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Imagine that a new immigrant family has moved into the neighborhood your school serves. What is already in place to make this family feel welcome? What programs does the school offer that would inspire and challenge their children? What still needs some work?

If you feel there is a lot of room for improvement in meeting the needs of your English language learner (ELL) students and their families, you're not alone! With more than 5.3 million ELLs in U.S. schools who make up roughly ten percent of the PreK-12 population (NCELA, 2011), numerous school leaders around the country are, as Buffalo principal Kevin Eberle puts it, " flying the plane while building it." It's never too late to start engaging your ELL families, however, no matter how limited or ineffective those efforts have been in the past.

Getting Started

Making ELL Success a Priority

This guide is also available as a PDF.

School leaders are in a unique position to create a culture of success within their school community. As with other students, an important aspect of ELL success is family engagement. While you may be fortunate to have an energetic and passionate ELL teacher or bilingual liaison who has worked successfully with ELL families in the past, this is not the job of a single person. Engaging ELL families can only work if all members of the community (including administrators, staff, parents, and students) are committed to the broader mission.

The road will probably be bumpy at first and will most certainly require you to think outside of the box - the keys to your success may surprise you! In the end, though, the result is the same: parents, students, and educators working together towards a brighter future.

When you find what works for your ELL families (which may or may not be the same as what works for the ELL families at a neighboring school), you will feel as though you have won the lottery. Engaged ELL parents possess depths of dedication and wisdom regarding their children that will take your breath away. They have so much to offer - if the community is ready to embrace them and listen to what they have to say.

This is where you, as a school leader, can make important strides in changing the conversation from "What can they learn from us?" to "What can we learn from each other?"

"Parent Involvement" vs. "Parent Engagement"

In their book Building Parent Engagement in Schools, Larry Ferlazzo and Lorie Hammond explore a distinction between parent involvement and parent engagement. Parent involvement, as they define it, starts with the school: "The ideas and energy come from the schools and government mandates. Schools try to 'sell' their ideas to parents. School staff and public institutions might feel they know what the problems are and how to fix them, and determine the criteria to use in evaluating success."

Parent engagement, however, begins with the parents: "Ideas are elicited from parents by school staff in the context of developing trusting relationships. They emerge from parent/community needs and priorities. More parent energy drives the efforts (6)." This approach is more sustainable than asking your busy staff to plan numerous parent activities, take on extra responsibilities, and dig even deeper into their energy reserves (2). In addition, the more parents have the opportunity to shape activities and programs that help their families, the more invested they will be in seeing those efforts succeed.

Think of your ELL parents as a team waiting to be mobilized; while it will take some time and energy to get the team up and running (and to help them understand how valuable their contributions are), once everything is working, you will wonder how you ever got along without them!

Using This Guide

This guide offers twenty big ideas to help you create a new ELL family engagement plan. These ideas are designed to help you:

Strengthen home-school partnerships on behalf of ELL students

Recognize and build upon your ELL parents' strengths

Harness the energy and ideas of staff, parents, and students in shaping those partnerships

Mobilize and empower staff to become teacher leaders

Engage school-wide staff members beyond the ELL/bilingual departments

Create a culture of respect throughout the school community

Learn how to advocate for and allocate resources on behalf of ELL families

Encourage all participants to keep trying new, creative approaches until they find what works

Implement the changes needed to make your new plan successful.

The ideas are organized around six major themes:

Each idea has four components:

What you need to know: Background information and context

Reflection: Questions about your own school setting that can be used for professional development activities with individuals or groups

Strategies: Specific, concrete strategies targeted for an audience of PreK-12 administrators

Examples: Stories shared by educators and administrators around the country

As you get started, we recommend that you look for the ideas that best fit your population rather than trying to absorb all of the strategies at once. You will most likely need to try different approaches in order to find what works best for your families - but the important thing is to keep trying until you do.

Note: Links to additional resources on Colorín Colorado and other ELL websites are included in each section, as well as highlighted notes and recommended resources in the appendices at the end of the guide. If you have additional ideas or resources that you would like to recommend, feel free to share them in an e-mail to [email protected] !

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Introduction: Strategies for Engaging ELL Families

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Imagine that a new immigrant family has moved into the neighborhood your school serves. What is already in place to make this family feel welcome? What programs does the school offer that would inspire and challenge their children? What still needs some work?

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English Language Learners

Schools can better support students who are still learning English by working to involve their families in their education.

Marmaduke St. John / Alamy Stock Photo

The most impactful plans for student growth engage not only the learner but also his or her family. In fact, research points to parents and caretakers as invaluable stakeholders in students' academic achievement. Unfortunately, parents who are new to English are often left out of family engagement at the school level to some degree. How can we do a better job of appealing to and including the parents of English language learners ( ELLs) as valuable members of the school community?

Here are six keys to successfully engaging ELL parents and families.

1. Make It Reciprocal

Engagement is a partnership between the parents and the school to serve the best interests of students. The school is responsible for meeting certain expectations, some of which are legally mandated through the Every Student Succeeds Act, such as provisions for translation of vital school information into students' home languages.

Parents also have specific obligations, which aren't always clear, especially when there are cultural differences-we cannot assume that the American idea of doing school is shared by all families in our community. Teachers can help by explicitly communicating parents' key responsibilities, such as taking an active role in helping their child learn to organize his or her study time. Parents can also be encouraged to monitor engagement, limit distractions, build consistency, and celebrate periods of concentration.

Parents can also set aside a quiet place for their child to learn and read at home, and be available to answer questions. They should utilize school-based technological and translation resources, including bilingual dictionaries, home anchor charts, and web-based language translation applications, if needed. They should also take time to discuss school matters with their child, asking questions about the school day: friends, concepts learned, struggles and discomforts, successes and achievements.

2. Aim for Authenticity

Efforts to engage diverse parent groups must be authentic and meaningful. Begin with a deep dive of your school's unique demographics. What values, interests, and funds of knowledge are represented on campus? Is the school's interest in students' home lives perceived as genuine?

Support authenticity by intentionally fostering a welcoming, inclusive environment where families see reflections of themselves. Work to engage firsthand resources to your school, including bilingual staff members. Champion relationship building through collaboration. Authenticity breeds connection.

3. Use a Culturally Responsive Approach

Where do families' deeply rooted cultural values show up in the school? How do parents' cultural perspectives drive expectations for parent engagement? Do we use these references to ignore, diminish, or empower our families as members of our school community?

To make the shift toward empowerment, be mindful of culturally relevant dates and holidays, and avoid scheduling important events on these days. Ensure that school-based activities, language, and school menus reflect cultural considerations. Be critical of trivial displays of culture. Openly communicate norms for parent engagement, and work to share this information in a variety of ways. Invite student and parent input, and make a point of reframing cultural or linguistic misconceptions as teachable moments.

4. Keep It Simple

Communication is essential to successful parent engagement efforts. We should aim for clarity in all of our exchanges with parents, especially those who are still new to English.

Explore your school's registration paperwork and parent communications from a fresh perspective. What can be streamlined, condensed, or eliminated? Be particularly mindful of acronyms, educational jargon, and terms that may be unfamiliar to parents, including ones related to mental health like trauma.

Look for ways to provide appropriate support for language learning parents. Many of the strategies we use to make content comprehensible for ELLs are also helpful in working with linguistically diverse parent populations. Think: visuals, graphic organizers, and translated or icon-based cheat sheets for potentially unfamiliar terminology (for example, immunizations, English language development services).

5. Increase Capacity

Grow English learner caretakers as leaders in the school community by providing a range of low-risk opportunities for parent input, feedback, and cultural sharing. Here are some ideas:

Actively facilitate advisory, advocacy, and mentorship roles that are inclusive of caretakers who are learning English.

Intentionally craft and promote volunteer opportunities and teacher aide positions that appeal to diverse parent groups.

Host a variety of parent-school partnership events.

Offer outreach partnerships and community liaison roles that require cross-cultural or multilingual expertise.

Create an accessible bank of relevant tools and resources based on parent interest.

Organize parent-created learning sessions.

Collect input via English-learner parent focus groups, advisory committees, suggestion boxes, surveys, and interviews.

Consistently utilize parent feedback to inform decision making at the classroom, school, and district levels.

6. Find Your Way Home

In building and nurturing relationships with ELL families, the value of teacher home visits cannot be understated: They provide essential insight into a student's home life and unique learning needs, and "support academic gains and positive social integration for ELLs." They are linked to improved academic progress and attendance rates. Perhaps most importantly, teacher home visits lay a foundation of trust as the frontrunner to school-based parent engagement.

In the vast majority of cases, our English learner parents have high hopes for their children's scholastic well-being and wish to contribute to that success. When parents feel that they are a part of an inclusive learning culture and have a clear awareness of their role in their child's learning, true partnerships can occur.

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6 Tips for Engaging the Families of English Language Learners

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English Language Learners Schools can better support students who are still learning English by working to involve their families in their education. Marmaduke St. John / Alamy Stock Photo The most impactful plans for student growth engage not only the learner but also his or her family.

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Today, approximately 5 million students are considered English-language learners (ELLs) in the United States. ELL is a broad term that refers to students who are learning English as an additional language, but identification varies from state to state. Recent trends show that the number of ELLs continues to rise across the nation. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports that the percentage of ELLs in public schools increased from 8.1% in 2000 to 10.1% in 2017. ¹ While most ELLs are in elementary school, nearly 800,000 are in high school. As for middle school, in 2015, 33% of ELLs were in grades 6-12 (which includes the middle grades), according to the Pew Research Center. ²

Spanish is the most prevalent home language and represents 75.2% of all ELLs (3.8 million students) and 7.7% of all public school students. ³ After Spanish, the next most common languages are Arabic and Chinese. However, within the U.S., ELLs speak more than 400 languages.

Bilingual Education in the United States

Bilingual education programs involve sustained use of a student's home language in which instruction occurs in English and the home language, with students developing bilingualism, biliteracy, and multicultural understandings. ⁴ While there are different types of programs for ELLs, with many only in English, it is up to schools to decide which method is best for their students.
Challenges
ELLs face numerous obstacles to education in the U.S. According to Education Week, a lack of resources and adequate support from school staff are a few of the challenges to bilingual education. ⁵ ELLs are most successful with trained support and teachers who recognize "similarities and differences between first- and second-language development, and the importance of nonverbal communications and visual aids in language acquisition" and who also "recognize the difference between conversational language and academic language." NCES has found that students who speak English as a second language are more likely to struggle with academics and less likely to graduate than students who are not ELLs when they are not provided with the kind of instruction and advanced academic coursework they need.6 In the 2016-17 school year, only 66% of ELLs graduated from high school on time compared to 85% of non-ELLs who did so.7
Program Models
While there are five common methods for addressing ELLs' language needs, the most successful is a high-quality Dual Language program. ⁸ Another option is a "maintenance bilingual education" program, which allows students to become literate in their home language by providing them language arts classes in their home language. This approach supports biliteracy rather than focusing solely on becoming proficient in English. Dual Language or "Two-way Immersion" programs involve both native and non-​native English speakers. These programs aim to have ELLs and native English speakers learn the same content in both languages, benefiting all students (ELLs and native English speakers) in the classroom.
Legislative Background of Bilingual Programs
In 1839, Ohio became the first state to adopt a bilingual education law, and many states followed suit by the end of the 19th century. The Bilingual Education Act was passed in 1968, which provided federal funding to encourage local school districts to incorporate native-language instruction but did not require it in schools. Eventually, many programs that taught home languages in addition to English closed, and the Act proved to be a weak piece of legislation. ⁹

In 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Lau v. Nichols "that simply placing ELLs in mainstream classes taught in English without attending to their language needs denied those students a meaningful education." Since the court ruling, federal policy has worked to address the needs of ELLs by including the adoption of bilingual education programs that allow students to become proficient in English while also having access to instruction in their home language. However, restrictions on bilingual education across the country, such as Proposition 227 in California-which was later repealed-have made it harder for school leaders to make the appropriate instructional decisions for their ELLs.

Moving Forward

The Vineland Public School system in NJ has been recognized for its successful bilingual education and English as a Second Language (ESL) programs, which have garnered the district four Model Program designations from the state department of education. JoAnne Negrin, supervisor of ESL and bilingual programs in Vineland, says that ELLs' success stems from the "real emphasis on building academic knowledge in their first language."10 Given students' results on state standardized tests, the program has shown that ELLs can succeed academically while learning two languages at once.

Another step that educators can take in supporting ELLs is to create more equitable opportunities for standardized tests. Currently, federal law under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires schools to assess all students. However, for some ELLs, standardized test scores may not reflect how much they have learned if the test is conducted solely in English, which has resulted in ESSA encouraging states to offer home-language assessments. As of Spring 2020, only 31 states and the District of Columbia offered them, most commonly in math or science and sometimes in reading/language arts and social studies. ¹¹ Broadening such assessments can accurately reflect ELLs' progress and help them succeed academically.

Policy Recommendations

For bilingual education and ESL programs, principals play an important role in the success of implementation by being knowledgeable about bilingualism, biliteracy, and their school's emergent bilingual population. Each school and school leader can advocate for expanding bilingual education programs through local policy implementation. In a Colorín Colorado article (available at bit.ly/3aybsgR), Kate Menken offers recommendations based on her experiences working with ELLs in New York City schools:

Developing schoolwide language policies that are consistent and cohesive with the desires of the community. They should be used to establish coherent K-12 language programming for ELLs in which diversity is regarded as a resource.

Having research, rather than tests, drive instruction for ELLs. Teachers must have the space for instruction that goes beyond test preparation.

Supporting home-language instruction-doing so will aid students' development of English literacy.

For policymakers, researchers propose the following: ¹²

Supporting schools in developing clear and cohesive schoolwide language policies and in their decisions to teach ELLs their home language.

Moving away from over-reliance on standardized tests to allow other measures of student achievement in addition to tests.

Including ELLs in accountability systems that are valid, appropriate, and fair.

Allowing for the measurement of progress rather than simply outcomes on high-stakes exams.

Advocating for ELLs must occur at both the local and federal levels by implementing direct changes to language policies in schools and demanding federal support. School leaders can advocate for ELLs and make decisions based on the research that finds that teaching home languages in schools is best for both ELLs and the entire student body.
Jenny Rodriguez is a senior at American University in Washington, D.C. She was an intern with the NASSP Policy & Advocacy Center during the summer of 2021.
References

¹National Center for Education Statistics. (n.d.) English language learners.

²Bialik, K., Scheller, A., & Walker, K. (2018). 6 facts about English language learners in public schools. Pew Research Center.

³National Center for Education Statistics. (2021). English language learners in public schools.

⁴Menken, K. (2017). Leadership in dual language bilingual education. Center for Applied Linguistics.

⁵Mitchell, C. (2019, May 14). Overlooked: How teacher training falls short for English-learners and students with IEPs. Education Week.

⁶U.S. Department of Education. (n.d.). Academic performance and outcomes for English learners.

⁷National Center for Education Statistics. (2018). Table 219.46. Public high school 4-year adjusted cohort graduation rate (ACGR), by selected student characteristics and state: 2010-11 through 2016-17. Retrieved from nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_219.46.asp.

⁸Roberts, C. A. (1995). Bilingual education program models: A framework for understanding. The Bilingual Research Journal, 19(3&4), 369-378.

⁹Goldenberg, C., & Wagner, K. (2015, Fall). Bilingual education: Reviving an American tradition. American Educator.

¹⁰Marko, D. M. (2018, June 6). Vineland ESL, bilingual programs win state honors. Daily Journal.

¹¹Education Commission of the States. (2014). What methods are used to identify English language learners?; and Sugarman, J., & Villegas, L. (2020, June). Native language assessments for K-12 English learners: Policy considerations and state practices. Washington, D.C.: Migration Policy Institute.

¹²Menken, K. (n.d.). Language policy recommendations for policymakers and educators. ¡Colorín Colorado! Retrieved from colorincolorado.org/article/language-policy-recommendations-policymakers-and-educators.

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Today, approximately 5 million students are considered English-language learners (ELLs) in the United States. ELL is a broad term that refers to students who are learning English as an additional language, but identification varies from state to state. Recent trends show that the number of ELLs continues to rise across the nation.

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What is a multilingual classroom?

A multilingual classroom is a classroom with learners having more than one languages at their disposal (irrespective of level of competence), including learners from migrant backgrounds, such as first- and second-generation and newly-arrived immigrants and refugees. As a result of globalisation, intra-European mobility and international migration, such classrooms have nowadays become the norm rather than an exception in Europe.

Linguistic and cultural diversity is nowadays a growing reality in school classrooms.

Why is using English as a lingua franca important?

Nowadays, English is the most widely employed language in Europe and beyond and, very frequently, the only option for people who do not share their mother tongue or have another language in common. Using it is important not only for personal communication in various social domains, including the Internet, but also, for professional reasons. It is a 'shared' language, in other words, that opens doors for better social and professional opportunities.

In Greece, Norway and Turkey, about 9.7% of 15-year-old students are currently in schools where more than 25% of students speak at home a language which is different from the language of schooling. At the same time, the percentage of foreign-born people in Portugal increased from 1.3% in 1991 to 8.3% in 2015, while, in Italy, immigrant children alone have almost doubled during the past 10 years, representing, in 2015, 11.7% of the total number of children in the country. .

How can we support multilingual classrooms?

Being able to communicate effectively in a 'shared' language which opens doors for better social and professional opportunities is necessary for all learners. Nowadays, English serves as the most frequent 'shared' language around the world. Professional development primarily for English language teachers is, therefore, crucial so that they embrace the linguistic diversity in their classrooms and raise their awareness of the importance of English in connecting learners with each other, the local communities and the whole world.

For more information about the European policy on multilingualism, linguistic diversity and multilingual classrooms, visit the European Commission webpage.

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A multilingual classroom is a classroom with learners having more than one languages at their disposal (irrespective of level of competence), including learners from migrant backgrounds, such as first- and second-generation and newly-arrived immigrants and refugees. As a result of globalisation, intra-European mobility and international migration, such classrooms have nowadays become the norm rather than an exception in Europe.