledge. They use memory strategies to make learning sticky, like connecting what needs to be remembered to a rhythm or music (that's why we still know the ABC song) or by reciting it in fun ways like a poem, riddle, or limerick.

I asked Janice what area of learning she wanted to help her kids improve. She said science vocabulary; they weren't learning the weekly words and it was getting in the way of their understanding of key concepts. She was frustrated and at the end of her rope. I asked how she was teaching it. She used the typical approach: On Monday, she listed the words on the board. Students copied them down and were required to look each word up and use it in a sentence. On Wednesday, there was a vocabulary test.

I suggested that we design word study to be more culturally responsive by making it more like the students' own cultural learning process. She was open for trying something different.

I offered her these three tips for transforming any lesson into something that looked and felt more culturally responsive to diverse students, something that would allow them to engage more and process the content effectively.

Games are the power strategy for culturally-grounded learning because they get the brain's attention and require active processing. Attention is the first step in learning. We cannot learn, remember, or understand what we don't first pay attention to. Call and response is just a way to get the brain's attention. Most games employ a lot of the cultural tools you'd find in oral traditions - repetition, solving a puzzle, making connections between things that don't seem to be related (Ever play Taboo or Apples to Apples?).

Organizing learning so that students rely on each other will build on diverse students' communal orientation. This communal orientation can be summed up in the African proverb, "I am because we are." Even making learning slightly competitive in a good-natured way increases students' level of attention and engagement. It's why the T.V. show Survivor has been around for so many years; it's a social-based game.

The brain is wired to remember stories and to use the story structure to make sense of the world. That's why every culture has creation stories. In oral traditions, stories play a bigger role in teaching lessons about manners, morality, or simply what plants to eat or not eat in the wilderness because it's the way content is remembered. Diverse students (and all students, really) learn content more effectively if they can create a coherent narrative about the topic or process presented. That's the brain's way of weaving it all together. (Bonus: It also offers a great way to check for understanding and correct misconceptions.)

So Janice took her weekly list of science vocabulary and created a variety of sorting and matching games for students. She built a set of simple card games based on Go Fish or Old Maid. In addition she created some team games. Each week students had different active ways to learn the vocabulary. For 10-15 minutes a couple of times during the week, students got to play these learning games rather than look up words in a dictionary. She gave them instructions for making the games at home if they wanted to.

Instead of the traditional weekly vocab test, she asked them to "storify" their understanding of key concept words like metamorphosis, using vocabulary from past weeks.

When I checked in with the group a few weeks later, she was the first one to share. She said student engagement was like night and day. Now all students were participating. She said she knew they were learning the vocabulary at a deeper level because they were actually using the new science terms during discussions and in their writing with no prompting from her.

The big A-ha's for the group that day were that (1) Culturally responsive teaching doesn't have to be some performance the teacher does to entertain students and (2) It doesn't have to mention race or reference culture at all. Instead, what makes a practice culturally responsive is that it mimics students' own cultural learning tools. They all realized that these practices are helpful for all students, not targeted at minority students.

The real trick is to use these strategies regularly as part of your instructional routine rather than doing them randomly every now and then. Consistency is the key. ♦

Learn more about how to improve diverse students' information processing skills and actually grow their brains in Zaretta Hammond's book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students .

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3 Tips to Make Any Lesson More Culturally Responsive

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Google "culturally responsive teaching" and you can find a dozen videos of well-meaning teachers leading some call-and-response chant about exponents or rapping about the Boston Tea Party while students sit back and giggle.