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Spanish English Vocabulary dictionary updated august 2024.pdf

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Building on the strengths of multilingual learners with expansive reading instruction

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5 Culturally Responsive Family Engagement Strategies

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By creating ways for families to feel welcome and included, educators can strengthen the relationship between home and school.

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Enseñar el Vocabulario: Consejos para Educadores de los Estudiantes que Están aprendiendo Inglés en Grado 4-12

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Colorín Colorado es un proyecto nacional de multimedia que ofrece una gran riqueza de información basada en la investigación, actividades y consejos bilingües para maestros y familias de estudiantes del idioma inglés (ELLs, por sus siglas en inglés). Colorín Colorado es un servicio educativo de WETA, la principal emisora pública de la capital del país, y recibe fondos de la Federación Americana de Maestros y la National Education Association. © Copyright 2017 WETA Public Broadcasting.

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Henry Sales is an Indigenous educator who was born in Guatemala and now works for Oakland Unified Public Schools. He speaks English, Spanish, and his home language, Mam. He came to the U.S. as a teenager and has since become a strong advocate for the large Mam community in the Bay Area by teaching Mam classes, organizing Mam cultural events, working as a Mam interpreter, recording public service announcements on topics ranging from the U.S. census to information about COVID-19, and much more.

In this interview with Colorín Colorado, Henry tells us how he became such a passionate advocate for his community. You can learn more from Henry in this special video series available in English, Spanish, and Mam.

Q&A with Henry Sales

Tell us about your experience growing up in an Indigenous community.

I was born in San Juan Atitán in Guatemala. In Mam, it's Xjan Xwan. Huehuetenango is the nearest city and that's where I went to high school. On the one hand, I was very proud of my community because I thought it was very unique. We were so connected with the land, working and planting corn, going to the forest, going to the mountains, and having a strong connection with the animals and trees and nature. I have many happy memories from that time, such as playing with my Mam friends, hiking to the top of the Mountain Twi Q'u', our special ceremonies, planting trees, and walking with my dog into the forest.

On the other hand, I also faced discrimination outside of my community. Going to the nearest city where the main language is Spanish, my classmates made fun of me for not speaking fluent Spanish. My first language is Mam, and I knew enough Spanish to say my name and age and have a small conversation, but not to express myself or talk about a subject in detail. For example, a teacher might ask, "Can you stand up and explain?" And I was always stuck and people would say, "Where are you coming from? What's wrong with your accent?" And that's when a lot of people made fun of me, telling me, "You belong to the jungle, you should go back where you're coming from," meaning, "You're a monkey or an animal or primitive."

And I felt bad. And at some point, I thought I needed to get rid of this culture and I wanted to become "one of them" so I could be accepted. And sometimes if we don't know how to defend ourselves, we get stuck into that mindset: "What they are saying is true, and I need to get rid of this language."

How did you overcome this deep discrimination you faced?

I think I overcame the challenge by saying, "I'm not going to get rid of my language, I'm going to stick with it, and I'm going to tell everyone one day that I'm proud of it." It was really hard, but I kept going and I kept learning.

Also, when I started attending high school here in the U.S., I had some Chicano teachers who would talk about Indigenous history and tell me, "You should be proud of your heritage and you should be proud about where you're coming from." That really helped me a lot and I felt proud of who I am and my language, my community, and my people.

In addition, reading books, watching documentaries, and listening to Indigenous communities talk about the genocide that has targeted our people also helped me make an even stronger commitment to preserving my culture.

How did promoting your language and culture become a passion for you?

It didn't happen right away. In 2014, I got my high school diploma here in the U.S. I was so proud. And I was so proud of being a Latino because I had in my mind, "I'm a Latino." I remember that schools usually thought I was a Spanish speaker and when I was applying for FAFSA and scholarships, you have to choose an option for, "What's your ethnicity?" I kept hearing, "You should mark yourself Latino." And at first, I did, but then later on I thought, "I'm not going to mark myself Latino anymore, I'm going to mark like this 'other' ethnicity," and I would write Mam or Mayan.

Then in 2015 and 2016, I was finding out about myself and who I am, and at some point, I gave up. I decided, "I'm going to study engineering or computer science and I want to work for a company. And I'm going to just leave this behind because I think it's time to move on."

But even then, I always kept coming back to this, and in 2016, I found myself, and I thought, "This is who I am." I started reading more when I got my job at Oakland Public Library and San Francisco Public Library. I was surrounded by history books, and I started reading books about my identity, my story, and the story of my ancestors. And I was like, "Oh my God, I'm a descendant of this civilization and I should be proud, and I should not be ashamed, and I should go back and study more history," and that led me to go back to college and study a little bit of our history.

And sometimes, it was seeing the misconceptions that motivated me even more. For example, I remember seeing a title where it said, "When the Mayan existed..." I thought, "No, we're still here. I'm one of them and if I'm still here, that means that we're still alive." And that really made me sad; how can people say that we no longer exist? Or my civilization is extinct? Because I always believe that we're still here. And I look back at the community, I see thousands and thousands of Indigenous people or Mayan people. We're still living in small communities where the culture is very alive and the language is too.

I also remember that one of my Chicano teachers in college always talked about Indigenous people. And he always showed us great books to read and documentaries. And watching those or reading those materials reminded me to be proud and to see how far we come. So, then I went deeper when I started reading about Indigenous communities and discrimination and all the atrocity that has been done to us. And then I went back and I realized, "Okay, I see why it's happening," or, "Why did this happen to me because I speak differently, maybe I act differently, maybe I see the world from another perspective? I'm proud to be from an Indigenous community, and I'm going to fulfill my job."

Since then, I've been an advocate for our people and my community, and that has led me to teach Mam language, to create a class where everyone is welcome to come. And ever since we have been developing a team, and we'll see in the near future that the culture and the language will flourish.

And I also keep telling my community that we're Indigenous, we're natives, that we have the right to live, we have the right to get an education, we have the right to move anywhere else where we want. And we have the right to laugh and to live, because many times we have been denied those rights.

Tell us about your work and outreach now.

Right now, I work for Oakland Unified School District as an administrative assistant at this unique school called Rudsdale Newcomer High School. And I manage all the attendance, the orientation and registration. I also advocate for my community because there's a lot of Indigenous or Mam people there, and I act sometimes as a counselor and teacher because I help my community.

I act as a bridge between the Indigenous community and the non-Indigenous community because we have Latino community as well, so sometimes they will ask the Indigenous students, "Why are you speaking broken Spanish?" And I explain that they are coming from a different background.

In addition, there's a lot of ways that I've been supporting the Mam community in the Bay Area. First, we started holding festivals in 2018. And then we did a second one in 2019 where there were 500 people and we were able to bring Indigenous people from Mexico. We also connected with Indigenous communities here in North America to hold a Pow Wow and worked with members of a Cherokee tribe.

We went to Mexico and I was able to bring some of the Indigenous Mam with me. It was so great. It's funny because I remember when I was younger, I actually thought that we were the only Indigenous community before I started traveling! And then after I traveled, I learned about other Indigenous communities, not only in Central America, but also in South and North America as well. Connecting with other Indigenous communities has helped me a lot and also has helped me to become a better person.

Tell us about your interpretation and teaching work.

I have interpreted sometimes in immigration court, school, or medical settings. I will say that working as an interpreter at immigration court, I have learned that judges or the system often assumes that we are Spanish speakers and that Mam interpreters or the Mam language is not accessible. Most of the time when there's no Mam interpreters, there's only Spanish available.
There is some hope, though. There's a lot of people who have learned and done research about Indigenous people. For example, some judges may not ask the client to make eye contact because they know that for us making eye contact is very disrespectful, especially when talking to authorities. They understand that cultural difference now, which is important.

For now, though, I am focusing my advocacy efforts around education and outreach instead of interpreting. We teach Mam, which means that we want non-Mam people to at least learn how to say something in Mam to welcome our community when they go out to places like the school or hospital. This way, they can feel like, "I'm welcome here and I can speak Mam, I can bring my culture, and I will not be discriminated against." But we're also teaching Mam to Mam students as well, to help them stay connected to their language and culture, because they may not have had a chance to learn it here in the U.S.

What do you think schools can learn from your experience?

First, schools need to know that not everyone that comes from Latin America is a Spanish speaker. They might be Indigenous and speak another language. (When I say students are Indigenous or they come from an Indigenous community, that means that they are part of communities that were in the Americas before colonization, more than 500 years ago, and that their first language is an Indigenous language which is from the Americas, not a language from Europe like Spanish, Portuguese, or English.)

If Indigenous students do speak Spanish, they may not be fluent in Spanish, or maybe they don't know how to read and write in Spanish, and maybe they never went to school, and they have their own identity, which is Indigenous. We don't want to deny that identity, because identity is sacred.

Second, we want Indigenous students to be proud of saying who they are - for example, by wearing their traditional clothes. Maybe they're not wearing them now because they are afraid to wear it. Indigenous students or indigenous families living in the U.S. may have been victim of discrimination and racism in the past and may be hiding their identity now. Perhaps in the past they were told, "You should be ashamed of your culture and language," and they may think they might have more rights or seem more educated if they speak Spanish or English.

For example, we are working hard in Oakland to help students feel proud. There's a space at the Oakland Unified School District that is welcoming them and saying, "You can come here with your traditional clothes, and you can take class, and be in class, and you will not be stopped."

How can schools welcome Indigenous families?

Schools or teachers should approach parents and families because they are the first resource for supporting Indigenous students. Schools should also look for cultural leaders or spiritual leaders who are bilingual or maybe who are interpreters that they can go and talk to better support the Indigenous community.

Schools should also connect with local organizations. For example, here in the Bay Area there's a lot of local organizations that at least serve or work with the Mam community or with the Indigenous community.

For example, you could hold a parent meeting and find out whether parents are more comfortable with Spanish or their Indigenous language. Schools can also partner with Indigenous families to create a welcoming place by having a festival in school or have a gathering with traditional dance, food, language, textiles, and art. Ask kids to share their culture. It's getting to know them, getting to know the culture, the people, where they're coming from, their history, their village, and why they're here. Those are some of the ways for schools and teachers to have effective communication with Indigenous families.

And it's key because sometimes Indigenous families have different cultural norms. For example, a woman may prefer a same-sex interpreter. So getting to know those details helps a lot in U.S. schools to better support Indigenous families. And the more information these families have about the school, the better the education the kids can get.

How can schools support unaccompanied minors?

Schools can support an unaccompanied minor by having a space for them, because sometimes schools will put them among other students who have already been here and if they don't speak Spanish or English, they will be lost and consider dropping out of high school. And having a space where all of them are unaccompanied minors and asking them, "How is everyone doing?" is essential for them to say, "I feel accommodated because I have my classmates with me who have the same experience, who are going through the same experience." And also like having social workers that will only work with an unaccompanied minor and bilingual staff really helps a lot. It makes a difference.

How do you help your baby daughter connect to the culture?

I help my baby daughter, my baby girl by singing songs like "At jun wiy tal nwiẍa". And listen to marimba. And she loves it, she loves to dance. We teach her how to dance. And we dress her in traditional clothes. And also like, traveling with her back home, that's where she's getting that connection like, going there. And the last time we went, I mean, the first time when we went with her, she felt that connection with other kids. And as for now, we're only speaking Mam to her because we want her to become trilingual.

What's next for you? What are some of your hopes for the future?

I see myself working and building our own school in three languages with a focus on Mam. I want to keep connecting my community to the ancient Maya Mam indigenous system of education and focus on revitalizing, using, developing, and transmitting to future generations our culture histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, and writing systems, as well as our systems for mathematics, sciences, medicine, and literatures. I also want to help retain and designate our own names for communities, places, and people. In addition to creating a school, I want to create a culture center in the Bay Area.

In this special video series, Henry encourages other Mam and Indigenous families from Latin America to keep their culture and language strong. The videos are available in English, Spanish, and Mam.

Related Resources

The following resources include some of Henry's own resources, as well as other articles where he has been featured.

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Interview with Henry Sales, Mam Educator and Advocate

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Henry Sales is an Indigenous educator who was born in Guatemala and now works for Oakland Unified Public Schools. He speaks English, Spanish, and his home language, Mam. He came to the U.S.

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Family Literacy: Multilingual Video Series

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think SRSD Writing Instruction

Professional Development in Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) for Writing

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think SRSD (self-regulated strategy development)

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SRSD writing offers a set of strategies with embedded deliberate skill practice that lift writing quality. It quickly enables teachers to see growth in literacy outcomes, and student independence. Developed by Dr. Karen Harris & colleagues, SRSD is fueled by 40 years of research. think SRSD team has spent two decades researching how to make it easier for schools to learn and sustain this approach.

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Professional Development courses on SRSD (Self-regulated strategy development) from a unique team of teachers, coaches & school leaders, achieving significant ELA proficiency gains

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Whiting Lane Elementary School, in West Hartford, Connecticut, is a school that celebrates the diversity of their students-more than 30 different languages are spoken in the building-through cultural ambassadors. The program, developed by an English as a Second Language (ESOL) teacher, is one way they show their commitment to inclusivity-and to making all families feel like they belong. Family members serving as cultural ambassadors are invited to come into the classroom, read a book in their native language, and share aspects of their home culture with the class. Students compare elements of the language with English and are given space to ask lots of questions. As a result, classmates develop a deeper knowledge and appreciation of cultures around the world, and families feel truly welcomed by the school community.

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Building Belonging With Cultural Ambassadors

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This school builds inclusivity and creates a sense of community and connection for all students through cultural ambassadors.

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Early Childhood Education

Five ways teachers can celebrate and extend the linguistic expertise of young students who speak two or more languages.

Many children in the U.S. live their lives in two or more languages: A child of Guatemalan descent may read bedtime stories in Spanish with their parents and learn in English at school-and perhaps speak K'iche' with their grandparents. Research has shown that these multilingual children may have strong math skills, conflict resolution skills, and executive function skills.

By welcoming the whole multilingual child, including their linguistic practices, we send a powerful message that children from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds contribute to the vibrancy of our early childhood programs.

Multilingualism is an asset to be nurtured in our classrooms, and the following five strategies can help teachers strategically and intentionally celebrate and extend multilingual children's existing linguistic expertise as well as their participation in learning activities both in person and virtually.

Incorporate Children's Home Languages

All multilingual children are experts in their home language practices and come with a wealth of knowledge that should be respected. Provide space and time for multilingual children to use all of their languages to think and express themselves.

For example, during partner work, invite children to use their home languages to share what they know. All multilingual learners, whether they're new to English or completely fluent, will benefit from talking with a partner who speaks the same home language. Thinking and sharing in both of their languages solidifies their learning.

In addition, encouraging multilingual learners to make connections between new English terms and words or concepts they already know will support language acquisition. You can invite children to share their linguistic expertise by sharing how to say a new word in their home language. If your class is studying nourishing foods, you might show a pineapple and invite children to share the words they know for it in their home languages, if they feel comfortable doing so.

Teach Anchor Words

Keep in mind that anxiety and self-doubt greatly interfere with the process of acquiring a second language. These negative feelings become a barrier between the speaker and the listener that reduces the amount of language the listener is able to understand. This is called the "affective filter." It's important to keep the affective filter low so that language learners can be successful.

One way to reduce anxiety for multilingual learners is to preview some foundational concepts so that, at a minimum, they have an idea of what is being discussed and, at best, they are confident about what is being taught. Anchor words are vocabulary words such as "farm" or "eat" that activate children's background knowledge from their home language and give them a context for learning a new language.

Most children who speak English at home will not need direct instruction to learn these terms, but for children who are very new to the English language, these words will be absolutely essential. Make a list of relevant thematic words and preteach them to your multilingual learners.

Provide Sentence Stems

"I like..." and "I learned..." are two examples of sentence stems or sentence starters that expand new English learners' comprehension skills as well as oral language development. They provide a framework for children's oral responses when listening to stories or having group discussions.

Sentence stems provide an effective language model and help children to respond in the form of a complete sentence. Stems also provide scaffolding for children to focus on what they want to say rather than thinking about how to formulate their response. Teach a few stems and use them consistently.

Because of the other barriers that exist in the virtual classroom (e.g., kids needing to unmute themselves, feeling nervous sharing with the whole group, being camera shy), this strategy is particularly useful during the pandemic.

Incorporate Visuals

New English learners find themselves in a sea of language that can be tough to navigate. Visuals are a terrific tool for supporting comprehension. Use realia (concrete objects) if you are teaching in person or pictures if teaching virtually so children can "see" the terms you are using.

Try acting out new vocabulary words. If you're teaching children the difference between "washing" and "scrubbing," dramatize it by modeling the actions and then invite children to join you. Another way to incorporate visuals is to point or gesture at what you are referring to: If you're reading a book and referring to an illustration of a horse, point to the horse; when you're describing your thinking, point to your temple.

Use Layered Questioning

When you interact with children, how can you ensure that they all understand and participate, regardless of their stage of language development? One way is to use a strategy called "layered questioning," which means varying the type of questions you ask children based on their language proficiency.

You can ask a question that requires children to gesture in response ("Will you point to the pineapple?"). You can ask a question that requires a child to respond with either a "yes" or a "no" (Do you like to eat pineapples?"). You can ask a question that gives children an either/or choice ("Do you like to eat pineapples for breakfast or for lunch?"). You can also ask open-ended questions so children can share their thinking ("How would you describe this pineapple?").

When you vary your questions based on what you know about your children, it empowers them to express their thinking, extend their content knowledge, and be active members of the classroom community.

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Supporting Multilingual Students in the Early Grades

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Five ways teachers can celebrate and extend the linguistic expertise of young students who speak two or more languages.

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I'm working in districts where we have been in school for 5-8 weeks. This show is in response to some challenges and reflections on what I want to emphasize more. You can listen to this show right here or on your favorite podcast app.
Listen to "BAP111 Instead of IDK for SLIFE and Newcomers" on Spreaker.
An edited transcript follows with links to what I talked about:

This episode is going to be about lessons learned. I think there's value no matter what you do if you're a teacher, instructional coach, or administrator.

This is that time of the year when the honeymoon is over! LOL. Things are playing out in a certain way depending on what routines you put in place or did not put in place. What I've learned is that in many places where we're not getting things off the ground with students, it's because this strategy is not in place. We are realizing that we did not emphasize the teaching of this skill enough.

So let me offer you the strategy, and then I'm going to tell you why it's so critical for new arrival students. And this one is important for even your highest flyer in your classroom no matter what you teach. And I'm also going to tell you about a fail, so look forward to that. People always say they love hearing about what didn't go right or a non-example when I'm trying things.

So this fail is kind of funny too. All right, so here's the strategy.

The sheltered strategy is to Teach Kids What to Say When They Don't Know What to Say.

Let me say that again. We're going to teach kids what to say when they don't know what to say. Some teachers know this as an "Instead of 'I don't know' poster." We are working to remove "IDK" from our classrooms.

So let's think about it a little bit differently. We're not talking about a poster. Idk is what the students use. Many students text, I don't know Idk. All right?

Teach Ss Day 1 what to say instead of IDK. Opting out is not an option for Learners. @MsSalvac #supportingSIFE #BoostingAchievement @LearnTexas pic.twitter.com/djeBCMzs6p

- Trish Hinze (@TrishHinze) July 17, 2019

Often you will see a poster that says IDK, and it has an X through it in a classroom. The idea is that we are not going to say, 'I don't know' anymore. Instead, we want to encourage other things such as: May I ask a friend for help? Would you please repeat the question? Where can I find more information? May I have some time to think? etc. That's a fantastic poster to have. T he company I work for, Seidlitz Education, sells these great posters of things that say, they're beautiful.

WHY is this Important? Can the Students Tell Us?

If you ask the kids, why is it important to say other things instead of I Don't Know, could they tell us? Have we talked with them about this and let them come up with answers. This offers relevancy.

If I asked you to come up with three reasons why it is important for young people to say something instead of I don't know, I bet you could. As adults, we have built a skill where we might pause and say something like "Could you give me a minute?" Or "Can I ask someone to help me with this?"

Just Google It!

You know, the reality is that we don't use the skill so much anymore. Now we just ask Alexa. Or we ask Google. We google it. That's kind of dangerous for the world, don't you think? In the Boosting Achievement book that I wrote with Anna Mattis, we cite researchers that talk about how a part of our brain is starting to atrophy because of technology. We don't have to think deeply anymore. So then it is more important than ever that our classrooms are places where we can practice thinking, be more curious. Be more curious. Don't just default to I don't know.

It's a teenage culture kind of thing, right? I'm sure you can appreciate, even for your own child, do you want them to be okay with not knowing? So the first one that I always teach is, May I ask a friend for help? Because I'm trying to create a culture of conversation. And as soon as the student says that, we say, yes. And I'm going to hover around that student, and I'm going to make eye contact, and I'm going to ask them, Are you ok to answer before we come back. I might have to give them the answer. We need them to have a win in that moment in front of everybody. And if they didn't know the answer, they may not be the only one. They're likely not the only one that doesn't know.

Why is QSSSA not Working?

I'm going to talk about the Newcomer classroom. I am always talking about the newcomer student. This week, I was in a newcomer classroom where the majority of the students have missed large amounts of formal education, and we are at high school. The issue is that the students are not turning and talking when we want them to. And we have a really good structure, QSSSA, for students to turn and talk. But they're still not talking to each other as much as we would like for them to, even when we encourage the use of native language. We just don't have it off the ground.

Modeling for Teachers

A part of my job is modeling for teachers. So I decided I would model how to get this strategy off the ground with a class where most of the students are new to the target language of English. I never promise that I can pull off a spur of the moment lesson well. It is a challenge to model because I don't know the kids and I don't know the content. But I'm willing. I feel that it is important to be vulnerable enough to do these things to support the teachers. Even if the lesson doesn't go as planned, we get a chance to debrief and so we are both going to come out better.

Using Native Language

So remember that most of the kids in the classroom don't understand what I'm saying. Now, a lot of these kids speak Spanish, so I'm going to just be honest, my first instinct would be to just say it in Spanish. I speak Spanish. And this is not the moment to worry about language acquisition. This is the moment to worry about teaching a skill so that we can acquire more English! Routines, directions, telling a student how amazing they are...Those kinds of messages we need to get across, however we can get them across. Use your entire language repertoire to communicate these things. We have Google Translate and I will use it or whatever I need to use to help me , might use whatever I need to make sure they understand.

#SeidlitzEdChat
If anyone needs an "Instead of IDK" poster for thier #virtualclassroom here you go! #KeepItSimple #ells pic.twitter.com/BoEbq8SaQY

- Dr. Carol Salva (@DrCarolSalva) May 20, 2020

A key word or phrase is always okay. - Said by Nancy Motley in one of my first ESL trainings.)
But as the instructor, I want to stay in English as much as possible. I'm the model. I would only just pop out of English for a moment and come right back in. I don't want them to think that I will be translating everything. I want them to get comprehensible input (understandable messages) with me staying in English as much as possible. But again, this is so important that I would use my Spanish. Absolutely. Not a problem for me. It always has worked out just fine.

Translation Can't be our Go-To Strategy for Comprehensible Input

I have no problem using Spanish from time to time but the teacher I was working with does not speak Spanish! And another thing is that several kids in there don't speak Spanish! I could use Google Translate and I would still use some Spanish translation, though. I would still do it because the majority were Spanish speaking kids and they just communicate kid-to-kid better than they can with me often. They're friends. So I would do it, but I would be thinking "What about my student that speaks Farsi? What about the child that speaks Arabic? Are they getting it?" And so translation cannot be our comprehensible input default. And as the year goes on, I want to make sure it's not because more kids have more comprehension and I should not need to translate at all anything pretty soon. So anyway, the teacher I was working with didn't speak Spanish, and I want to make sure that I'm trying to model something that they can do easily.

How do I Get Buy-In for This Norm?

Okay, so here's how it looks if everybody speaks English in my classroom. I would write "I Don't Know." on the board and talk about how it is OK not to know answers. I'd give them a scenario in life like if I'm at the bank and they ask me, "What is your husband's mother's maiden name?" I might just need a minute. I might know it, but I might just say, "Can you hang on just a moment? Can you give me a minute to think?" My husband might be in the car, and so I might instead ask them if I could go ask him for help.

Most importantly, I want them to talk to each other. I'd like the students to talk and to tell me why is this important. I want their buy-in. This is a lesson. It is not just, 'Hey, we're going to start doing this today.'

We can just write one thing on the anchor chart and add to it throughout the year. But they need to buy-in. They need to understand why it's important. So I would have that "I Don't Know" written on the anchor chart and at that point, I would cross it out. Then I would add "Instead of..." and we can start writing other things we could say onto that poster.

Poster vs. Anchor Chart

Instead of 'poster,' let's call it an anchor chart. It needs to be big enough for the kids on the other side of the room to be able to read it. Any environmental print needs to be big enough, written in big enough print, that it's usable no matter where you're sitting in the class. And it needs to be referenced. Otherwise, it is just decoration.

On a mission to increase engagement for early ELs, @PantherNation_1 Ms. Carter begins virtual classes with a purpose statement (doubles as fluency practice), images to support growth mindset and @MsSalvac IDK chart 🙌🙌. @MNPS_EL pic.twitter.com/BfUzlt7lb3

- Heather W. Goodridge (@h_woodroof) September 3, 2020

NO FORCED OUTPUT

That's how it goes when everybody speaks English. So now I will explain what I do when they don't comprehend much English.

I want to say, before I start to tell you about the simulation, No Forced Output. That's a mantra in my mind that I'm saying to myself as I walk in front of a class of new arrival students or any students, no forced output. I am not going to force anyone. I'm never going to force a kid to speak in English. When they're acquiring English, it's just so cringy. And it is doing the opposite, the exact opposite of what I want, which is a low-stress environment where they can acquire, consume, and comprehend as much English as possible.

I want that to go as fast as possible. And there's a researcher named Steven Krashen who will tell you it's really all about reading. And he's right, in my experience. I want to get them reading with support, high interest, compelling things, acquiring and understanding these words as they start to understand how they sound and as they start to use them, we get it off the ground, and it starts going so fast.

They have to be comfortable for that. They have to be really comfortable. Not freaked out. So whatever I'm doing in front of the class, they can attend to it, they can see it, they can get it. They can start getting little things. They can be comfortable enough to talk to their partner in a low-stress way.

QSSSA

One-to-one is low stress, so use whatever language, but I want them to talk to each other. Some of them won't even talk to each other in their native language.

Think about that. A turn-and-talk. What could go wrong with a turn and talk in a regular math class? I'm sure you're thinking a lot of things.

They're not talking about what I want them to talk about....

One of them is doing all the talking...

They weren't paying attention, so they don't know.

And on and on...

QSSSA is a routine that helps solve for so many of the challenges we face when we want students to Turn and Talk. It's a top tip. It is our top tip. I work for a company called Sidelitz Education, and QSSSA is always a Top Tip! Chris Hagy of Charleston, SC has a padlet on the technique here. And this script by Michelle Gill is popular:

That routine is one of John Seidlitz' Seven Steps to a Language-rich, Interactive Classroom. It is a fantastic routine. But guess what step one is? Step one is teach kids what to say when they don't know what to say.

Teaching Students what to Say instead of IDK is STEP ONE.

That is step one for a reason. We need low-stress environments where everybody is willing to take risks. See, I don't want to force them to speak in English, but I do want to arm them with something they can take anywhere they go in the building and also not be so worried that they're going to be called on. So this "Instead of "I don't know" poster that we're creating, I have a little one for you.

They're about six to a page and you can just print them out and cut them up and tape them to the desk. Tape them to their agenda. Have a big one on the wall and also tape these on their Chromebook and everywhere so they can take it with them because it's a skill. It is what they might need at the doctor's office. To use in math class. To use everywhere.

The Fail

Okay, so I'm walking to the front of a classroom where kids do not speak English. The class is for that. And these are new arrival students. And it's at the beginning of the school year and it's specifically for students who have missed education. So imagine there's not much comprehension across the board. So I went up there and I wrote, I don't know on the board. And you see kids, they're looking at it quizzically. So I think, "I'm going to explain this like I always do, but I'll just use gestures."

So for whatever reason, I pointed to my eye in my face. Ha! I'm going to try not to laugh because it was so ridiculous. So I pointed to my eye, but then immediately I was like, no, not that kind of eye .. I. And I pointed to my chest and I saw a kid mouth "me" as soon as I pointed to my chest. He mouthed me and I was like, yes, like me... I. And another student pointed at me, like at the teacher, and said, I? No, no, no... now my mind is racing. I'm thinking, God! Because you know what? I did this for a living, for years. But every time I go in front of a class, I get slapped back into reality of how hard it really is. It is not easy to teach, period. But you forget how intentional you need to be to teach newcomers effectively. But I need this vulnerability. I need to be up there so that I can help. I don't have to have a magic wand and do anything perfectly. Or say "just do this!" I was up there so we can figure out things together. And I know there's a way to do this with newcomers. I'm just thinking, "Why didn't I think about this before I walked up here??"

I was like, no, I (pointing at my chest). Of course some kids got it. "I" is a very common high-frequency word. I like, I am here. Okay, let me just go on to "Don't"... the word "Don't." So I pointed to the word don't, and I said, Say "don't", and everybody repeated it.

I wagged my finger like, no... like you're shaming somebody.

Don't... don't... Don't

And one of them said, "no." And I said, yeah like "no." But he was saying, "I no?"

No. So when I was shaking my finger back and forth, they were getting "no" like yes or no. So I was like yeah, it's no...but it's don't. And I'm trying to think, how do you say don't? How do you convey don't without saying no? Because the next word is know!

I don't know.

So then I was like, okay, don't. Just say don't, and then no. And then point into my temple....know.

I know they're thinking, "I no no? And that no is with a K??"

Okay, right there. Let's just stop. This all happened in just a few seconds, right? To me, it is so funny.

Making Things Harder Than They Need to Be

It is so funny because I'm just making it so much harder than it needs to be. As always. As always, I'm making it way harder than it needs to be. Let's back up. I could have said it in Spanish because one kid finally did say "No Se?" That's beautiful. Yes! Throughout the school year, if they say it in Spanish, I'm going to say, yeah, exactly. Or if they get it, yeah. I don't care if they translate to each other all year long. I just don't want that to be their go-to either. But anyway, as soon as he said , I wrote And they're like, yeah, okay. But there were still kids in the class that don't speak Spanish. But I did see that they can help each other understand this. I saw a kid turn to another kid and make the gesture like shoulders up, palms up. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Yes. That kids should be teaching. LOL!

That kid should be teaching. Because here's how I'm going to always do it from this point forward. They all got it when I made this noise, when I shrugged my shoulders, when I put my palms up, and when I made the "I Don't Know" sound... it isn't even a word. It is a sound. So that gesture with your shoulders up and your palms up, that resulted in 100% of them getting it. And they started laughing, and they're like, okay, we get it.

I can also invite our kids who do have literacy in Arabic or something else to come and write that over here on this anchor chart. There's nothing wrong with the native language. In fact, it's powerful. But I want the English words big as that is our target language in this class.

So they understand this is what we're talking about. But they needed to understand, just like any class, what does it look like in a class? So let me circle back that little moment that I had in front of that class. That little fail, I call it, was such a fantastic learning opportunity for me and for the teacher. At least I know it was for me and I hope for him because we debriefed afterward that we're just making it harder than it needs to be.

Collaborate with Like Minded Educators

This is the kind of thing I get better at because I reflect on it. I am reflecting on it right now in this podcast. But I want to talk with or communicate with other educators to remind me of the basic things that are most powerful. And things like 'When is native language okay?' Again, A keyword or phrase is always okay for the teacher. I mean, when is native language okay for the students in an ESL classroom?

Always, always allow and honor their native language.

Students can use your entire language repertoire in this class because I have a language target. I have a language objective today. Our language objective is "We will use language such as "May I ask a friend for help?" and "Would you please repeat the question?"

That's our language target today. And we all repeated it at the beginning of class in unison because that is low-stress. I'm not forcing anybody, but if we say it all together, you know, and we used it several times in the class, and I'm constantly bringing them back into English. The ones who can speak English, the ones who are able to repeat, the ones who are we're constantly coaching for that through the entire 39 minutes. But you have to use your native language.

It's a source of comfort. Your funds of knowledge live there... everything that you're able to express.

I have a kid who speaks Spanish and a kid who speaks Arabic sitting together. And they do great, but they do use some of their native language. Their common language is English, but they can communicate with each other using everything they have.

We want to create a culture of conversation. And that conversation, we cannot force it all to be in English. But there's more and more English as we are going through the year. I promise this is the answer. Low-stress environments, low-stress opportunities for output.

Opportunities for output. No forced output. And tons of comprehensible input. Tons of messages that you start to understand, what does that person mean? What are they trying to get across to me in this language?

Comprehensible input would be in the target language of English in that classroom. But comprehensible. So me making that gesture really exaggerated...it's comprehensible. It was more comprehensible than anything else I was doing up there. So we just played around with it. We're just playing around with it.

Partner with Students. Be Transparent

And you know, what is great about what happened is the kids don't forget it. The kids won't forget it if it's a fail like that. I'm just transparent with them. I was always telling my students that I'm learning how to be a better teacher every day. That's what other people say, too.

I have heard Instructional Coaches say they don't model because they don't want to take the power away from the teacher. NO. You won't take the power away from that teacher. I don't believe that for a minute. Let's hold students to a higher regard. Partner with the students. I'm trying to get better about that. Right when I walk in, if they let me introduce myself, I want to say "Hi, I'm Dr. Salva. Your teacher and I are both learning. We're always learning. I hope for you that your whole life you will be learning. So today we're going to try some things together because I want to learn, and he wants to learn. And we're always working together to get better at things, to get better at teaching you. And so what I learned from you, too. And you guys learn from us. So we're going to try some things in here and see how they go."

I mean, that's just transparent because we're all still just on this journey, all of us, me, the teacher, the principal, the kids, all of us. Hold them in high regard. We are all learning together, okay?

So Instead of, 'I Don't Know.'

Here are some things for my journey of learning lately on supporting teachers:

It's not a poster. The strategy is not a poster because a poster is just decoration. If the kids aren't using it, if we haven't implemented it. And so if you look around your room and it is a small thing where kids can't access it, or if we only talked about it one time, that's where we learned, okay? We haven't emphasized it enough.

We haven't made it a norm. We haven't made it our default. We haven't spent time making sure our highest kid in the class uses it, because we ask them questions that they would need to use it like, "Can you tell me more about that?" Or "Can you say it another way?" Or "Why? Why do you think that?"

Are we using this to help with rigor? Those kinds of higher-order questions would have your highest kids going, hhhmmmmmmm.... So you can offer them, "Okay, do you want a moment? Do you want to use something from the poster?" We want all the kids to see that it's for all the kids. So your highest kids have to buy into it. And if we want our students to buy into this technique, we need to give them the relevancy. We need to explain all of this and make sure they all understand why it's important.

Motivation - Helping Them Find It

We had kids speaking in their native language to each other and coming up with ideas of why it's important because that was the thing. We need buy in from students. We need them to buy into this.

Larry Ferlazzo has written a lot on how to help kids be intrinsically motivated. I'll link to one of his articles. Here are the four things.

I say them all the time. (I'm a Larry Ferlazzo groupie.) The researchers agree. If you want kids to be motivated, if you want people to find their motivation, intrinsic motivation, put these four things in the environment.

Relevancy like I just said, why is it relevant? How is it relevant? Why is it relevant to you? Why should you care.

Relatedness that's relationships. Teachers have relationships with students, and students have relationships with each other, and we want to work on those because it really helps motivation. So relevancy, relatedness another one is:

Autonomy or choice. So I give them that anchor chart, and you can choose whatever one you want to say. But how much choice you have in anything helps you be more motivated about doing it. And then the fourth thing that Larry writes about is:

Competence. A sense of competence. That doesn't mean I've mastered it. It means I feel myself getting better at it. I've had a little win.

So that whole technique instead of I don't know, it's not a poster, it's a skill. What do you do when you don't know what to say? What can you say? So that's what I was saying.

Recap on Some Things That Can Go Wrong

What can go wrong is that we can have it to where it's just a poster. It may even be a poster that they can't read. So to offset that, to mitigate those challenges, we would use it more often. Explain it. Explain the relevancy.

Have kids talking to each other, your relationship with them, hold them in high regard that you want their opinion about why it's important and even using it, explain to them, we're doing it in here, not because I'm the teacher and I want you to answer it's because your voice is important. Your voice is important. And you may just need a moment. You may just need your friend to remind you of something. You may not know the answer, but that's okay. You know a lot of other things, and together we know a lot.

Don't Force Output but Expect Them to Use These Phrases?

So it may sound counterintuitive. Like what I'm saying is make sure they know what to say, but don't force output. Okay...I don't care if they say it in Spanish. I don't care. I mean, once they're comfortable. If I get a brand new student that come this week, I'm going back to relatedness. I'm going to have a conversation with them one on one, and I'm going to use Google Translate to make sure they know that they are in a safe place. That I'm not going to randomly call on them. They're new. I'm going to respect their need for support, but I'm going to have a lot of conversations with them. They're going to be pretty comfortable sooner versus later. They will be ready because they're in a classroom where we do these things and they're going to see this is how we roll in here. This is a very safe place. So when I do finally call on them, it's okay for them to answer in whatever language. It's okay for them to use their entire language repertoire to answer.

Or they can even give me a signal.! They can even point to it in the book when they are new or nervous. And I'll say, "Yeah, right! The answer landforms. You see this? Landforms. What he's saying is 'This week we are studying landforms'. That is the right answer! Let's all say that..."

If I'm trying to get complete sentences out of everyone's mouth, we can do them in unison. And I can honor this child, whatever their language.

So think about your language learners. If you're teaching language learners, they have different proficiency levels, and so a brand new student is not the time to force output, but they can be included. Inclusion! They can understand way more than they can say usually. So let's make them comfortable. They can attend, they can repeat, and in low-stress environments it all works better. Remember, low stress opportunities for output.

Low-stress output could be one-to-one. That would be a whisper read to my teacher. That would be with the students getting comfortable talking to the person next to them one-to-one.

A Culture of Conversation

And I can walk around and listen. I can get a formative assessment. That's better than me calling on one student that doesn't know the answer or only calling on the professional answer. Always, if I call on somebody and they don't know the answer, they can ask me something from the poster, or they can even point to the one on the poster and I can say "Yeah, this one says, May I ask a friend? Let's all say that. May I ask a friend? Yes. Okay... everybody. Ask your friend what do they think? And we'll come right back to this person."

But again, I'm going to make sure they have a WIN. See, with QSSSA, and Teaching kids what to say instead of IDK, you're well on your way to a very language rich, interactive classroom. I'm just asking you to respect the need for support of a brand new student, but in a way that allows them to acquire the language as quickly as possible.

I'm going to wrap up the show now and thank you for helping me reflect that's, what I just did. This is my journey of learning. And thank you to everybody that's allowing me to work with them and support them in their classrooms, in their districts, with training, with modeling, with coaching. Reach out. If you have any questions about that, you can find me on Twitter. I'm @DrCarolSalva or Come over to Facebook with us. I'm also on Instagram but I don't check that regularly. Sorry.

Last Thought

One more thing on "Instead of I don't know." Think about the cumulative effect of that over a person's life. Think about a student, what effect you're having if you help someone build that skill right now over the course of their lives. A person who doesn't just go, "I don't know," especially in this age of technology. What does that do for them in their working groups, in their lives, as they walk through their day, as they get their first job, as they get their next job? Look at the long game, always. Let's look at the long game and realize the effect. That's what I'm asking you to do is realize YOUR effect. Little things add up and they have major effects over a person's life. So that relatedness that relationship you're building with that student, it makes a difference. Hold them in high regard. Hold every one of them in high esteem. Their voice is important, and you want them to have that skill so that as they go through life, they can show what they know and they can get the answers they don't know, and they can add to their knowledge because the sky's the limit.

Please stop and reflect on the huge impact you're having on students. Thank you for everything you're doing.

Bye.

PS: Check Out Upcoming Events! We have a lot of places we can meet IRL!!

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I'm working in districts where we have been in school for 5-8 weeks. This show is in response to some challenges and reflections on what I want to emphasize more. You can listen to this show right here or on your favorite podcast app. Listen to "BAP111 Instead of IDK for SLIFE and Newcomers" on Spreaker.

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‎Teaching MLs: Ep 201. Collaboration for MLs with exceptionalities on Apple Podcasts

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‎Show Teaching MLs, Ep Ep 201. Collaboration for MLs with exceptionalities - Jul 4, 2024

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Advancing Multilingual Learners Using the Science of Reading

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Virtual Writing 2.0 Summit Webinar | Learning A-Z

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Are you looking for instructional suggestions for strategies students can use at each stage of the writing process? This session builds on Learning…

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Episode 5: Serving every student, in every seat, speaking any language, with Genie Baca

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Listen to Genie Baca talk about her career journey and educational strategies that benefit multilingual learners on the Science of Reading podcast.

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Meet our guest(s):

Diane August, Ph.D., is a principal at D. August and Associates, where the team works to improve educational outcomes for multilingual learners through technical assistance to states and districts, experimental research, and policy work. August is currently a co-principal investigator at the Center for the Success of English Learners, one of two federally-funded centers focused on outcomes for secondary level multilingual learners. She is also a co-principal investigator for a National Professional Development Program grant funded by the Office of English Language Acquisition.

Her prior positions include managing researcher at the American Institutes for Research, senior research scientist at the Center for Applied LInguistics (CAL), and senior program officer at the National Academy of Sciences. She also worked as a classroom teacher, school administrator, congressional legislative assistant, grants officer for the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Director of Education for the Children's Defense Fund. She received her Ph.D. in education and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in psychology at Stanford University, and has been published widely in journals and books.

Meet our host, Susan Lambert

Susan Lambert is the Chief Academic Officer of Elementary Humanities at Amplify, and the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast. Her career has been focused on creating high-quality learning environments using evidence-based practices. Lambert is a mom of four, a grandma of four, a world traveler, and a collector of stories.

As the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Lambert explores the increasing body of scientific research around how reading is best taught. As a former classroom teacher, administrator, and curriculum developer, Lambert is dedicated to turning theory into best practices that educators can put right to use in the classroom, and to showcasing national models of reading instruction excellence.

Transcripts and additional resources

"We found there is no indication that bilingual instruction impeded academic achievement, either in the native language or in English. What we observed on average, [was] that kids that were in bilingual programs did a lot better in literacy." -Diane August, Ph.D.

"There's some sounds in English that aren't present in a first language. Or there are orthography letters that sound different in one language versus the other. So you just have to realize you have to take into consideration the kid's language background when you're teaching foundational skills." -Diane August, Ph.D.

"We develop kids' oral language when they're older in conjunction with teaching them to read and teaching them content area knowledge. You can't not do that from the beginning, you have to support kids in foundational reading skills." -Diane August, Ph.D.

"Second language learners also come with a lot of knowledge in their first language, which is really important to consider. It's not like they don't have background knowledge." -Diane August, Ph.D.

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Episode 4: Practical strategies for multilingual learning, with Diane August, Ph.D.

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Listen to Diane August, Ph.D. discuss empowering strategies for multilingual learners and leveraging this asset in your teaching practices.

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Students with disabilities face a gamut of challenges when it comes to accessing high-quality K-12 education, including a shortage of specialized teachers. The nation's growing English-learner population faces outsized needs as their English-language proficiency scores remain lower than pre-COVID-19-pandemic averages, and immigrant English learners in particular require more trauma-informed instruction.

English learners who also have disabilities face their own intersectional issues, researchers and advocates say. They range from schools locking students out of dual-language programs in favor of English-only special education programs, language barriers between schools and families, and teachers ill-equipped to serve their students' needs.

"It's a complex issue. If it was easy, we would have probably figured out a better way forward by now," said Sarah Salinas, an assistant professor at Minnesota State University, Mankato's department of special education. "[This group] includes students that are at the intersection potentially of cultural differences, linguistic differences, and disability differences."

According to federal data from the school year 2020-21, nearly 14 percent of all students ages 5 through 21 enrolled in public schools were served under IDEA Part B. Of those students, 11.7 percent were English learners.

As this dual-identified population continues to grow, researchers and advocates offer some potential systemic solutions to many of the prevailing challenges these students and their families face.

A lack of access to bilingual education

One of the top concerns researchers and parents alike shared in interviews with Education Week when it comes to English learners with disabilities is a lack of access to bilingual education or dual-language programs.

Parents are encouraged to speak only English with dual-identified students, in part because of a flawed assumption that bilingualism will confuse them or hinder their academic progress or language progress, said Nikkia Borowski, a Ph.D. candidate in inclusive education at Syracuse University who studies access to bilingualism among such students.

She added that there is also the idea that dual-language programs are enrichment programs designed for academically gifted students, locking dual-identified students out in the process.

This preference for English-only instruction for English learners with disabilities plays out in smaller contexts as well, such as speech-generating devices students use that are programmed only in English.

"As a result, the students are missing access to a bilingual identity and missing access to really important cultural aspects as well," Borowski said.

There is also the matter of how federal policy works for these dual-identified students.

Both the Equal Education Act of 1968 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act apply to this student population.

The IDEA, in its 2004 reauthorization, defines a least restrictive environment as the premise of providing services to a student with the greatest access to the general education curriculum, without any explicit mention of what these services look like for multilingual students, Salinas said. The Bilingual Education Act of 1968 focuses on language access for students whose first language is not English without explicit mention of education access for students with disabilities.

So while dual-identified students stand at the intersection of distinct federal policies and laws, the policies and laws are not intersectional themselves.

And even though an English-learner tool kit from the U.S. Department of Education's office of English-language acquisition reminds educators that a student's English learner and disability-related educational needs must be met, what ultimately ends up happening is special education and IDEA are consistently prioritized over bilingual education services, Salinas said.

Policymakers have talked about reauthorizing IDEA with more explicit mentions of the needs of dual-identified students, though such a move remains hypothetical, Salinas added.

But even before policies and practices can better align to the linguistic, cultural, and disability-related needs of students, another challenge is at play that presents a quicker potential solution.

The need to reassess communication between schools and families

Navigating IDEA and individual education programs, or IEPs, can already be a daunting task for families. Doing so while English is not the family's home language is all the more complicated.

Under IDEA, districts must ensure that a student's parents understand the proceedings of the IEP team meeting, including taking steps such as providing a translator.

In an April survey by the EdWeek Research Center, 65 percent of participating district and school leaders said they offered translation services for special education programming for students whose first language is not English. 37 percent said they did so for all relevant languages spoken by students and families.

Meanwhile, 6 percent of leaders said they do not offer such a service although they have special education students with that need.

Even when considering that 37 percent said their school or districts covered all relevant languages in translation needs, there's a question of whether the translators involved were trained professionals who understand things like IEPs, or if Spanish-language teachers and bilingual receptionists were called in instead, said Christy Moreno, the chief community advocacy and impact officer of the Missouri-based family-advocacy group Revolucion Educativa.

Moreno, a trained interpreter and translator herself, said offering translation services is the minimum schools and districts must offer families. High-quality translation is key to ensuring families are fully informed of their rights, she added.

"I've seen IEPs that are done by Google Translate," Moreno said.

In addition to investing in proper translation and interpretation, Moreno said educators need to proactively ensure that parents understand how to ask questions about their children's education. That includes taking into account cultural barriers at play such as stigma within the Latino community over the experiences of students in special education.

Lizdelia Piñón, an emergent bilingual education associate for the Texas-based advocacy nonprofit Intercultural Development Research Association, or IDRA, knows all too well how important it is for families to advocate for their children. Her Spanish-speaking 11-year-old triplets require several accommodations for their autism, cerebral palsy, ADHD, and more.

On several occasions, Piñón said she had to file formal complaints against her local school district to ensure her children's linguistic and special education needs were met-including pushing back against an attempt to reduce the time her triplets spent with their special education teacher.

However, one systemic issue she sees is a lack of proper training among educators on how to best work with dual-identified students.

The need for better teacher preparation

Piñón worked as a bilingual teacher for about 10 years. She knows that existing bilingual teachers can get their certification in special education as well. But there is a gap of information in both programs, she said, leaving teachers without full context on how to best work with dual-identified students.

"I think that educating English learners with disabilities is a unique challenge for our teachers," Piñón said.

Overall, there aren't many teacher-preparation programs that train teachers on what to do in bilingual special education classrooms, said Salinas of Minnesota State University.

Recognizing that knowledge gap, Piñón worked on legislation signed into law in 2021 in Texas to create a bilingual special education certification. However, approval of the new certificate program remains stalled within the state board of education.

Yet, a temporary solution to such knowledge gaps in teacher preparation lies in strategic collaboration among educators, Salinas said.

Such work isn't always possible between special education and bilingual education teachers on account of tight school schedules and other barriers, she added.

Still, it's a strategy researchers focusing on English learners say can mitigate not only a lack of bilingual and special education teachers but also address how little training general education teachers have when it comes to working with English learners and special education students overall.

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'A Unique Challenge': What English Learners With Disabilities Need

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From language barriers to bilingual education program lockouts, dual-identified students face unique challenges researchers say.

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¿Cierto o falso? You must be bilingual to support emergent bilingual students in their literacy development.

¡Falso!

An essential component of supporting emergent bilinguals in developing literacy is understanding cross-linguistic transfer (CLT): when emergent bilinguals use knowledge of one language to support learning another.

Educators do not need to be fluent in both languages to identify-and teach-which elements of one transfer to the other.

"Teachers should not feel discouraged in supporting their students who are Spanish-speaking, because there are ways that they can still support cross-linguistic transfer without actually speaking the language," says Amplify senior PD strategist in biliteracy Lauren Birner.

But CLT doesn't just happen-it requires explicit instruction. So we do need to ensure that this takes place if we want to support equity in education, especially in early childhood education.

How can educators bring the power of CLT into instruction? And support equity and excellence in education?

Making connections: The impact of CLT

Our recent webinar Making Connections: The Importance of Cross-Linguistic Transfer in Biliteracy Instruction -led by Lauren Birner and Amplify's Kajal Patel Below-explored answers to these questions.

In the webinar, Birner and Patel Below describe similarities and differences between English and Spanish, discuss how those similarities and differences can impact instruction, and explain why CLT helps English learners leverage skills from both languages to build their biliteracy.

They also underscore why it matters-namely, that it's about supporting equity in early childhood education and beyond.

More than 15% of our K-3 students in this country are emergent bilinguals, and we have a responsibility to help them cultivate and expand that superpower.

-Kajal Patel

The Simple View of Reading and biliteracy

The idea behind the Simple View of Reading is that the combination of language comprehension and word recognition is what leads students to gain meaning from text. If either language comprehension skills or word recognition skills are lacking, students cannot become skilled readers, and this is true in both English and Spanish.

"Research shows that when teachers explicitly teach students what transfers from one language to the other," says Patel Below, "students are able to devote more cognitive processing time toward the more complex orthography and morphology systems of English that require more time than the more transparent systems of Spanish."

Birner had this to add: "While components of these domains might overlap, it can be helpful to think of them individually, and how they'll impact language and literacy development."

So let's take a look at the areas of language where we can leverage cross-linguistic transfer.

1. Phonetics and phonology: 92% of all of the sounds in English and Spanish have a direct correlation. That means that teachers can focus explicit instruction only on the remaining 8% of sounds-such as the rolled r in Spanish. Meanwhile, we can also encourage them to be language detectives and recognize where the languages do connect and how they can use their skills in one to understand the other. That approach, says Birner, "will not only save valuable time and energy, but it'll also help [educators] recognize bilingualism as an asset for all of our students."

2. Morphology: Students can explore cognates like hospital/hospital and celebration/celebración, while also exploring similarities and differences in pronunciation. "Whether or not they are Spanish-speaking, teachers can look to cross-linguistic transfer guidance and start to recognize things, the prefixes and suffixes that are similar across the two languages," says Birner.

3. Syntax and grammar: Spanish and English do have rules and structures that differ from each other, in the areas of word order, gender, conjugation, and possession. As students progress in learning these distinctions, teachers can seize opportunities for explicit instruction. For example, let's say a student constructs the sentence: "The flower of Ana is pretty." This is not an error, but an approximation "to be celebrated." Birner says. "It's a comprehensible sentence in English that just needs a minor adjustment. We can use this type of sentence as an opportunity to provide explicit instruction on possessives."

4. Semantics: Semantics is the study of word meaning and is critical for language learners. Exploring idioms, homonyms and homophones, and other nuances of usage across language can give students the chance to build from similarities and identify differences. "You might do something like hang a chart of idiomatic phrases in each language," says Birner. "Looking at both languages side by side is a really great way to support your students in learning a second language."

5. Pragmatics: Pragmatics encompass the ways people communicate that are nuanced or unsaid. They're often rooted in cultural norms, which include both physical norms (looking someone in the eye when speaking) and social norms (using euphemisms). "Providing students with explicit instruction on how communicating may differ from culture to culture and situation to situation can help avoid misunderstandings," says Birner. "It's also a great way to allow students to see the world in perspective."

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Found in translation-the power of cross-linguistic transfer

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Learn how Amplify's biliteracy programs, rooted in the Science of Reading, can help all educators support cross-linguistic transfer for bilingual students.

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Biliteracy Educators Roundtable: Bringing a Biliteracy Curriculum to Life

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The Science of Reading and English Learners: 3 Takeaways for Policy and Classroom Practice

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Two experts joined Education Week for a webinar on best practices for teaching young English learners to read.

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The “bilingual brain” and reading research: Questions about teaching English Learners to read in English

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Controversies over how best to teach children to read go back many years. Most recently, two questions have emerged that leave teachers of English Learners puzzled:First, does research on reading, sometimes referred to as “the science of reading,” include English Learners, or is it based solely on E…

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The Science of Reading: Defining Guide provides a firm definition of what the science of reading is, what it is not, and how all stakeholders can understand its potential to transform reading instruction.

Download the Spanish version

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The Reading League's new book, Science of Reading: Defining Guide, provides in-depth information on the science of reading and key instructional practices to help you make the shift in your practice.

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History and Finding Alignment

Historically, there have been divergent viewpoints between experts in the science of reading field and some experts who support English Learner/Emergent Bilingual(EL/EB) students. However, it is important to recognize that the shared objective among all stakeholders is to facilitate positive literacy outcomes for all students, ultimately aiming for proficient reading and writing skills.

Despite a broad consensus on numerous topics, such as the importance of building language and knowledge, having high expectations for students, and the important role of foundational reading skills, there have been instances when presentations and papers have perpetuated a narrative of disconnection between these groups. For instance, in 2022, the National Committee for Effective Literacy (NCEL) published a White Paper that extensively discredited practices associated with the "science of reading" approach. Interestingly, the frustrations expressed by the EL/EB community, which led to the development of this paper, often stemmed from practices that deviated from the scientifically supported evidence on how students acquire reading skills. These practices were implemented in schools where administrators mistakenly believed they were aligned with the science of reading. One notable example is the excessive emphasis on phonemic awareness or phonics instruction, with daily instruction lasting 90 minutes, at the expense of other critical literacy areas such as oral language development, vocabulary, and language comprehension. It is crucial to note that such practices are not congruent with the principles of the science of reading.

Overall, it will be important to draw upon our understanding of what the science of reading is, and what it is not, and proceed with a united message that evidence-aligned instruction must address all components of language comprehension, writing, word recognition and, for EL/EB students, English language development.

A response to the NCEL White Paper was drafted by Goldenberg et al. (2022) in an effort to find common ground. Following this response, The Reading League assembled a group of stakeholders to discuss some of the most critical points of contention in a series of meetings. The intent was to listen, learn, and build trust. This group knew that in order to truly unpack this disconnect, collaborative conversations had to occur that began from a place of mutual respect and understanding.

In March 2022 at the first virtual convening, the group of stakeholders agreed that proponents of the science of reading do not always place enough intentional emphasis on supporting the language needs of ELs/EBs. They also worked to dispel myths often perpetuated by many referring to the science of reading as a one-size fits all approach, a program of instruction, phonics-only, or any number of misinformed beliefs that describe anything other than what the science of reading is-a body of knowledge derived from decades of scientifically-based reading research.

The group convened multiple times from the spring to fall of 2022 with the objective of addressing significant topics, fostering clarity, and establishing trust. Through these discussions, several essential areas of agreement emerged, while other important questions surfaced that required further exploration. These shared alignments and questions served as the foundation for more in-depth discussions during the in-person gathering held in March, The Reading League Summit.

During these discussions, another group of EL/EB and science of reading experts had been meeting and discussing concrete alignments in California. This group developed an excellent resource that can serve as a foundation for conversations based on collaboration.
Pivot Learning published its final conclusions in this report:
The Reading League Summit, Joint Statement, and Report

In 2022-2023, efforts to bridge the disconnect between proponents of the science of reading and experts supporting the needs of EL/EBs led to the belief that the various stakeholder groups can move forward together. Continued conversations between The Reading League and friends and NCEL and friends led to an historic one-day Summit in Las Vegas on March 25, 2023.

The Summit featured four moderated panel discussions on a variety of topics. A video archive of the 2023 Summit is available here:

Register for the second annual The Reading League Summit 2024 on April 27, 2024, in San Diego, CA.
Joint Statement:
Following the Summit, panelists and moderators reconvened to address growing misconceptions about the science of reading. The following statement was drafted in order to continue the work of advancing literacy outcomes for all students, together.
Report:
Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall, director of P-12 Practice at The Education Trust, recounts the day's events in the following report.

Research
Is there scientifically-based research that helps us understand how to meet the literacy needs of ELs/EBs?
There is a claim made by certain individuals suggesting that all research conducted within the realm of the science of reading solely pertains to monolingual contexts. However, it is important to emphasize that all scientifically grounded research aimed at comprehending the process of reading acquisition-including studies explicitly addressing questions related to EL/EB students-falls within the scope of the science of reading. Although further research is warranted to gain a comprehensive understanding of effective support for EL/EB students, it is categorically incorrect to assert that no research exists regarding optimal strategies for assisting this particular student population.
There are multiple, reliable resources that have summarized research and lifted up best practices for EL/EB students including the following:

The Reading League has purchased the digital rights with a limited number of permitted downloads of the Developing Literacy in Second Language Learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth (Executive Summary). We welcome you to download the PDF of this resource for future use while it is available.

Additionally, because our nation's classrooms have a growing number of EL/EB students, they have been participants in much of the research that is part of the body of knowledge known as the science of reading. For example, the initial 1990 study validating the Simple View of Reading was conducted on students along the Texas/Mexico border who spoke multiple languages.

There are also many scientifically-based research studies that help us understand how to meet the needs of ELs/EBs specifically. Unfortunately, many of them remain behind a paywall, but interested readers can contact the authors directly to request access. A sampling of just a handful of the studies that specifically address EL/EB students includes:

Curriculum and Instruction

Learning to read in a language you are learning is similar, but not identical, to learning to read in a language that is new to you. - Dr. Claude Goldenberg

One of the areas of continued discussion revolves around foundational skills. These are skills such as phoneme awareness, letter knowledge, phonics, phonic decoding, and encoding, that must be developed to automaticity in order to support accurate and automatic word recognition and spelling.

An element of instruction that is a frequent point of contention is the use of context cues when teaching reading. Emily Hanford's Sold a Story podcast explains the faulty logic and lack of research for relying on cues to decode words. An important distinction to understand is that cueing as a strategy to develop word recognition is not supported by research, but using cues to confirm the meaning of words once they have been read accurately can be beneficial for students, including ELs/EBs.
This article by Dr. Louise Spear-Swerling clarifies this distinction: Dr. Linnea Ehri and Dr. Susan Brady discuss the role of meaning:
For readers, our brains have three separate kinds of representations for words in different areas of the brain that make up words' lexical representations: 1) a phonological representation of how the word is pronounced; 2) a semantic representation that encompasses the word's meaning attributes, including how the word is used in different contexts and connects to the meanings of other words that have related meanings; 3) and an orthographic map that specifies the spelling of the word. The orthographic map results from code-based grapheme-phoneme mapping when a reader encounters a word in print and decodes it, or when the reader spells the word. Once an orthographic map is well-established for a word, the reader no longer needs to decode that word but automatically accesses the map when reading or spelling, and even just when hearing the word. The different kinds of representations become more strongly neurologically connected as the learner has experience with the word in language and in print. Thus when reading a known word, the semantic and phonological representations are activated as well as the orthographic map. For words to fully exist in our 'sight word' memory, they must have these other forms of representation well connected with the orthographic map. Research also indicates that connections with the motor region of the brain that controls handwriting are also activated when a word is used. Educational practices that integrate all aspects of word knowledge strengthen the connections, supporting automaticity of word recognition and comprehension.

Research on both monolingual and bilingual students has documented that explicit and systematic instruction in phoneme awareness and decoding are essential for orthographic mapping, however these skills are not sufficient to develop skilled reading if the other forms of representation are not established as well. If students are taught to decode the words, but do not know the meanings of the words they are reading, comprehension will not occur. Thus, ensuring that students know the meanings of words they are decoding is necessary, too. In short, EL/EB students need rich instruction in English oral language to build their second language expertise, supporting both their oral language use and providing necessary phonological and semantic representations for English words they are seeing in print.
According to Dr. Linnea Ehri in an interview for The Reading League Compass:
To be fully mapped and exist as a sight word in memory, the meaning must be connected to the spelling and pronunciation. Also the syntactic identity of the word needs to become connected to the other identities, that is, its function in sentences-especially if its meaning is only activated in sentences (e.g., function words like was, from, if, and with, and irregular past tense verbs that sound like nonsense words when produced in isolation like held, took, gave, and wrote). This would be especially important for EL students. These words need to be read in meaningful contexts in order for the connection forming processes to become complete and to establish high quality lexical representations of sight words in memory. A word isn't a word without meaning.

Thus, it is essential to undergird lessons whenever possible with meaningful vocabulary, language, and English language support is essential for EL/EB students.
Resources to further understanding
The Reading League's Curriculum Evaluation Guidelines (CEGs) include "red flags" (instructional practices that do not align with the science of reading) as well as aligned practices that support both word recognition and language comprehension. The CEGs also include specific, evidence-aligned components to support EL/EB students. Many of the evidence-aligned language comprehension components of the CEGs align directly with the WIDA English Language Development Standards (2020). Developing understanding of grammar, cohesive devices, syntax, and text structure is supported by the science of reading and advocated by those supporting EL/EBs. Understanding these connections and emphasizing these similarities will help us all move forward together to support all learners. Additionally, New Mexico's Structured Literacy and English Learners page provides helpful information on instruction and resources such as walkthrough tools and lesson templates.

The following excerpts from California's ELD Standards Publication are also helpful in thinking through the evidence-aligned needs of ELs/EBs.
English learners benefit from Reading Foundational Skills instruction.
Research Findings: Instruction in the components of reading foundational skills-such as phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension (NICHD 2000)-benefits ELs.
Implications: Instruction in foundational literacy skills is essential for ELs. However, the instruction should be adjusted based on students' spoken English proficiency (they may or may not be familiar with the English sound system) and native language or English literacy proficiency (they may or may not be familiar with any type of writing system or with the Latin alphabet writing system in particular). Note that some ELs at any age may not be literate in any language when they arrive in the U.S. school system; their native language may not have a written form, or they may not have had opportunities to develop literacy in their native language or in a local language of wider communication.
Oral English language proficiency is crucial for English literacy learning.
Research Findings: Oral proficiency in English (including oral vocabulary, grammar, and listening comprehension) is critical for ELs to develop proficiency in text-level English reading comprehension. Word-identification skills are necessary, but not sufficient. Students who have learning disabilities (as diagnosed separately from their EL designation)-or whose literacy skills in either their native language or English remain below grade level after intensive and extensive instruction-may need specialized literacy intervention services.
Implications: Instruction for ELs in oral language knowledge, skills, and abilities must be explicit, intensive, and extensive. In order to be successful in reading English, ELs must develop proficiency in listening and speaking skills in English-depth and breadth of vocabulary, as well as grammatical structures-at the same time that they are developing foundational skills in reading and writing English.
Native language literacy skills facilitate English literacy learning.
Research Findings: ELs' native language literacy skills can help them learn English foundational literacy skills.
Implications: Instruction for ELs will need to vary based on variations among ELs' native language writing systems, as well as ELs' experiences with literacy in their native language. For example, students who are literate in a language that uses the Latin alphabet (such as Spanish) will be able to transfer decoding and writing skills more easily than a student who is literate in a language with a non-Latin alphabet (such as Arabic, Korean, or Russian) or a language with a symbol-based writing system (such as Chinese). Similarly, students who are literate in a language related to English (such as Spanish) will be able to use knowledge of cognates (words with similar meaning and spelling in both languages), whereas students who are literate in unrelated languages (such as Arabic, Chinese, or Korean) will not.

Multilingualism as an Asset

In our increasingly multilingual and multicultural society, it is important to consider the impact of bilingualism on the development of language, and how exposure to more than one language from a young age might shape an individual's brain both structurally and functionally. In the recent past, bilingualism was thought to impede cognitive and linguistic development, effectively 'confusing' the child's brain with multiple languages. We now know that this is NOT the case. (Arredondo et al, 2018)

A point that was universally agreed-upon at The Reading League Summit is that from a cultural, cognitive, and an academic perspective, multilingualism is an asset. For students, learning vocabulary and background knowledge in their home language can lead to positive transfer of this knowledge when learning the language of instruction, which supports comprehension. Dual language instruction is an optimal setting for this.

The reality, however, is that most EL/EB students are not afforded the opportunity to learn in a dual language setting that instructs, at least part time, in their home language. Thus, students must learn to read in a language they are learning to understand. Even in English-only settings, educators can still capitalize on the asset of a student's home language by leveraging cognates, or words in different languages that have a similar phonological, orthographic, and semantic form. Educators can also use a student's home language to highlight similar elements of phonology, orthography, morphology, syntax, and grammar and lessen the cognitive load of new learning by engaging in contrastive analysis, or the comparing of two languages to determine the similarities and differences of specific elements of the language. Teachers can also support better comprehension skills when they are able to choose texts that relate to children's previous experiences and world knowledge. In this way teachers can provide culturally relevant content that is more likely to be familiar to children and therefore more likely to be understood.

In this EdSource article (2023), Tim Shanahan states:
There are things that, depending on the language, might overlap with English and that the children might already know, in which case, those don't necessarily need to be retaught or certainly not to the same extent as with a first language student. For example, a lot of the sound letter matches are identical across Spanish and English, so if the child already knows how to read in Spanish, the classroom instructor wouldn't need to put a lot of time into teaching those things. On the other hand, there definitely are sounds that we have in English that don't exist in Spanish. And studies have found that it's useful to teach those quite explicitly and thoroughly. These resources are useful in helping educators understand elements of language that may be similar or different across languages:
Assessment

Dr. Lilian Duran of the University of Oregon offers the following advice for The Reading League Compass on assessment for ELs/EBs:

When planning assessment to learn more about the reading abilities of English Learners, it is important to understand their word recognition abilities, but one must also understand the role of language proficiency in both the child's home language(s) and English. Assessing literacy development in multilingual children requires attention to the child's level of proficiency in all of the languages that they have been regularly exposed to and how they will interact with the child's performance on the assessments administered.

In the context of the United States, most reading assessments are conducted only in English. Many children enter US schools speaking languages other than English at home and in their communities and are in the process of acquiring English. It is mandated that all children whose parents identify that a language other than English is spoken in the home are administered an English proficiency test with the goal of more effectively providing appropriate support for learning in predominantly English instructional environments.

Language is the foundation of literacy, and for EL students, measuring language development is critical to understanding the foundation they are bringing to the task of learning to read in English. Assessment in a child's home language is also important to provide a window into their ability to learn in general. Most children in the U.S. will be exposed to English-only instruction, but prior to school entry all of their learning, their concept knowledge, and their communication abilities are simply stored in a different language. Measuring vocabulary, semantic, and morphosyntactic development provides the teacher with more awareness of the student's strengths, abilities, and learning potential.

In addition to attending to the level of language development of students, it is also important to consider the language or languages of instruction. If children are only taught how to read in English, you cannot assume that the child will have reading skills in Spanish. However, if a child is in a dual language program that systematically teaches reading in both English and Spanish, then reading assessment in both languages is important and a better reflection of their overall ability level.

The main take-away for assessing reading skills for ELs is as follows: teachers must take a nuanced approach that strategically considers the quantity and quality of a child's exposure to their home language(s) and English and how this interacts with the language of their reading instruction. There is not a one-size-fits-all approach, but rather a decision-making process that should be undertaken to choose the appropriate assessments in the appropriate language that are most likely to capture the child's overall language and reading ability.
For more information on this topic:
Students Who Use Black English Should Be Included in Conversations

Dr. Altheria Caldera, TRL's DEIB consultant, offers the following advice for The Reading League Compass regarding speakers of Black English:

According to a 2021 infographic published by the Office of English Language Acquisition, only 2.9% of Black students are English Learners (ELs). Most of these non-native English speakers are foreign-born, with 8 of the top 10 countries being located in Africa. These Black English Learners are often "overlooked" in conversations around the needs of multilingual learners. This exclusion has significant implications for the reading education, with its recent focus on the importance of teaching foundational reading skills to beginning readers.

Black English, sometimes referred to as African American Vernacular English, is a dialect of English with syntactic and grammatical distinctions from Standard (also Dominant) American English. Important, too, is the differences in vocabulary, oral language, phonics, and phonemic awareness, all of which are integral components of structured literacy. As an example, a student who speaks Black English might read the word "flow" and understand it to be a surface on which one walks and may fail to recognize the word "floor" as the standard way the term is pronounced. The impact of dialectical differences such as this are examined in this 2012 article.

Questions surrounding implications for reading instruction for speakers of Black English have been pursued since at least the 1970s. Recent scholars like Ramona Pittman and Julie A. Washington, whose research and writing center students who speak Black English are urging the broader multilingual education community to include speakers of Black English, and other bi-dialectical students, in their efforts to advance the needs of multilingual learners.

Students who speak dialects other than English have needs similar to, though not identical to, needs as speakers of other languages. The former, sometimes referred to as Standard English Learners, deserve this nuanced classification along with corresponding support. California is one of the states leading the way in this language equity work. While it is arguable that speakers of Black English should be identified as ELs; unequivocally, students who speak Black English and other bi-dialectical students should be included in the literacy conversation, and their needs should be uplifted.

Resources

These additional resources are helpful to understand research as it relates to supporting English Learners and Emergent Bilinguals.

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English Learners / Emergent Bilinguals and the Science of Reading

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Explore the science of reading for English learners and emergent bilinguals. Join us in advancing literacy education.

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Translanguaging in Action: A Step-by-Step Guide for Teachers of ELLs

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Your host, Beth Vaucher, is the founder of Inspiring Young Learners. She is an ESL certified homeroom teacher with over 10 years of experience teaching in the US and internationally. Her background of M.Ed in ESL and Curriculum and Instruction combined with her experience has led her to develop a bestselling newcomer curriculum that has sold in over 90 countries around the globe.

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TDSB PSS PD Mental Health and Well-Being

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Why Talking in Your First Language Matters

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Talk to your child in your home language throughout the day to build the skills for success at school.

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Colorín Colorado is a national multimedia project that offers a wealth of bilingual, research-based information, activities, and advice for educators and families of English language learners (ELLs). Colorín Colorado is an educational service of WETA, the flagship public broadcasting station in the nation's capital, and receives major funding from the American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association.

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In September of 2016, OSEP funded three projects focusing on tiered approaches to improving reading and language outcomes for English Learners (ELs). These projects are developing and implementing culturally and linguistically responsive models for multitiered system of supports for ELs, including those with or at risk of having a disability.

Features of these models include:

Appropriate research-based reading instruction and intervention for ELs

Culturally responsive teaching strategies and principles

Professional development and strategic coaching for teachers

Linguistically aligned progress monitoring and screening measures

Data-based educational decision making

Please click on each project to learn more about each model and to access additional resources.

Project ELITE2 is a model demonstration project sponsored by the Office of Special Education Programs in the U.S. Department of Education. The project operates within the Language for Learning Institute of The Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk at The University of Texas at Austin.

The goal of the Project ELITE2 is to develop, implement, and evaluate a multitiered instructional model for English learners in the elementary grades that focuses on language and literacy development. We are one of three model demonstration sites collaborating to optimize educational outcomes for English learners, specifically those with or at risk for having a learning disability.

Through this newly funded cooperative agreement, Project ELITE2 is working with a school district in Central Texas to extend our previous work from ELs in the primary grades to ELs in grades three through five.

Project ELLIPSES is a model demonstration project sponsored by the Office of Special Education Programs in the U.S. Department of Education. The goal of the project is to assess the implementation of multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) focused on culturally and linguistically responsive teaching (CLRT) to meet the needs of English learners and English learners with disabilities in the area of literacy and language development. Project ELLIPSES will provide training and technical assistance to build staff capacity to support MTSSCLRT implementation and high-quality literacy instruction for English learners and English learners with disabilities in grades third through fifth.

Project Lectura para Excelencia y Éxito (Project LEE) is a model demonstration project at Portland State University, sponsored by the Office of Special Education Programs in the U.S. Department of Education. The goal of Project LEE is to improve literacy and language outcomes for ELs in grades 3-5 with or at-risk for being identified with a disability. Within this context, we intend to support schools to use a framework, PLUSS (Sanford, Brown & Turner, 2012), to adapt existing evidence-based interventions for the unique linguistic and cultural needs of ELs. The PLUSS Model provides a replicable model of literacy instruction and intervention through embedding culturally and linguistically appropriate instruction into existing multi-tiered system of supports.

PLUSS stands for:

P: Preteaching language and vocabulary and priming background knowledge
L: Language use and modeling
U: Using visuals and graphic organizers
S: Systematic and explicit instruction
S: Strategic use of native language and culture

As one of three model demonstration sites, Project LEE is collaborating with other projects and the outcomes of this project will be disseminated nationally. Specifically, the goals of our project are to: (1) improve the literacy outcomes for ELs with or at-risk for being identified with a disability, and (2) create a replicable and sustainable model of culturally and linguistically responsive instruction that can be overlaid across all tiers of instructional support within a multi-tiered system of supports.

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Multitiered System of Supports for English Learners

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Research-based practices, guides, and tools for Response to Intervention (RTI) with English Learners, the U.S. Department of Education funds model development of MTSS with ELs.

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Learning tuesdays | The Science of Reading and Emergent Bilinguals

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During the New Year, we reflect on past joys and concerns from the previous year and take the opportunity to look ahead. During these difficult times and uncertain times, it is especially important to take time for reflection, identify our strengths and challenges, and consider where our efforts will be most effective.

In this article, I will recommend some specific and measurable actions you can implement to support the success of your English language learners (ELLs). You may wish to focus on just one of these strategies so you can work on it consistently, or try different strategies at different times through the year.

I also suggest teachers employ the "support group" method and use the chosen strategy as a topic for a professional learning community. Sharing strategies, achievements, and challenges with colleagues will help you all grow professionally, and more students will benefit academically. It will also provide the team with much-needed support and you can use some of these ideas to jumpstart collaboration.

Note: We have added some ideas around advocacy and collaboration to this article due to the additional responsibilities and uncertainties educators are currently facing.

Connecting with Students

1. Look for ways to build relationships with your ELLs.
Specific and measurable goal: I will try one new strategy that can boost my connections with students.
When asked for their top piece of advice for working with ELLs, veteran ELL educators often talk about the importance of building relationships with their ELLs and how the time invested in those relationships pays dividends in the future. There are lots of ways to support those connections by learning more about students' interests, strengths, and talents, as well as by making sure students have information about extra-curricular activities.

You can learn more strategies such as those in the article below, which also includes many tech tools that can be used online or in-person with students.

Recommended resources

Videos: Building relationships with ELLs

2. Look for ways to welcome your students' language and cultures.
Specific and measurable goal: I will find a new way to incorporate students' languages and cultures into my classroom and instruction.
There are many ways to welcome students' languages and cultures in your classroom. These include:

posting signs in students' languages

bringing in books in students' languages

inviting students' to teach the class some phrases from their languages

learning a few phrases of students' languages

inviting students to share information about their culture and traditions

looking for ways to connect content to students' experiences

incorporating students' languages in instruction through bilingual glossaries, peer work, and bilingual materials

Recommended resources

Dearborn Public Schools ELD Director Rose Aldubaily discusses the value of using students' home language as a resource. You can see more from Dearborn in our award-winning video project from Dearborn, MI.

3. Ensure that ELLs are included in social and emotional learning (SEL).
Specific and measurable goal: I will review our SEL and classroom routines, activities, and instruction with an eye on ELLs' full access and participation.
When you take a closer look at what SEL looks like in your classroom, you might find that ELLs aren't accessing the same tools, strategies, and supports to the extent that their peers are. You can increase their access through the following:

Make any routines and expectations explicit through visuals and repetition.

Encourage students to express themselves in their home language as needed.

Ensure students know the vocabulary and language needed to participate in activities.

Be prepared to make adjustments in order to accommodate students who are still acclimating to a new culture and language by looking for ways to make students comfortable in the classroom.

Recommended resources

4. Make sure students know what supports are available for them.
Specific and measurable goal: I will share information about 3 types of school supports that students may not be familiar with. I will connect with one community organization on behalf of my students and families.
Students and families may not be aware of the kinds of support that are available within your school and community, including in the areas of health and wellness, mental health, social services, academic support and tutoring, college credits, college applications, financial aid, scholarships, enrichment activities, and much more. Take some time to think about what kinds of services and supports would be most beneficial to your students; you can start by asking for their input and even turn this into a research project so that the whole class can learn from each other. Avoid making assumptions about what students do or don't need and remember that students can benefit from different kinds of support even if they haven't asked for any help or shared information about their private situations. In addition, you may wish to reach out to organizations in the community that can provide further support and resources to your families.

Visit Wolfe Street Academy in Baltimore, MD, a school with more than 76% ELLs, to see how this community school is supporting its students and families through programs and services that include dental screenings, food giveaways, after-school activities, and much, much more!

Strategies for Instruction

5. Increase ELL students' English language production and peer interaction.
Specific and measurable goal: I will use one or two key strategies that can support oral language in my instruction and share ideas that work with my colleagues.
There are two key items students need in order to further develop skills in a new language - time and practice. There is nothing teachers can do to rush language acquisition, but there are many ways to provide opportunities to practice their skills in the classroom. If activities are structured to support student-to-student or group interaction, ELLs will need to use their oral language skills to explain concepts and contribute to the work. This gives teachers an opportunity to gauge what the student has learned, and it demonstrates student progress in language development.

Teachers can also informally assess for correct use of language structures and academic vocabulary. If ELLs are having difficulty with phrases or vocabulary, the teacher will be able to offer guidance or further instruction to support language development.

Recommended resources

Albuquerque teacher Ali Nava walks her students through a cooperative paragraph summarizing the beginning, middle, and end the children's book Burro's Tortillas and uses the exercise as an opportunity to practice their writing skills.

6. Explicitly teach academic language vocabulary and structures.
Specific and measurable resolution: I will identify one key area where my students need more practice in academic language and look for ways to support their language development.
In, "What Teachers Need to Know about Language" by Lily Wong Fillmore and Catherine Snow, the authors state that:

Teachers play a critical role in supporting language development. Beyond teaching children to read and write in school, they need to help children learn and use aspects of language associated with the academic discourse of the various school subjects. They need to help them become more aware of how language functions in various modes of communication across the curriculum. They need to understand how language works well enough to select materials that will help expand their students' linguistic horizons and to plan instructional activities that give students opportunities to use the new forms and modes of expression to which they are being exposed. Teachers need to understand how to design the classroom language environment so as to optimize language and literacy learning and to avoid linguistic obstacles to content area learning (Wong Fillmore & Snow, p. 7).

The need to understand academic language structures and language acquisition theory is increasingly important as the number of ELLs increases in classrooms. However, very few teachers have had the formal training required to be prepared to identify and teach the English vocabulary and structures found in specific content areas. When I first started teaching ESL, my students knew way more about grammar than I did. I joked with them, "I don't know English; I just speak it."

Content teachers can begin by collaborating with ESL teachers to learn how to identify the academic language demands of content-area lessons and how to scaffold academic language and vocabulary instruction. With practice, it will become easier to review a content-area lesson and identify not just the vocabulary that every student needs to know, but other vocabulary words and grammar structures that ELL students may not be familiar with.

Recommended resources

Video: What are sentence frames?

ESOL specialist Sheila Majdi explains what a sentence frame is and how she might use this strategy with ELLs.

7. Build on ELLs' background knowledge to support comprehension.
Specific and measurable goal: I will elicit background knowledge from ELLs in one content area through a variety of activities, including questioning and graphic organizers.
Learning something new is like stacking building blocks. The more you have, the higher you can go. ELLs come with many building blocks, but it takes practice learning how to identify what they are. That is where the teacher's skill at drawing on background knowledge becomes so important.

Teachers can work creatively to elicit background knowledge from students on content topics in order to increase comprehension of the material. This may be as simple as taking the time to do a "K/W/L" (Know, Want to Know, Learned) chart, or as individualized as asking questions about the topic: "Has anyone ever visited the jungle? A jungle is like a rainforest. What do you see in a jungle?" Students can share their knowledge and see how it is connected to new academic information.

Recommended resources

Videos: ELL educators speak about background knowledge

8. Increase opportunities for writing.
Specific and measurable goal: I will choose one targeted activity that focuses on developing a certain skill such as creative vocabulary use, the correct format of an essay or the peer editing process.
The ability to write effectively and accurately to convey a message is a critical skill for a college student and in most careers. Students need to have many positive opportunities to develop writing skills in a variety of formats in order to strengthen their communication skills, and for ELLs, this is particularly important. Depending on their writing skill level in their first language and their English language abilities, writing may be frustrating. Students need to engage in a variety of writing to develop an understanding of different types of writing and to identify their strengths and weaknesses as a writer.

I want to underscore the importance of interacting with writing in a positive way by examining creativity and word usage, in addition to the mechanics of writing. Many ELLs will focus negatively on problems with mechanics and miss the strengths they display in their writing. We write the way we think and speak, and by analyzing our writing we begin to analyze our thoughts and speech as well. When students discuss their writing, they are able to see their thoughts and statements from someone else's perspective and they gain awareness of their own language development. In this age of technology where a lot of communication is done electronically, it is more important than ever that students develop the ability to state their thoughts clearly and accurately in writing - as well as to know the difference between texting a message to buddies and sending an email to the boss.

Recommended resources

Strategies: ELL Family Engagement

Multilingual families are legally entitled to information in their home language. Here are some ideas to improve and expand outreach and partnerships with ELL families.

9. Start positive, strengths-based conversations with families.
Specific and measurable goal: I will contact one family each week to share a success story about their child.
No matter what language they speak, ELL families want their children to succeed as much as any other family. Regular, open and friendly communication from the teacher can make a big difference in ELL parent engagement, especially if families are intimidated by the U.S. school system.

It can also feel daunting to call an ELL family, but often there is someone in the family who speaks enough English to interpret the message for the parent, or the parent speaks enough English to understand a simple message. It may also be possible to get help from a bilingual school staff member to assist in making a quick phone call.

ELL families will be very pleased and excited to hear positive news about their child and will feel more comfortable asking questions and visiting the school in the future. The more informed the families are, the more likely it is that the student will get support at home and families will have the information they need to help their child be successful.

Recommended resources

Video: Our parents value education and their children's teachers

ELD Specialist Diana Alqadhi explains how the fact that teachers are held in high esteem in Yemeni culture helps strengthen family partnerships at her middle school.

10. Try a new tool to support family engagement.
Specific and measurable goal: I will try a new way to reach out to a multilingual family.
There are more tools than ever before to support multilingual family outreach. These include the app TalkingPoints, as well as innovative ways to use social media and video conferences with families. The more you know about resources and staffing your district has in this area, the more effective your outreach will be!

Recommended resources

Video: Partnering with families in the service industry

This video features Juliana Urtubey, 2021 National Teacher of the Year and the 2021 Nevada Teacher of the Year, sharing her experiences in partnering with families who work in Las Vegas.

Strategies for Collaboration & Advocacy

11. Look for ways to collaborate informally with colleagues.
Specific and measurable goal: I will reach out to one colleague to see if we can increase our collaboration.
There are a lot of ways you can initiate collaboration on behalf of ELLs with very small steps.

If you are a classroom or content-area teacher, you can:

send your ELL or bilingual colleagues a question about a student or an area of instruction where you'd like some support

ask your ELL colleagues to share some favorite strategies with you.

If you are an ELL/bilingual teacher or specialist, you can:

write a letter to colleagues introducing yourself and some of the ways you collaborate with others

invite colleagues to share questions about their ELLs with you

approach a content-area colleague and ask them how their ELLs are faring.

There are a few different benefits to this kind of collaboration:

Students can benefit as more teachers' capacity for ELL instruction increases.

Staff get to know each other's areas of expertise better.

Colleagues can team up to ask for more support for formal collaboration opportunities for ELLs.

Staff can increase the number of voices speaking up for ELLs, which is more critical than ever during COVID-19.

Recommended resources

Video: Tips for collaboration from an ESOL specialist

ESOL specialist Katy Padilla shares some of the tips she's learned in her experience collaborating with classroom and content-area colleagues.

12. Identify an area where you'd like to advocate for your ELLs.
Specific and measurable goal: I will choose one topic where I would like to see change for our ELLs and identify some small steps I can take to make a difference.
When you consider how your ELLs are currently doing, you may feel overwhelmed by a constellation of factors that are impacting them. Try identifying one issue that you think could make a difference if it were to improve or change. This might be an area of instruction, family engagement, language access, services and support, or creating a more welcoming environment at the school. For some ideas on first steps you might take to work on that issue, take a look at the following resources.

Recommended resources

13. Help administrators develop their capacity to serve ELLs.
Specific and measurable goal: I will reach out to one administrator to set up a conversation about our ELLs.
Communicating with administrators about ELL instruction, support, and family engagement can make a big difference. Not only can it bring important issues to administrators' attention, it can help them understand the role and value of ELL educators and why collaboration on behalf of ELLs is so valuable.

Try reaching out to an administrator with a question, issue, topic, or resource you'd like to share related to ELLs, such as the issue you identified above. Keep in mind, however, it doesn't have to be a big question to get the conversation started. Even though everyone is working within challenging circumstances right now, shining a light on ELLs' experiences, challenges, and needs can help put some important changes in motion.

Recommended resources

Learn more about the laws and regulations relating to the education of ELLs in the following article:

Video: What administrators need to know about what ESOL specialists do

Dr. Karen Woodson shares an overview of the expertise that ESOL educators bring to their schools and districts.

14. Strengthen your network of support.
Specific and measurable goal: I will take one step to expand my network of support, such as reaching out to another colleague or joining an online community of educators.
There is a lot of wonderful work being done and shared in schools, districts, professional learning communities, and online networks. If you need some ideas, encouragement, or validation, these can be powerful connections to make. There are recommended resources and ideas in the article below to help you get started.

Recommended resources

15. Keep returning to self-care & reflection.
Specific and measurable goal: I will share one self-care goal with a friend or colleague so we can check in about it in the near future.
Even if self-care is the last thing you've been able to think about during COVID-19, it's never to late to bring it back into focus.

Keep conversations going with your colleagues about what self-care means to you and what might help support it at the school level.

Don't give up on trying to make the self-care you need for your physical and mental health a regular part of your routine.

Share your success stories with colleagues to help boost motivation.

Take some time for reflection. While the reflection article below focuses on end-of-school-year questions, they could be used at any time during the year.

Together, colleagues can support each other and each other's self-care as part of their important work on behalf of students.

Closing Thoughts

I hope that this list will be helpful as you set goals for the upcoming year. You may find, of course, that if you create your own, they will be more meaningful, and you're more likely to stick with your plan. I hope you will be able to pick at least one thing and give it a try. Baby steps are better than no steps at all. So give it a try and go easy on yourself if it doesn't go as well as planned or if you get busy and don't keep up as well as you'd like.

The most important thing is that you explore an area that you think will support your ELLs' success, and commit yourself to continued improvement in the coming year. All the best in the New Year!

Video: Bonus Tips from Kristina

Here are some bonus tips from Kristina for educators ELLs!

Video: Try one new thing at a time

Video: When a new strategy doesn't work

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Fifteen Things Teachers Can Do to Support ELL Success in the New Year

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During the New Year, we reflect on past joys and concerns from the previous year and take the opportunity to look ahead. During these difficult times and uncertain times, it is especially important to take time for reflection, identify our strengths and challenges, and consider where our efforts will be most effective.

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Building Academic Language in your students. From conversation to academic language in the classroom

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5 Tips to Encourage MLs’ Participation in Content Area Classrooms

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"english learners" esl esol teaching literacy coteaching "sheltered instruction" multilinguals "emergent bilinguals"

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An advocate for multilingual learners and teachers who serve MLs.

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Book Study: The Reading League Pennsylvania, New York, and North Carolina

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Curated recordings and resources from the book study of 7 Mighty Moves!

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Ellevation: ML Program Management Tools for K-12

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Thank you for making our fourth annual IMPACT Conference such a special event. We were amazed by the level of engagement and inspired by the passion of presenters and attendees. Below you can find all session recordings as well as any session resources made available to attendees by our wonderful presenters. Enjoy and we'll see you next year!

Session slides (coming soon - please check back!)

Thank you again for supporting IMPACT 2023 - have a safe and happy holiday season!

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IMPACT 2023 Session recordings and resources

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Thank you for making our fourth annual IMPACT Conference such a special event. We were amazed by the level of engagement and inspired by the passion of presenters and attendees. Below you can find all session recordings as well as any session resources made available to attendees by our wonderful presenters.

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Presented by Almitra L. Berry, Ed.D., CEO, Author, Consultant, and Podcast Host, ALBerry Consulting, Inc.
Moderated by Dori Veto, VP of Product Marketing and Engagement, Perfection Learning

Sponsored by Perfection Learning
Watch the Recording Learn more about viewing the live presentation and the recording, earning your CE certificate, and using our new accessibility features.
In this enriching edWebinar, Dr. Almitra L. Berry invites educators and school leaders to delve into the realm of emergent bilingual learners, offering invaluable insights and practical approaches. The primary goal of this presentation is to equip viewers with the knowledge and tools necessary to foster bilingualism and biliteracy while supporting speakers of diverse world, tribal, and sociocultural languages. Learning objectives include:

Understand the concept of emergent bilingualism and its significance in education

Explore the developmental trajectory of bilingualism and biliteracy

Acquire strategies for effective engagement and instruction for emergent bilingual learners at various stages of English language development

Learn innovative methods for delivering content instruction in linguistically diverse classrooms

Discover techniques to promote active participation and engagement among emergent bilingual learners

This edWebinar provides viewers with a comprehensive understanding of how to nurture bilingualism in students of diverse linguistic backgrounds. By viewing, you gain practical insights, tips, and strategies that can be immediately applied in your educational context. Embrace the potential of every bilingual learner in your classroom and contribute to a more equitable and inclusive education system.

This recorded edWebinar is of interest to K-12 teachers, librarians, and school and district leaders.
About the Presenter
Dr. Almitra L. Berry is a nationally recognized motivational speaker, author, and consultant on the topic of culturally and linguistically diverse learners in America's K-12 education system. She is an advisor-contributor to Perfection Learning's Connections Literature multilingual supports. Her works focus on equity and academic achievement for culturally and linguistically diverse learners. Dr. Berry hosts the award-winning podcast Educational Equity Emancipation. Her book, Effecting Change for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners, and numerous other articles focus on educational equity and instructional practices.

A graduate of University of California, Davis, Dr. Berry has worked with leaders and systems throughout the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean. She's presented at scores of national and international conferences on equity, leadership, curriculum reform, and meeting the needs of historically underserved and marginalized learners. She calls upon educators and educational leaders to evaluate policy, curricula, instruction, supervision, and professional learning with a lens focused on equity.
About the Moderator
Dori Veto is the VP of Product Marketing and Engagement at Perfection Learning. Her career started in the classroom as a high school English teacher. Her 20+ year career in education has been dedicated to supplemental educational services, product development, and marketing for K-12 literacy programs used across the country. Dori holds a Bachelor of Arts in English education from Iowa State University and a Master of Education from the University of Illinois Chicago. She is passionate about literacy initiatives to help all children reach their potential.
Learn more about viewing the live presentation and the recording, earning your CE certificate, and using our new accessibility features.
Join the Helping ELL, ESL, and Bilingual Students Succeed community to network with educators, participate in online discussions, receive invitations to upcoming edWebinars, and view recordings of previous programs to earn CE certificates.

Founded by two educators in 1926, Perfection Learning® has been a leader and innovator in literature and language arts since its inception. By focusing on affordable, flexible solutions that can be "perfectly" customized to each classroom, Perfection Learning has enabled generations of teachers to help all students reach their potential.

About Mastery Education - For over 30 years, the Measuring Up suite of print and digital solutions has helped teachers improve student performance through diagnostic assessments, targeted skill instruction, and personalized practice.

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Unlocking Biliteracy: Nurturing School English While Honoring Home Language in Linguistically Diverse Learners - edWeb

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Gain the knowledge and tools necessary to foster bilingualism while supporting speakers of diverse world, tribal, and sociocultural languages.

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Supporting Our English Language Learners through the Art of Linguistic Scaffolding with Dr. Lillian Ardell

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Teaching ELL students isn't about spoon-feeding them - it's about arming them with the tools they need to conquer the language world. Linguistic scaffolds can be incredibly helpful, when used correctly. By weaving effective scaffolding strategies into your classroom tapestry, you'll watch your students unlock the language and embark on a thrilling journey to language mastery.

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Language Matters invites teachers on a journey of self-discovery to unearth and delight in the life experiences that influenced their decision to become a bilingual or ESL teacher. Too often, our pathways to certification deny us the opportunity to bring our whole, messy bilingual selves into the classroom. Es una pena inmensa.

So Lillian works at the intersection of whole-heartedness, bi and multi-cultural awareness, and structural linguistics to highlight her fundamental belief that these components are the foundation for successful outcomes with bilingual learners. In fact, many teachers already do some of this great work, albeit under the radar or without knowing why it works.

Our aim is to refine and amplify those techniques through a healing and reflexivity pedagogy-unlike most PDs on the market.

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Language Matters invites teachers on a journey of self-discovery to unearth and delight in the life experiences that influenced their decision to become a bilingual or ESL teacher. Too often, our pathways to certification deny us the opportunity to bring our whole, messy bilingual selves into the classroom. Es una pena inmensa.

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Overview of Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4–9

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WWC | Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4–9

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Presented by Almitra L. Berry, Ed.D., CEO, Author, Consultant, and Podcast Host, ALBerry Consulting, Inc.
Moderated by Dori Veto, VP of Product Marketing and Engagement, Perfection Learning

Sponsored by Perfection Learning
Watch the Recording Learn more about viewing the live presentation and the recording, earning your CE certificate, and using our new accessibility features.
In this enriching edWebinar, Dr. Almitra L. Berry invites educators and school leaders to delve into the realm of emergent bilingual learners, offering invaluable insights and practical approaches. The primary goal of this presentation is to equip viewers with the knowledge and tools necessary to foster bilingualism and biliteracy while supporting speakers of diverse world, tribal, and sociocultural languages. Learning objectives include:

Understand the concept of emergent bilingualism and its significance in education

Explore the developmental trajectory of bilingualism and biliteracy

Acquire strategies for effective engagement and instruction for emergent bilingual learners at various stages of English language development

Learn innovative methods for delivering content instruction in linguistically diverse classrooms

Discover techniques to promote active participation and engagement among emergent bilingual learners

This edWebinar provides viewers with a comprehensive understanding of how to nurture bilingualism in students of diverse linguistic backgrounds. By viewing, you gain practical insights, tips, and strategies that can be immediately applied in your educational context. Embrace the potential of every bilingual learner in your classroom and contribute to a more equitable and inclusive education system.

This recorded edWebinar is of interest to K-12 teachers, librarians, and school and district leaders.
About the Presenter
Dr. Almitra L. Berry is a nationally recognized motivational speaker, author, and consultant on the topic of culturally and linguistically diverse learners in America's K-12 education system. She is an advisor-contributor to Perfection Learning's Connections Literature multilingual supports. Her works focus on equity and academic achievement for culturally and linguistically diverse learners. Dr. Berry hosts the award-winning podcast Educational Equity Emancipation. Her book, Effecting Change for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners, and numerous other articles focus on educational equity and instructional practices.

A graduate of University of California, Davis, Dr. Berry has worked with leaders and systems throughout the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean. She's presented at scores of national and international conferences on equity, leadership, curriculum reform, and meeting the needs of historically underserved and marginalized learners. She calls upon educators and educational leaders to evaluate policy, curricula, instruction, supervision, and professional learning with a lens focused on equity.
About the Moderator
Dori Veto is the VP of Product Marketing and Engagement at Perfection Learning. Her career started in the classroom as a high school English teacher. Her 20+ year career in education has been dedicated to supplemental educational services, product development, and marketing for K-12 literacy programs used across the country. Dori holds a Bachelor of Arts in English education from Iowa State University and a Master of Education from the University of Illinois Chicago. She is passionate about literacy initiatives to help all children reach their potential.
Learn more about viewing the live presentation and the recording, earning your CE certificate, and using our new accessibility features.
Join the Helping ELL, ESL, and Bilingual Students Succeed community to network with educators, participate in online discussions, receive invitations to upcoming edWebinars, and view recordings of previous programs to earn CE certificates.

Founded by two educators in 1926, Perfection Learning® has been a leader and innovator in literature and language arts since its inception. By focusing on affordable, flexible solutions that can be "perfectly" customized to each classroom, Perfection Learning has enabled generations of teachers to help all students reach their potential.

About Mastery Education - For over 30 years, the Measuring Up suite of print and digital solutions has helped teachers improve student performance through diagnostic assessments, targeted skill instruction, and personalized practice.

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Unlocking Biliteracy: Nurturing School English While Honoring Home Language in Linguistically Diverse Learners - edWeb

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Gain the knowledge and tools necessary to foster bilingualism while supporting speakers of diverse world, tribal, and sociocultural languages.

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We've packed fun language practice into these take-home packs-with engaging games both children and parents will love! Each pack includes everything families need to play a language game to practice rhyming, vocabulary and more. Plus, each pack comes with a simple, step-by-step instruction card in English and Spanish...so busy families can jump right in!

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SubjectSpecificTeaching Strategies for Newcomer Tool Kit (PDF)

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Chapter 10: Writing Development Among English Learners

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Lynch School of Education and Human Development

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Teaching the Genres of Writing to K-8 Students

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NC_Writing with Multilingual Learners in the Elementary Grades_Fillable (1)

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@NataliaESL shares the practical strategies to build better writers in this highly practical book.
You can connect with Tan on Twitter at @TanKHuynh and TanKHuynh.com. You can learn more about my courses at https://tankhuynh.com/courses.

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ep 176. building better writers with natalia heckman

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‎Teaching MLs: Ep 176. Building Better Writers with Natalia Heckman on Apple Podcasts

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@NataliaESL shares the practical strategies to build better writers in this highly practical book. You can connect with Tan on Twitter at @TanKHuynh and TanKHuynh.com. You can learn more about my courses at https://tankhuynh.com/courses.

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Mary Phillips, Elementary Specialist from DPI, Literacy Instruction Standards

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Mary Phillips, Elementary Specialist from DPI, Literacy Instruction Standards

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The new question-of-the-week is: How can you best differentiate instruction for English-language learners in a "mainstream" classroom?
Part One's responses came from Valentina Gonzalez, Jenny Vo, Tonya Ward Singer, Carol Ann Tomlinson, and Nélida Rubio. You can listen to a 10-minute conversation I had with Valentina, Jenny and, Tonya on my BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

Today, Judie Haynes, Debbie Zacarian, Eugenia Mora-Flores, Melissa Jackson, Joyce Nutta, and Carine Strebel contribute their ideas.
Response From Judie Haynes & Debbie Zacarian
Judie Haynes is an ESL teacher with 35 years' classroom-teaching and teacher-training experience. She is the author or co-author of eight books and is the co-founder and co-moderator of #ELLCHAT, a widely known Twitter chat for teachers of ELLs.

Debbie Zacarian brings three decades of combined experience as a district administrator, university faculty member, and educational service-agency leader. With expertise in responsive leadership, instructional practices, family-school partnerships, and educational policies, she's authored many books and local and state policies and presents extensively.

Judie and Debbie are the co-authors of Teaching English Language Learners Across the Content Areas; The Essential Guide for Educating Beginning English Learners; and Teaching to Strengths: Supporting Students Living with Trauma, Violence and Chronic Stress (with Lourdes Alvarez-Ortiz):
When instruction is differentiated, English-learners can learn the same content as their English-fluent peers because we are addressing their language and content-learning needs. Here are some strategies for differentiating instruction in mainstream settings. Connect content to students' background knowledge. ELLs have rich personal, social, cultural, and world experiences. Take time to learn about each ELL's various interests and experiences and connect these with the subject matter being taught. For example, a science teacher finds that a unit of study on genetics comes alive by having students study organisms that are native to the areas of the globe that they are from. Provide instruction that ELLs can comprehend It's critical for ELLs to meaningfully understand the subject matter being taught. In U.S. public schools, every ELL is assessed to determine their particular stage of English-language development. Each state provides descriptions of these stages. Learn about the stages of each of the ELLs with whom you work and design instruction and activities based on these. All ELLs benefit from bilingual bicultural instruction, particularly those at the beginning stages. When this isn't available, find ways to provide meaningful translations (e.g., a peer, parent-community volunteer, Google Translate). Provide all ELLs with visual representations to introduce new concepts and vocabulary including graphs, organizers, maps, photographs, drawings, and charts. Create story maps and graphic organizers to teach ELLs how to organize information. Work toward depth, not breadth of information by eliminating all peripheral, nonessential information. Use cooperative learning strategies. We might feel compelled to use a lecture style of teaching (to be sure that we are covering the curriculum and more). However, paired and small-group learning experiences provide opportunities for students to interact and practice communicating in the subject matter they are studying and has been found to be a much more effective model of instruction than lecturing and remedy for the status issues that occur in our classrooms. ELLs and all students can benefit from participating in pair and small-group experiences when we assign them to work with peers who are likely to embrace them; model the tasks we want them to do; give them real reasons and meaningful tasks to use academic language; assign them roles (e.g., illustrator, timer, etc.) that they can understand and enact; and, when we continually observe students' interactions and make adjustments to ensure that they can and are participating actively. Identify key vocabulary and provide direct vocabulary instruction Direct and explicit vocabulary instruction of key subject-matter concepts is essential for students to understand what they are reading and learning. The credo 'less is more' is important so ELLs aren't overwhelmed. Select vocabulary that is absolutely essential. Explain the cognates, prefixes, suffixes, and root words of these. Carefully review vocabulary-concept words-phrases that have multiple meanings, such as 'the three states of 'matter'. Introduce the meanings of how it is used in a typical context and then in the context of the subject matter. Use photographs and drawings to teach the meaning of new words. Have students create visuals of the meaning of key vocabulary in the context of the subject matter used and display these on classroom walls and table mats. Provide ELLs with many opportunities to practice using key vocabulary in context. Response From Eugenia Mora-Flores . Meeting the needs of your English-language learners is challenging for both the students and the teacher. Learning language alone is difficult; that coupled with learning content throughout the school day makes learning even more challenging. Teachers work hard to find ways to make this process manageable and successful for English-learners. When working in mainstream classrooms, where the language needs of students are so diverse, the best place to start is by getting to know your students. Give them opportunities to use language throughout the day in order to assess their language development abilities and needs. Next, look for the language in your lessons. What are the academic-language demands of the lesson at hand? What language functions, forms, and vocabulary will they need to successfully learn and demonstrate learning in the lesson. Look for opportunities to bring language to life. How can we make language visible? And finally, offer multiple opportunities to practice using language with guidance and support (from you, peers, and tools). Thinking about the language demands of your discipline coupled with what you know about your students will guide your differentiation. A few things to consider when supporting a range of language-learners in the classroom: 1. Getting to know your students: Offer a range of media to learn about and from your students. a. Verbal exchanges offer opportunities to listen to your students' language (content and fluency). b. Written language opportunities (look for development of ideas, syntax, and clarity). c. Hands-on opportunities (look and listen and watch for the development of ideas and knowledge). 2. Identifying the language of your lesson. Think about the core language functions students will need to access and share what they have learned. Will they compare and contrast, provide an opinion, defend an argument? Use this to provide sentence frames (forms) to guide students' language output. a. Provide a range of possible sentence frames to accommodate the different language levels in your classroom. For example, if we are comparing and contrasting, you might provide the following variety, Or provide cue words only for more advanced language learners (similar, different from, whereas, however, contrast). b. Provide core vocabulary for the content at hand (use visuals or images as cues when possible). c. Model language and point out where in the room they can access language supports. Students don't always use the room as a tool for learning unless we make the use of the charts and posters explicit. 3. Make learning visible a. When providing directions or guidelines for learning activities or task, demonstrate with tools and explicit language. Show (not just tell) students what and how you expect them to complete the task at hand. 4. Providing opportunities to practice using language a. Offer a variety of practices opportunities, oral and written. Students need to use language as much as possible to develop it. Being intentional about language and allowing students to use language for multiple academic purposes will set the foundations for differentiation in mainstream classrooms to maximize learning for all students! Response From Melissa Jackson
I teamed up with one of our Spanish teachers, who is a native-Spanish speaker, for a professional-development workshop with teachers in our school. We began with the Spanish teacher giving them instructions in Spanish as I passed out a three-page story, written in Spanish, to each teacher. She did not use gestures, did not slow her speech, nor did she read it aloud. After a few minutes, one teacher raised his hand and asked if they could work together. We did not answer. After another few minutes, we asked the group, "What could we do to help make this more comprehensible?" A few said it was hard to understand what was said in Spanish so maybe if directions were written on the board, it would give them time to process it since some words in English and Spanish were similar or they could look it up if they had a bilingual dictionary. Someone else suggested something visual that could help them to at least have an idea of what the story was about; to see if they had any (background) knowledge about the story. There was another suggestion about highlighting the important (key) words they needed to focus on. We overheard some teachers trying to partner with others who knew some Spanish. We asked if that would help them, and they all said yes. All of these are a few things teachers of ELLs can do to differentiate instruction in order for it to be more comprehensible, AND they will help other students in the class, as well. Presenting it this way was an attempt to let teachers see what it may be like for ELLs in their classrooms. Other things that can help differentiate instruction is to use gestures, repetitive language, having a wait time for students to respond, and providing sentence frames for students to use to practice using English. CAN DO DESCRIPTORS are a great way to help teachers as well. This tool shows what each student Can Do based on their English-proficiency level in Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. This is a great tool to use for planning instruction, and each matrix has suggestions for each level. All of these things are some of the things needed for ELLs, and they will also help all students. Response From Joyce Nutta & Carine Strebel Mix partnerships often so students have access to different language models.
Use media, visuals, graphic organizers, and other learning tools to guide student learning. Differentiating Academic-Subject Instruction for English-Learners Part 1: Understanding the Classroom-Communication Gap When considering differentiated instruction for English-learners, it's important to recognize that they are not a singular group. One key distinction is an ELL student's level of English proficiency, which develops over time. After arriving in English-medium schools, ELL students move along a continuum of increasing competency in listening, speaking, reading, and writing in English until they no longer are identified as English-learners. Understanding the Student To effectively teach academic subjects to English-learners, we suggest categorizing this continuum of English-proficiency development into three levels: beginning, intermediate, and advanced. These three levels are quite different from one another, and they divide English proficiency in a way that makes differentiated instruction feasible in a mainstream classroom. Standards for English Language Development, such as WIDA (see WIDA.us), divide English proficiency into five or six levels, so we recommend that these levels be clustered, with 1-2 as beginning, 3-4 intermediate, and 5-6 advanced. According to WIDA, a student can say or write at level 1, "words, phrases, or chunks of language;" at level 3, "short and some expanded sentences with emerging complexity;" and at level 5, "multiple, complex sentences." This developing ability to express oneself in English can interfere with comprehending, and showing comprehension of, new information that the ELL has been taught alongside non-ELLs in a mainstream classroom, especially for beginning and intermediate ELLs. It's clear that beginning, intermediate, and advanced ELLs need different types and amounts of support to achieve a lesson's objectives. Those who can only express words or chunks (level 1) will have difficulty, for example, participating in a group debate about World War II, and those who express themselves in short sentences (level 3) will struggle to write a five-paragraph essay about political systems. Advanced ELLs may be able to use complex sentences, but they can be tripped up by unexpected problems such as idioms. For example, a level 5 ELL student we know missed the point of a reading passage because she thought the term "second nature" meant something unnatural and difficult since she reasoned that first nature would be natural and easy. Understanding Language Demands of Classroom Tasks In addition to English-proficiency levels, teachers should consider the language demands of their lesson. As shown in the following diagram, classroom language demands rise with grade levels. When we look at rising language demands in comparison to English-proficiency levels, which can range from beginning to advanced in any grade, a gap emerges. This is not an achievement gap but rather a communication gap caused by the divide between the ELL student's English proficiency and the language demands of the grade. The lower the ELL's proficiency level and the higher the language demands, the larger the gap between the student's current level and the language used and expected in the classroom. A beginning kindergartner has a smaller gap than a beginning 4

Most teachers are not fully aware of how the language they use, and the language they expect their students to use, can be a barrier for ELLs. To help them see where English -earners may need support, we developed an acronym, TREAD, that reminds them that anytime the teacher or students are Telling, Reading, Explaining, Asking/Answering, or Discussing, they are placing language demands on their ELLs. Whenever there is TREAD in a lesson or activity, ELLs may need support. The amount and type of support differs by the extent of the gap between their current proficiency level and the language demands of the lesson or activity (TREAD). In Part 2 of this article, we will share tools and techniques for providing this needed support. Differentiating Academic-Subject Instruction for English-Learners Part 2: Providing Communication Support n Part 1 of this article, we discussed the communication gap that occurs between English-learners' level of English proficiency and the language demands of classroom tasks (e.g., listening to the presentation of new information, participating in a small-group discussion, solving a word problem, etc.). Phase I of our Instructional Differentiation Decision Map, presented below, helps determine the size of the gap. The Task icon in Phase I depicts this first step in planning differentiated instruction for ELLs-analyzing the language demands, or TREAD, of a classroom task. The adjacent Student icon illustrates three levels of proficiency we suggest academic-subject teachers should differentiate for. Whenever the language demands of a learning task exceed the English proficiency of an ELL, teachers should provide communication support to narrow the gap (Phase II). Phase II helps teachers determine which supports are most helpful for each student (Step 1), and how (Step 2), when, and by whom (Step 3) they should be used or led.
Phase II: Narrowing the Gap Between the Task and Student As seen in Step 1, we categorize communication support for academic-subject instruction as mainly verbal (through language, such as a glossary) or mainly nonverbal (through means other than language, such as graphics). There are many different verbal and nonverbal tools and techniques that teachers use to provide support for ELLs. An example of a nonverbal tool is the use of physical objects, such as a mechanical model of the solar system, which shows the elements of the system as well as how they move in relation to one another. If this information were presented primarily by description (and perhaps a photo), English-learners would have to depend more on language to acquire the content knowledge. By using a model and naming and indicating its parts and movements, teachers not only help ELLs learn the content but also the associated academic language. Nonverbal support for ELLs is generally helpful for non-ELLs, too, and can be used for the entire class. The other type of support, verbal support, is much more dependent on the ELL's Englishproficiency level. We group instructional tools and techniques for verbal support into those that moderate language demands according to the student's English-proficiency level, such as providing a shortened, simplified reading passage, and those that temporarily elevate the ELL student's language competence, such as word banks and sentence patterns for ELLs to use while speaking or writing. For a social studies reading and writing assignment, for example, an ELL at the beginning level would need the shortest, most simple reading passage, as well as sentences to complete with only one or two missing words, until her English proficiency rises. An intermediate ELL could read more complex text and write more complex sentences, supplying more of the language himself. Our website lists 10 communication-support tools and techniques that we think all teachers of ELLs should use and includes online resources for each. These tools and techniques can be used in combination to provide maximum support where necessary. Once teachers choose their go-to tools and techniques for supporting English-learners' comprehension and expression of academic subjects, they can plan to implement them by following Steps 2 and 3 of the Instructional Differentiation Decision Map. In Step 2, teachers determine whether extra support for their ELLs can be provided as part of support for all students, such as the solar system example. This planning step also considers whether the support can be a supplement that allows ELLs to do what other students are doing, as with a glossary to accompany a grade-level reading passage for an advanced ELL, or if the gap is so wide that the ELLs should work together by proficiency level, using an app that presents information graphically and with carefully selected language, for example. Step 3 examines when support can be provided and who can provide it. For example, the nonverbal support of graphic organizers can be provided prior to a lesson, illustrating key vocabulary and points the ELL should focus on. Other times, support is best provided during the lesson (e.g., ready-made sentence frames for discussion activities) or after the lesson (e.g., ELLs draw concept maps to confirm comprehension). The timing also pertains to resources and collaborators available to classroom teachers, such as bilingual aides and technology-directed activities. A teacher can only be in one place at one time, but if she has collaborators, they can work individually with ELLs during whole-class and small-group instruction. Schools follow different instructional and staffing models, so teachers should plan support for ELLs that is feasible and appropriate, given their school and classroom affordances. Using our Instructional Differentiation Decision Map reminds teachers of important considerations when planning differentiated instruction for ELLs.

grader, but an intermediate 10 grader has a larger gap than a beginning kindergartner.
Just a reminder-you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email or RSS Reader. And if you missed any of the highlights from the first seven years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below. The list doesn't include ones from this current year, but you can find those by clicking on the "answers" category found in the sidebar. Look for the next question-of-the-week in a few days. ...and...both.
...and...are similar...
Where...can/has..., ....differs by...
Eugenia Mora-Flores is a professor in the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California. She teaches courses on first- and second-language acquisition, Latino culture, and in literacy development for elementary and secondary students. Her research interests include studies on effective practices in developing the language and literacy skills of English-learners in grades P-12. She has written nine books in the area of literacy and academic-language development (ALD) for English-learners.Eugenia further works as a consultant for a variety of elementary, middle, and high schools across the country in the areas of English-language development (ELD), ALD, and writing instruction:

Melissa Jackson is an ESL teacher at Southeast Middle School in Kernersville, N.C., grades 6-8. Her husband is a high school assistant principal, and they have two high school teenagers. She loves film, voiceovers, and hanging out with her family:

Joyce Nutta is a professor of English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) education at the University of Central Florida. She works with universities and school districts to integrate English-learner issues into teacher preparation and professional learning.

Carine Strebel is an assistant professor and ESOL coordinator at Stetson University. She teaches ESOL-focused courses, conducts training on instructing English-learners for her colleagues, and provides in-service professional development for school districts in the central Florida area.

Check out their book, Show, Tell, Build: Twenty Key Instructional Tools and Techniques for Educating English Learners:

Thanks to Judie, Debbie, Eugenia, Melissa, Joyce, and Carine for their contributions.

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It's titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching.

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Response: 'The Best Place to Start' When Teaching ELLs 'Is by Getting to Know Your Students' (Opinion)

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Judie Haynes, Debbie Zacarian, Eugenia Mora-Flores, Melissa Jackson, Joyce Nutta, and Carine Strebel contribute their ideas on differentiated instruction for English Language Learners.

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The new question-of-the-week is: How can you best differentiate instruction for English-language learners in a "mainstream" classroom?
Part One's responses came from Valentina Gonzalez, Jenny Vo, Tonya Ward Singer, Carol Ann Tomlinson, and Nélida Rubio. You can listen to a 10-minute conversation I had with Valentina, Jenny, and Tonya on my BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

Today, Sandra C. Figueroa, Becky Corr, Sydney Snyder, Adria Klein, Michael D. Toth, and Barbara Gottschalk share their suggestions.
Response From Sandra C. Figueroa
Sandra C. Figueroa, who has devoted her life to increasing opportunities and literacy achievement for underserved students, has served as a teacher, mentor teacher and leader, elementary principal, K-12 director of curriculum, and English-language specialist:
The first step in differentiating instruction for an English-learner in a mainstream classroom is establishing a welcoming and safe classroom space, followed by working on building strong bonds, establishing mutual respect, and, finally, sharing a joy for learning. Here are the seven ways I establish an inclusive classroom environment that differentiates learning for all learners:

1. Establish effective and efficient transitions. I value every teaching second because every second counts. By using movement, music, reading aloud, chimes, and movement between activities such as brain-breaks, word study, and word sorts, there is no wasted or down learning time between activities.

English-learners enrich my mainstream classrooms. I differentiate for my English-learners by ensuring that we have a space where all students are responsible for their learning and value each other's strengths, languages, and differences.
Response From Becky Corr
Becky Corr is the president of EdSpark Consulting, which is dedicated to igniting partnerships for diverse learners through professional development, technical writing, and systems analysis. In her role as an English-language-development team lead in the Douglas County school district in Colorado, she coaches, mentors, and supports teachers, and facilitates family-engagement opportunities:
English-learners arrive in our classrooms carrying with them a wealth of knowledge, talents, and strengths. Approaching differentiation from that perspective reframes the conversation and allows teachers to consider what students can do. Therefore, teachers are better equipped to plan differentiated instruction and assessments. Typically, English-learners spend most of their day with "mainstream" teachers. The graphic below shows that much of an ELL's language learning will occur in the mainstream classroom. Therefore, it is very helpful for mainstream teachers to collaborate with ESL/ ELD teachers.

Begin by reaching out to the ESL teacher(s) and asking about students' backgrounds, interests, abilities, learning preferences, and language levels. Building profiles of what students are able to do will help teachers to build on what students can do. Ask parents and students to participate by completing a graphic organizer designed to elicit background information, strengths, and goals. Visit my blog for ready-to-use templates and examples. Create language objectives Emerging (Level 1) students will discuss math vocabulary of area and circumference using sentence stems and a word bank. Developing (Level 3) students will discuss math vocabulary of area and circumference using sentence stems.
Bridging (Level 5) students will discuss math vocabulary of area and circumference using complex sentence stems.
As you can see, the content is the same in every language objective. However, the supports are aligned to what students are able to do at their current language proficiency. This allows teachers to maintain rigorous expectations while providing supports and affirming student abilities.
Make learning comprehensible. Another way to make content comprehensible is by using gestures. Both elementary and secondary students benefit from teachers using gestures and from using gestures among peers. Whether pointing to important words, demonstrating actions, or showing relationships among words and ideas, gestures are easily and quickly incorporated into everyday instruction. Collaborating with the ESL/ ELD teacher as well as other colleagues, parents, and students allows teachers to build a profile of what a student is able to do, in order to build in supports for students at all levels of English proficiency. Being intentional about academic language, through the use of language objectives, supports and extends student understanding of content knowledge. When used in conjunction with strategies for making content understandable for students through the use of visuals, graphic organizers, and gestures, students are honored, supported, and are provided with equitable access to rigorous content.

Response From Sydney Snyder Use multiple ways of making the content understandable for students. One way to make content comprehensible is by making learning more visual. Utilizing pictures and graphics helps students contextualize information. Using Google Images to search and find photos can help for beginning and advanced students alike (be sure that safe-search mode is on). Adding graphs and charts that represent information in multiple ways helps students to make meaning of abstract concepts. Anchor charts and posters provide students with scaffolds and reminders as they practice new skills and learn new concepts. Graphic organizers provide ways for students to organize their thoughts and demonstrate their learning. They can be used for everything from defining a new concept to planning an essay. One of the most effective ways to differentiate instruction for English-language learners in a content classroom is to use scaffolded instruction and materials. Scaffolding is temporary support that enables students to complete a task that they would be unable to successfully complete independently (Gibbons, 2015). Scaffolding can include the materials you provide students, how you introduce and teach content, and how you group students (Staehr Fenner & Snyder, 2017). If you have a solid understanding of your ELLs' strengths and needs as well as the linguistic challenges that they may face with an academic task, lesson, or unit, you can provide the appropriate scaffold and foster language development. I offer three suggestions for scaffolding instruction for ELLs, while teaching the rest of your students, that can provide opportunities to differentiate what is being taught, how it is taught, and how students demonstrate their learning.

1. Differentiate through small-group work: Pair or small-group work offers an excellent opportunity for differentiation. You could group students with common home languages so that they can engage with a task and check understanding in their home language first. You could also provide small groups with supporting resources, depending on their language-proficiency level, such as a modified text that facilitates students in deconstructing complex sentences and learning unfamiliar vocabulary. Small groups can also be an opportunity for students to gain essential background knowledge on a topic that your non-ELLs might already be familiar with or to provide focused instruction on an independent word -earning skill such as understanding the meaning of a word with multiple meanings in a text.

Determining and developing appropriate scaffolds for each academic task can feel daunting. I encourage you to start small and begin by scaffolding one academic task. See how your ELLs respond to those scaffolds. Over time, you will learn which scaffolds are most beneficial to your students. It's exciting to see the progress that your ELLs can make when they are provided with engaging, language-appropriate tasks and supports. Response From Adria Klein .We are all developing language in addition to building content knowledge as we learn about language through conversation, wide reading, writing in response to reading, and expanding our vocabularies. So let's start by acknowledging that differentiated instruction is the expectation of Response to Intervention in any Tier 1 classroom setting. We mostly talk about interventions in Tier 2 and Tier 3 settings, but the basic expectation is that every teacher is providing Tier 1, differentiated scaffolding for all learners in a "mainstream" classroom, including English-language learners (Klein et al., 2017). The first thing to consider in addressing the needs of English-language learners is how conversation is being fostered in the various learning environments within a classroom, whether in whole group, small group, partner collaboration, and through conferring. We can think about how we group English-language learners to differentiate, not by levels of language development, but by interests, creating opportunities for them to talk with different students at various times throughout the day. Perhaps during reading, students have several partners to choose among as they work together. In writing, there are other groupings, and those group partners might differ in yet other ways during math. This is not about ability grouping, nor being at the same language level based on an assessment; it is about developing language through conversation. For example, we need to consider putting quiet students together as partners, rather than a more talkative student with a quiet student. I call these "talk-alike groupings," and this strategy is most helpful to support English-language learners (Nemecek et al., 2014).
A second differentiation opportunity is to incorporate shared reading in small groups in the classroom. While commonly used at the whole-group level, shared reading is a great scaffold in small groups (Avalos, et al., 2007). English-language learners need to get language to the ear by listening, to the mouth by speaking, to the eye by reading, and to the hand by writing (Clay, 2004. P. 5).
Third, we can consider multiple options for partners to write together. Most classroom practices for differentiating are connected to reading or pair/share-type response options. Having students write together is a way for them to work on a writing response task using a shared pen. Surprisingly, it is one of the easiest ways to support English-language learners in the mainstream classroom, but it is not used often. This strategy works across the content areas for quick response writing, and it may include the use of dictation, alternating sentences, and even take the form of a write/pair/share, which is one of the strongest ways to provide language practice time before any whole-group response activity. Don't worry too much about the "rules" of writing together; kids are resilient and can work this out as they collaborate. Above all, supporting English-language learners in a mainstream classroom requires seeing all students as both literacy and language learners, even in the earliest grades (Klein, et al., 2017). References Avalos, M.A., Plasencia, A., Chavez, C., and Rascon, J. (2007) Modified Guided Reading: Gateway to English as a Second Language and Literacy Learning. The Reading Teacher. 61(4) p. 318-329. Clay, M. M. (2004). Talking, reading and writing. Journal of Reading Recovery, 3(2), 1-15.
Klein, A., Zuniga, J., Briceno, A., Torres Elias, A. (September/October, 2017). Literacy and Language Learning as Partners in the Classroom. Principal. NAESP. Nemecek, D., Klein, A.F., Briceno, A., and Wray, S. (2014). Students Are Talking ... Now What? ASCD Express, Vol. 10, No. 5. Response From Michael D. Toth www.ascd.org/ascdexpress ELL Students in Team-Centered Classrooms English-language learners can thrive in inclusion or mainstream classrooms, as long as an effective instructional model is in place. Team-centered classrooms benefit ELL students' speaking skills while giving them a personalized, rigorous experience, even in large mainstream classrooms. Close Monitoring and Support by Students and Teachers . In a team-centered classroom, students are expected to monitor the team tasks and verify the team's accomplishment of a learning target. The team members and teacher ensure that all students in the team can demonstrate evidence of their learning. If an ELL student needs extra support, that need will become more visible in a team-centered classroom than it would in a traditional, teacher-centered classroom, where it's much harder to know what students are thinking. Through observing students discussing, questioning, and debating within their teams, teachers can decide what kind of extra support ELL students need. Engaging Peer Support in Academic Teams Students are often capable of providing support to each other. Students can be amazingly perceptive, and when given the chance, we have seen them step up to coach their peers. One example comes from a 3rd grade inclusion classroom we observed. A student with disabilities felt he couldn't keep up with the pace and became upset; the team encouraged their frustrated team member to write down only page numbers for the evidence they were citing together, rather than the full quotes. They came up with this solution entirely on their own, the teacher approved, and this adjustment to the task allowed the team to reach their learning target while still keeping the task rigorous. Besides practicing their problem-solving and critical thinking, these students were also practicing crucial social-emotional skills in an authentic situation. As a last resort, the teacher can step in to remediate students, correcting misconceptions or providing different learning strategies (the teacher will have more time for this kind of individualized support in a team-centered classroom than in a traditional classroom, due to less time spent on direct instruction). ELL Teaming Success in the Des Moines Public Schools District Des Moines public schools shifted toward team-centered instruction and saw promising outcomes with their ELL students. 2017-2018 math and reading assessment scores indicated that ELL students in Des Moines public schools where teaming was implemented outperformed ELL students in Des Moines public schools where teaming was not implemented. In addition to the impact on student academic achievement for ELL students, our LSI Applied Research Center has also observed evidences which show positive student-behavior changes and increased social-emotional-learning competencies correlated to academic teaming. Team-centered instruction has enormous potential to reach English-language learners in mainstream classrooms without having to separate them or offer them less rigorous tasks than their peers. Response From Barbara Gottschalk Multilingual and monolingual students benefit from focusing on academic language. Identify the language demands of the lesson and think about the supports available to help students meet those expectations. Here are examples of language objectives for students studying the area and circumference of shapes: "What should he do?" asked a student as I was walking by her desk during morning-bell work. She gestured toward the new student from Albania seated next to her. His first day in our class was already worrying her. "Tell him to copy, copy," I replied, knowing both students spoke Albanian. I pointed to the board and to the new student's paper, gave him an encouraging smile, and continued checking in with other students. This exchange was from a video of me teaching a self-contained class of 4th and 5th grade newcomers over 10 years ago. I recently retired and have been going through old computer files, deleting what I'll never need and wasting time watching old videos in the process. I discovered it's not a complete waste of time, though. I'd completely forgotten this incident, but watching the video reminded me of how I was differentiating instruction on the fly for a new ELL. Mainstream teachers might wonder why I needed to differentiate in the first place since all the students in this class were ELLs. Still, even with everyone relatively new to the United States, I found myself adjusting instruction for the really new students who needed something different. This is true for all teachers, no matter who or what we teach. We often forget one important thing about differentiation. Even though ELLs need instruction that's different, they don't want to feel different. When I told the new student to "copy, copy" the sentences other students were copying and editing, I was matter-of-factly giving him a task he could do without calling him out. I intended to collect all the students' papers, including his, to check completion. I was following the advice I often give mainstream teachers-find out what your ELLs can do and then hold them accountable for doing it. The students in my newcomer class often spent several weeks in general education classrooms before being transferred to our district's newcomer center. After their English improved enough to describe the experience, they sometimes told me how bored and "different" they had felt in their general education classrooms. For example, their well-meaning teachers would park them in front of a computer for much of the day. There are many good websites for ELLs, but asking an ELL to work on them while the rest of the class is doing something else doesn't meet the "don't single out an ELL" test. Having an ELL do computer work when other students are doing so too is differentiating without making anybody feel different. My video also reminded me I had seated the new student next to another student who spoke his language. I was also asking that more capable student to use her native language to orient her new classmate. That's differentiating. In contrast, some ELLs have told me they were assigned seats next to students who spoke their language, ostensibly to provide help, but then were chastised for asking their seat partners about the lesson. In this case, teachers were differentiating, but then calling out the ELL as different. I deleted the video by the way-no need for it now since it was made for a graduate class completed long ago. Ironically it ended up being just as useful to me years later for pointing out the differentiation I was inadvertently doing. I'd recommend teachers be more mindful about this than I was, but if you can differentiate your instruction without making your ELLs feel different, you'll be doing it in the best possible way!
Sydney Snyder co-authored Unlocking English Learners' Potential: Strategies for Making Content Accessible (Corwin, 2017). Chapter 3 explores the topic of scaffolding instruction for ELLs in greater depth. Snyder is also a principal associate at SupportEd, LLC, a woman-owned small business based in the the Washington, D.C., area that supports ELLs' and their families' educational equity by providing professional development and technical assistance to schools and districts. Sydney has more than 20 years of experience in the field of ESOL and EFL(English As A Foreign Language). In her current position, she provides professional development to teachers on such topics as culturally responsive instruction, effective strategies for teaching ELLs and students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE), teacher collaboration, and teacher leadership:

Adria Klein, Ph.D. is the center director and trainer for early-intervention programs at Saint Mary's College of California and the author of Scholastic Edge™ - a program designed to address the needs of striving readers. She is also a professor emerita of reading education at California State University, San Bernardino, where she was the chairwoman of the Department of Elementary and Bilingual Education; she has served as president of the California Reading Association and on the ILA (International Literacy Association) Board. Dr. Klein has written a number of professional books and articles as well as children's books:

Michael D. Toth is the author of the award-winning book, Who Moved My Standards, the co-author with David Sousa of Improving Social, Emotional, and Cognitive Learning Through Academic Teaming (forthcoming, 2019), and the co-author with Dr. Robert J. Marzano of The Essentials of a Standards-Based Classroom, School Leadership for Results, and Teacher Evaluation That Makes a Difference. Toth founded Learning Sciences International, where he serves as the CEO and leads LSI's Applied Research Center. Toth addresses teachers, school leaders, and superintendents at national conferences, policy forums, and workshops, including past addresses to the U.S. Department of Education and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation:
Just a reminder-you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email or RSS Reader. And if you missed any of the highlights from the first seven years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below. The list doesn't include ones from this current year, but you can find those by clicking on the "answers" category found in the sidebar. Look for Part Three in a few days.
Differentiated instruction is more focused on what the teacher does. What we have found is that student teams actually personalize instruction for each team member through team structures, as illustrated in Improving Social, Emotional, and Cognitive Learning Through Academic Teaming(Sousa & Toth, in press).

Barbara Gottschalk is a recently retired English-language-acquisition teacher from Warren Consolidated Schools in suburban Detroit. She taught ELLs in middle and elementary school magnet programs and was a school-based elementary ELL teacher. Her book, Get Money for Your Classroom: Easy Grant Writing Ideas That Work, was published by Routledge in 2017:

Thanks to Sandra, Becky, Sydney, Adrea, Michael, and Barbara for their contributions.

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It's titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching.

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Response: Differentiate for ELLs by 'Establishing a Welcoming and Safe Classroom' (Opinion)

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Sandra C. Figueroa, Becky Corr, Sydney Snyder, Adria Klein, Michael D. Toth, and Barbara Gottschalk share their suggestions on differentiating instruction for ELLs.

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The new question-of-the-week is: How can you best differentiate instruction for English-language learners in a "mainstream" classroom?
There are millions of English-language Learnes in U.S. schools, and many - if not most - of them are in mainstream classes with students who are much more proficient in English. Given that situation, how can teachers best differentiate instruction for ELLs in their classrooms?

This three-part series will explore that important question.

Today, responses will come from Valentina Gonzalez, Jenny Vo, Tonya Ward Singer, Carol Ann Tomlinson, and Nélida Rubio. You can listen to a 10-minute conversation I had with Valentina, Jenny, and Tonya on my BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

I've been teaching English-language learners for 17 years. Here are sources of advice I recommend:

Of course, you'll also want to explore previous posts that have appeared in this column about Teaching English-Language Learnersand on Differentiating Instruction.
Response From Valentina Gonzalez
Valentina Gonzalez is currently a professional-development specialist for ELLs in Texas. She works with teachers of English-learners to support language and literacy instruction. In addition to presenting, she writes a monthly blog for MiddleWeb focused on supporting ELLs. She can be reached through her website, elementaryenglishlanguagelearners.weebly.com, or on Twitter @ValentinaESL:
There is a misconception that differentiating for English-learners means that we take the summative assessment (which could be a project, worksheet, or test) and accommodate it by adding visuals, eliminating choices, allowing the use of translation devices, etc. In classrooms across the country, mainstream teachers have either been turning in these assignments to their ESL colleagues in hopes that they will make the work easier for ELLs to access or they've been accommodating them on their own. Accommodating a summative assessment is only one piece of the puzzle, and if we wait until it's time to work independently to accommodate, then we are too late. The best ways for mainstream teachers to differentiate instruction for English-learners is BEFORE the independent work is required. Differentiating for ELLs means accommodating three categories of our teaching: verbal, procedural, and instructional. Verbal Differentiation This is about the way we present information. It can take many forms. Simply slowing down our speech can support ELLs as they listen, process, and translate the input. Rephrasing and clarifying ensures that students have full comprehension. Sometimes the gestures and total physical response we incorporate into our verbal instruction can maximize student comprehension, too. The use of visuals is huge with English-learners but supports all students as well. All of these techniques require little planning but do require intentional thought. Let me give you an example. If I am conducting a read aloud, I will might preteach some key vocabulary to a small group of my English-learners who are at the beginning stage of language proficiency and possibly a few students who struggle with vocabulary. If I'm lucky enough to have a co-teacher, the co-teacher may gather this group and also introduce the book to the students. While reading the book to the class, I will ensure that I make my reading and thinking visible to the students. I will enlarge the text under a document camera, so students can see what I'm reading. If there are pictures, I will show them and provide opportunities to talk about the visual and the text. Students will turn and talk about the text. Procedural Differentiation The way we group our instruction makes a difference, too. From whole group to small group to individual. This type of differentiation supports students with the gradual release of responsibility. Our goal is for students to do things we are teaching them with ease and automaticity. Differentiating the way we instruct the groups of our students supports their independence. By beginning with whole group and keeping that a short mini-lesson, we can show students how to do "the thing." We model. Model explicitly. Be as explicit as possible. This is how it's done. In reading and writing workshop, this is the mini-lesson ,and it is usually about 10 minutes of the lesson. Next is group work or WE do. Working with a group is moving toward independence but still with support. In a balanced literacy classroom, this can be seen during guided reading, small groups, shared reading, and shared writing. Working in small groups allows for a lower teacher-student ratio. This type of setting is highly effective because it lowers the affective filter and gives students more opportunities to participate and interact with peers as well as with the teacher. And finally, students move toward independence with YOU do when they work alone to apply what they have learned with their teacher and peers during the I do and WE do phases. During reading and writing workshop, this can be seen while students are reading and writing on their own. Instructional Differentiation Using graphic organizers can be extremely powerful if students are explicitly taught how and when to use these tools on their own. There are many types: story maps, Venn Diagrams, T-Charts, tree maps, word webs, semantic maps, etc. If students understand the power of using graphic organizers for reading and writing, then they can pull these tools out at any time to enhance their comprehension and structure their own learning. Instructional differentiation also includes the use of exemplars and touchstone texts that match students. Students need to see attainable goals so they are able to meet our expectations. Giving each student the same example or goal to reach does not allow for differentiation. Not all students are ready for the same goal. Students are all on their own path in their learning journey. Providing each student with an attainable target seems difficult, but it's really not that challenging. What I do is save student samples and use them as targets, exemplars, or touchstone texts depending on the content area. Keep a constant pulse on your language learners. Where are they in language and content development, what do they need next, what supports do they no longer need? Learning content and language simultaneously seems challenging, but it can be achieved with proper planning, engagement and ongoing teacher support. Response From Jenny Vo
Jenny Vo earned her B.A. in English from Rice University and her M.Ed. in educational leadership from Lamar University. She has been teaching for 22 years and is currently an ESL ISST(Instructional Support Specialty Teacher) in Katy ISD in Katy, Texas:
An English-language learner's lack of English proficiency does not mean that they cannot learn the same content as the native English-speaking peers. However, we cannot expect them to learn the same content in the same way. There should be some differentiation in your instructional strategy and in your materials. Being an English-language learner does not mean you are deficient in learning. Lack of language does not equal lack of intelligence. With linguistic support, ELLs can learn and master the same content in the mainstream classroom as their native-English-speaking peers. Provide them with the differentiation and support they need, and you will see what they can accomplish. Response From Tonya Ward Singer
Tonya Ward Singer is a keynote speaker and author who consults internationally to help K-12 educators transform teaching for equity and ELL achievement. Tonya's best-selling book, EL Excellence Every Day: The Flip-To Guide for Differentiating Academic Literacy (Corwin, 2018), is the go-to resource to help teachers ensure English-learners, and all students, thrive with rigorous literacy. Her first bestseller, Opening Doors to Equity (Corwin, 2014), was recognized by the U.S. Department of Education via Teach to Lead's Leadership Lab and featured in a spotlight by the Gates Foundation:
Effective differentiation for English-language learners (ELLs) begins with two essential teacher mindsets: 1. That we value our ELLs' assets; and 2. That we expect excellence from every ELL. Yes, we can teach at a high level, we can actively engage students, and we can use awesome strategies. But none of these efforts will raise ELL achievement if we don't have these two mindsets in place. Value ELL Assets Valuing ELL assets begins with the recognition that multilingualism is an asset, not a liability. Differences in background (language, culture, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic level, and/or life experiences) than the teacher or a school's majority population are just that: differences. Seek to understand the unique assets of each ELL you serve. ELLs are an incredibly diverse group of students so they cannot nor should not be summed up as a single group with a single set of needs. In addition to their widely diverse interests, strengths, life experiences, and prior schooling, ELLs come to learning with a range of proficiency levels in English and other language(s). Essential reflection questions:

What strengths in language and learning do students bring? How am I connecting my teaching to students' background knowledge, home language(s), and experiences?

Does every student feel a sense of belonging and connection in my classroom community of scholars? How do I cultivate a strong sense of belonging for each ELL in my "mainstream" class?

Expect Excellence from Every ELL Teacher expectations can make or break student learning. (Gerson, Holt & Papageorge, 2015, Carrasqulillo & Rodgriguez, 2002, Darling-Hammond & Schon, 1996). We know this, yet we get stuck. I, too, was stuck back in my early years in the classroom. When my students struggled, I found myself protecting them from that struggle-even with high expectations right from the start. Modifications I made to my lessons, at a superficial level, might have looked like differentiation, but they weren't. To be honest, I was "watering down": I simplified my language and I lowered my expectations. The result? Over time, this kind of approach leads to long-term ELLs, students who have been in U.S. schools for more than six years and are still designated ELLs. There is a better way . . . Differentiate with Strategic Supports With the two above mindsets in place, we differentiate for ELLs in the very same way we differentiate for all students in a mainstream classroom. We engage in ongoing inquiry about our impact ruled by the following reflections:

1. EXPECT: What are my goals for student learning? What aspects of language must students understand and use to excel with these goals?

2. ENGAGE AND OBSERVE: What can students now understand and do in relation to these goals? What language choices do students make and what do these choices reveal about their assets and next-level goals for language learning?

3. SUPPORT: What instruction and supports will I provide to help students build from current understandings and language use to succeed with the goals?

4. REFLECT: How did my instruction impact student learning? How will I adapt my approach to ensure every learner thrives?

In short, there is no magic-wand approach to differentiating our ELLs' instruction in mainstream classrooms. First, we must shift from shopping for nouns ("ELL strategies" or silver-bullet solutions) to owning the verbs (Value, Expect, Engage, Observe, Support and Reflect) that are essential to impactful and culturally relevant teaching. Only then will our school ignite teachers' agency and efficacy to teach for ELL excellence in every classroom, every day. Response From Carol Ann Tomlinson
Carol Ann Tomlinson's recent book with ASCD is Differentiation and the Brain: How Neuroscience Supports the Learner-Friendly Classroom, 2nd Edition (ASCD 2018); she has also authored Leading and Managing a Differentiated Classroom (2010) with Marcia B. Imbeau. Carol's career as an educator includes 21 years as a public school teacher and 12 years as a program administrator of special services for struggling and advanced learners. She was Virginia's teacher of the year in 1974. More recently, she has been a faculty member at the University of Virginia Curry School of Education, where she is currently William Clay Parrish Jr. Professor and Chair of Educational Leadership, Foundations, and Policy:
Many teachers feel a bit lost as they think about how best to differentiate instruction for students who are not yet fluent in English. It's important to remember that those students often feel powerfully lost as well. There are many straightforward ways to make the classroom more successful for students who are trying to learn both content and the language of the classroom simultaneously. Here are five ideas to consider: 1. Do whatever you can to be welcoming as the students come to your class. A smile and a warm greeting can go a long way in reassuring a student that they matter. Invest in guiding all students in your class to be supportive of one another and make time in the early days of school for students to get acquainted and to begin working together whenever possible. Working with peers can provide rich opportunities to use English while also lessening a sense of aloneness in the classroom. 2. Get to know your students. Surveys, checklists, notes to you, peer interviews that can be shared with the class, posting photos, and many other strategies can jump-start the process of learning about students while they signal your interest and begin to build a sense of community or team in the classroom. 3. Use formative assessments to understand where students are in relation to key content-but be sure ELLs can read and respond to the assessments so that their responses provide you with accurate information. That may sometimes mean you've had someone translate the assessment into the student's language, or that the student can answer the questions orally in his/her own language with another student or ELL support teacher or parent volunteer translating the answers into English for you. Sometimes students can draw what they know better than they can write it. The goal is for you to know what the student actually knows rather than planning from misinformation. 4. Think about your curriculum as a highway that all of your students will travel but also plan in regular "exit ramps" that allow students at key points to work on their own needs for a time. Those exit ramps are key to differentiation. They enable students to work on needs in reading, vocabulary, writing-whatever will best facilitate their growth in the content of your class. 5. Strategies like learning contracts, learning centers, and personalized homework support you in providing students with work tailored to their needs. Think-Pair-Shares feel less risky than answering in front of the whole class, and they also model oral English. Websites and apps that provide reading material at varied reading levels, podcasts, or materials designed to help ELLs with language growth are helpful as well. There are many such sources. A few interesting ones are Newsela, Learning A-Z, Vocabulary Spelling City, STORYWORLD, and Fluent U. The Smithsonian's news site offers Teen Tribune, Tween Tribune, TT Junior, and TT Espanol. At each level, the site provides articles on a variety of contemporary topics at multiple reading levels. It's also helpful to scaffold the work of ELLs (and other students ) with lists of key vocabulary, digests of content, options to work with partners, examples and visuals, graphic organizers, and other supports that facilitate student support. As often as you can, check in with the students one on one to see how they are feeling about their work. Ask for their suggestions about what is most helpful to them in learning and follow up accordingly. Help them track their progress. Let them know you want to be part of their success. It's nearly always the case that strong teacher-student connections lead to greater student growth. Response From Nélida Rubio
Nélida Rubio is a teacher at Rockwood Elementary School in the Calexico Unified school district in Calexico, Calif. She has been teaching English-language learners for 22 years. She is a member of the Instructional Leadership Corps, a collaboration among the California Teachers Association, the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education, and the National Board Resource Center at Stanford:
Any teacher can read books, attend trainings and conferences, participate in specialized programs for ELLs, and/or even have the background of being an ELL themselves, yet differentiating instruction for an ELL in a mainstream class does not have a one-size-fits-all solution. There are many very efficient strategies including trends like providing sentence frames or word walls for ELLs, but none serves all ELLs. A sentence frame is of no use when a student does not understand the words around the blank they need to fill. Word walls are great for those who know their meaning and use, but not for those who do not understand their context. And then there is the common belief that translating for a child or providing cognates will help the ELL, not when the content is brand-new and there is nothing the child can make connections to. Differentiating for an ELL is much more complex than knowing and applying strategies. Each individual learner has different language experiences acquired either at home and/or school, their attitudes toward the new language differ, and their languages have unique structures. There is nothing more effective when differentiating instruction than truly knowing the learner's background and language abilities in order to encourage language development. A teacher needs to research the individual's cultural origin by interviewing the child, their parents, or colleagues who might also know about the learner's background. Educators must take the time to focus on what the student can understand and produce, instead of limiting their own view with what the pupil cannot do. I recommend class projects or activities that promote sharing students' background sin a way that uncovers information crucial for the teacher. For example, students can create an All About Me Poster in which a student may include visuals that tell about their favorite activities, pictures and/or facts about their family history, lists of what makes them unique, goals they want to achieve, and other information a teacher might want to know about. Learning about the student's interests will help teachers encourage language development through the use of high-interest content. Moreover, a family night is ideal to make connections with families. Parents and students can be given a questionnaire with questions such as how long a student has been in school, how well they have performed academically, how they feel about learning a new language, and questions to find out their concerns about home-school connections. If technology is available, families can record a clip or what I call a selfie video in which families answer the questions. By participating in such activities, the learner acquires a sense of belonging, thereby motivating a positive attitude toward language development. In addition, gathering as much information as possible about their students' literacy background and native language is essential when planning for differentiation. Researching the similarities and differences between the native language and English language will help target instruction. For example, if the language structures in their native language are close to English structures, transfer of skills will make language development easier, especially if the child has a strong literacy background. Knowing students' level of English allows teachers to scaffold content through the use of level-appropriate questions. It is quite impossible for a level 1 student to explain their reasoning with a verbal complex response, but they will most definitely be able to identify a response with a visual or by answering a yes/no question. Teachers must be committed to getting to know their ELLs and adjust their curriculum to enhance each learner's language. Adjusting the use of effective ELL strategies and/or using simple questioning techniques that require responses at the learner's ability level will not take away from the content. Most importantly, when ELLs feel that their teacher knows them, their affective filter is lowered, and language becomes accessible.
Thanks to Valentina, Jenny, Tonya, Carol, and Nélida for their contributions.

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How can you best differentiate instruction fo an English Language Learners in a "mainstream" classroom?

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Response: Ways to Differentiate Instruction for ELLs (Opinion)

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Valentina Gonzalez, Jenny Vo, Tonya Ward Singer, Carol Ann Tomlinson, and Nélida Rubio discuss ways to differentiate instruction for English Language Learners.

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‘Science of Reading’ and English-Learner Advocates Reach Common Ground

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Two groups have aimed to find consensus in one contested area of the reading wars.