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English Language Proficiency Standards - these are important to include in the language objectives when lesson planning and for determining which language domains are begin addressed with the lesson.

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Proficiency Level Descriptors - these are important to refer to when monitoring the progress of the English learners. They also serve as reminders of what students can do at each level of proficiency within each domain of language.

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This is a link to MANY online programs, sites, and subjects just for teachers, administrators, and parents to use for bilingual, emerging second language, or any student in that realm. These resources cover lessons, paper documents, online programs, and testing for all of the needs for ESL/Bilingual programs related to such.

(I don’t know why there’s a mans face, I tried fixing it but it didn’t change anything)

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Learn how to navigate the college environment as a bilingual or ELL student. Use our guide to help develop skills and find resources to succeed.

Haga clic aquí para leer esta página en español
The number of English language learners (ELLs) in U.S. public schools has increased in recent years. In 2017, 10.1% of K-12 public school students were ELLs. Among these 5 million ELLs, 3.7 million spoke Spanish at home. Other popular home languages included Arabic, Chinese, and Vietnamese.

Giving ELLs the tools and resources needed to become proficient with the English language is important, as is honoring students who speak multiple languages.

Read on to learn about the challenges facing bilingual students, as well as some tools and resources that can help ELLs succeed in college.

Common Barriers for English Language Learners

Learning English as a non-native speaker can create challenges for students in educational settings. For example, there may be times when they don't understand what is required for an assignment. They also may struggle to understand their classmates.

Here are five common barriers that may create challenges for ELL students.

Not Understanding Instructions: Students may have trouble completing homework assignments because they don't fully understand the instructions. There may not be anyone available to translate for them when they need help. If a student realizes they don't understand an assignment the night before it's due, it might be too late to get help.

Not Learning to Read in Their Native Language: Educators in Kenya have found that students who learn to read and write in their native tongue first have an easier time learning English and Swahili later. As a result, many schools in Kenya have switched to a model where the early grades are taught in the child's native language.

Dual-Language Programs Don't Divide Instruction Evenly: Dual-language programs sound like a great idea, but they don't always work as well as expected. In some classes, instruction is predominantly in one language. This can result in too little immersion in English or the belief that students understand more English than they do.

Unqualified Translators: Although the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Education require trained translators or interpreters, some schools may try to rely on having other students or untrained staff translate for parents and students. This is not appropriate. Translating and interpreting require special skills beyond simply knowing how to speak the language.

Inaccessible Jargon: Jargon can be difficult to understand for anyone (even native speakers), and it can be especially problematic for ELLs. Educators should be sure to speak plainly and avoid using jargon that may sound confusing.

5 Tools for Bilingual Students and English Language Learners

Bilingual students and ELLs can benefit from using a variety of tools to help build their English speaking and writing skills. The five tools listed in this section can help students increase their vocabulary, improve their spelling, and more.

Open Culture is a database consisting of over 1,700 free online language courses, most of which are massive open online courses. Courses include English for business and entrepreneurship, English for academic study, English for healthcare, and English pronunciation in a global world.

This language learning program allows you to select your native language along with the language you want to learn. The program uses pictures and flashcards to help you learn words in a new language. It reinforces what you learned with quizzes. This program is great for vocabulary but doesn't teach sentence structure or grammar.

This voice and text translator by Apalon Apps is available in Apple's app store. In addition to speech and text translation, you can use your phone's camera to take a picture of a street sign or other text; these can be translated, as well. The app translates more than 100 languages.

A variety of reading comprehension lessons are sorted by difficulty - from elementary to advanced. The site also features a first words section, grammar exercises, listening exercises, vocabulary exercises, and test prep.

Write & Improve allows you to practice writing in English and get immediate feedback on how well you did. Exercises include writing a story about trees, writing a paragraph about your favorite musician, and writing a note to your neighbor. One caveat: Write & Improve uses British English.

5 Resources Educators Can Use to Help ELLs Overcome Language Barriers

Many resources are available to educators who work with ELLs. These include worksheets, flash cards, lesson plans, and board games. Teachers and educators can integrate these resources into their classes to help students learn more easily.

Here are five resources that teachers and institutions can use to help students overcome language barriers and succeed in college.

This site has over 17,000 worksheets, all of which are free to download and print for your students. Example English as a second language (ESL) worksheets include "English for Work - How to Ask for a Raise" and "10 Fresh Roleplay Ideas for General English."

ESL Galaxy offers free lesson plans, activities, and worksheets for ESL classrooms. The site offers more than 2,300 printable worksheets, including grammar worksheets, vocabulary worksheets, and word puzzles.

ESL Games World offers fun games for ESL teachers to use in their classrooms. Popular games include Hangman, Snake and Ladders, and picture quizzes.

ESL Video offers free video lessons, quizzes, and online conversation classes for bilingual students. The site has quizzes on popular songs and movies, as well as TED Talks on popular subjects.

ESL Gold offers free resources to help students learn English online. The site offers conversation topics, grammar resources, vocabulary study aids, listening resources, and short reading exercises.

Advantages of Being a Bilingual Student

Cognitive Development: Bilingual students typically develop flexible brains that can rapidly switch back and forth between two language systems. They may have an easier time with math, especially word problems, and often excel at remembering, focusing, and making decisions. They also may be good at using logic.

Social-Emotional Development: ELL students tend to have stronger relationships with their culture, family, and community. These relationships help children develop a strong identity. Bilingual students often find it easier to make new friends and maintain those friendships.

Learning: Bilingual students may have higher levels of abstract thinking. This can lead to increased learning abilities. Students who speak multiple languages appear to be better at ignoring irrelevant information and focusing on what is really important.

Reading: If students learn to read in their native language, they may be able to learn to read in their second language more easily. This is because they already know the mechanics of reading. Bilingual children who do not learn to read in their native language first still may have an advantage over monolinguistic students when learning to read.

Long-Term Success: Bilingual students have many advantages in today's global world. Biliterate and bilingual adults have access to more job opportunities than those who speak only one language. They also have opportunities to participate in the global community and learn from other cultures.

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Tools and Resources for Bilingual and ELL Students | BestColleges

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Learn how to navigate the college environment as a bilingual or ELL student. Use our guide to help develop skills and find resources to succeed.

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This PDF resource is a documents containing tactics and information regarding ESL/bilingual education specifically related to topics such as natural disasters, COVID and other health subjects, global issues, etc. This can be used in case of a significant matter related to a student (or schools) culture/life if anything relative to the content is prevalent in the life.

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Compare and Contrasting Language Acquisition Theories

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Compare and Contrasting Language Acquisition Theories

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Here is a developed and practical approach to application theories. This resource can be used as a reference for methodology and specific approaches for first and/or second language acquisition, especially within a classroom or group setting. Deciphering which to apply is critical, so this resource will come in handy as it breaks down each part into detailed pieces.

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This resources helps teachers evaluate and apply their strategies for writing objectives in their classroom! This is significant because it walks teachers through the tool, and helps you curate the information based on your specific classroom needs. Can be used in multiple lessons, subjects, etc.

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Smarter Tools for Teachers. Discover classroom resources you can use today. Educator-created lessons, activities, strategies, and professional development to help tailor instruction and boost learning.

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This resource has many guided images and applications to writing language objectives. It helps you have a foundation to follow, and grow in the ability to independently write objectives as practical applications are used.

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Ideally used for a flexed rotation model, this tool is a great resource for math learners in small groups that have ESL needs/accommodations. It helps asses, in a chosen language, the students strength and organizes them based on common needs. It them can provide the teacher practical lessons, materials, etc to use with those students to help target their specific needs in the class/with the content.

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Advanced, Striving,
ELS, Special Education

More than 5,000,000 students and 310, 500 teachers are currently experiencing the power of Achieve3000's solutions firsthand.

Ela, Social Studies,
Science, Math

Teachers in every subject rely on Achieve3000's solutions to promote equity, increase engagement, and accelerate learning in their classes.

Including Nine of the Top 10 in the Nation

Schools and districts in all 50 states use Achieve3000's proven learning solutions to help their students reach their goals.

In Africa, Asia, Europe,
and the Middle East

For over a decade, Achieve3000 has been helping international schools accelerate learning, increase access, and improve English proficiency.

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Achieve3000 | Differentiated Instruction. Accelerated Learning. | Grades PreK-12

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Help every student unlock their potential with differentiated and personalized digital learning solutions.

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Quill is a useful resource for reading and writing. Using this alongside its classroom materials allows students to have connected and responsive work that engages with their needs in reading and writing. When used consistently the program builds independent knowledge for the students and provides the teacher data/information to increase the overall performance inside and outside the classroom.

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Cleaning & Office Supplies for Every Workspace | Quill.com

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Free shipping when shopping office supplies online at Quill.com! Browse cleaning supplies, paper, ink, toner, furniture, & more to stack coupons & get discounts.

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using three levels of language proficiency, this resources allows in class, at home, and fully independent work to advance the students core needs in math subjects. There are multiple accommodations that are specific to ELL/SLA students, and teachers/parents are able to track progress and see useful means of applying what the student learn here alongside their class work.

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McGraw Hill provides solutions for educators that unlock the potential of every learner. Literacy, math, science, and more!

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ST Math is a great resource for younger students, as it is designed in a game software that increases engagement, appeal, and information retention. Students are given an individual account that can be customized from an administrative level, but also tailors the lessons based on algorithmic data collected as the students move through activities.

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ST Math | A Program For Conceptual Understanding

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Providing PreK-8 with an instructional program that engages students in game based puzzles and challenging problems to embrace productive struggle.

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This resource allows ESL/EB/EL classrooms have accommodations and applicable lessons geared towards multifaceted learning. Here, even without specific core requirements, teachers can access lessons, worksheets, and programs based on multilingual education and using it for growing a developed student into their prospective needs. SHort videos, assignment sheets, etc are all within this source and can be used as distance learning as well.

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Stress-free science lessons for K-5 distance learning

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This is something that has a lot of useful lessons and activities that range from K-12! Here, teachers can access hands on activities, worksheets, and videos for students that are science geared and pertaining to different levels of assimilation/fluency. Specific information can be tailored for students and used inside the classroom, or given at home.

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STEM Lessons for Educators – NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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Explore standards-aligned lessons from NASA-JPL in science, technology, engineering and math for students for grades K-12. Engage students in NASA missions exploring Earth and space.

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This resource (educator) went above and beyond with tools, lesson guides, activities, homework, projects- you name it! Here, teachers can access so many things to use for their EB/EL students in a practical way accommodated to different needs and levels.

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None of these activities have been made by Mr. Ferlazzo.
All these links will take you to websites created by companies,
public institutions, or other teachers. Look around their sites when you go to the links.

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This document provides useful data to teachers in applying this class content across many ages. Different levels, scaffolds, and approaches for growing the students assimilation and content knowledge for social studies is strategically outlined and examples are given for teachers to use freely.

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This site provides multiple approaches to summarize assessments in an English learning classroom/environment. It breaks down each assessment approach, but particularly I like the summarize ones as it is more unique than others that I have seen!

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This week's new question-of-the-week is:
What are effective assessment strategies for multilingual learners?
Assessment is a key element of teaching-we need to know where our students are in the learning process, how effective our instructional strategies have been, and if there are additional challenges we need to be aware of as we plan future lessons and student support.

Assessments, however, cannot be used in a one-size-fits-all strategy.

Today, Margo Gottlieb, Vivian Micolta Simmons, Cindy Garcia, and Karen Nemeth, Ed.M., share strategies educators can use to effectively assess English-language learners. Margo, Vivian, and Cindy were also guests on my 10-minute BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

Maximizing 'Linguistic and Cultural Equity'

Margo Gottlieb, WIDA co-founder and lead developer, introduces assessment as, for, and of learning in her 2016 book, Assessing English Language Learners: Bridges to Equity, and expands on the approaches in subsequent books, chapters, and articles. Her most current publication is Classroom Assessment in Multiple Languages: A Handbook for Teachers (Corwin, 2021):

When thinking about effective assessment strategies for multilingual learners, what if we switched our attention away from school or district scores generated from testing that leave "gaps" in student performance and revisit data through the lens of stakeholders? Let's start with a series of questions about multilingual learners, our most important stakeholders, to help position their centrality in the assessment process and provide a context for interpreting assessment data.

What are the languages, cultures, and educational backgrounds of your multilingual learners?

To what extent does your language program leverage your multilingual learners' languages and cultures in curriculum and instruction?

To what extent do your multilingual learners connect their personal interests and their home/community life to school?

The first step in planning classroom assessment is to determine its purpose. How might you prioritize the primary reasons for assessing multilingual learners in one or more languages?

Do you want to get a pulse on multilingual learners' thinking, how they are feeling, and their self-reflection on learning? Being more inclusive of students' views and encouraging student agency are features of assessment as learning.

Do you want to provide feedback to multilingual learners to move their learning forward? Acting on insight from the interaction between students and teachers during instruction reflects assessment for learning.

Do you want to contribute to programmatic or schoolwide accountability? Using student projects, performances, and products, along with uniform criteria for success formulated by teachers with input from students, are representations of assessment of learning.

Now that you have a purpose and a corresponding approach to assessment in mind, let's explore their associated effective strategies.

Assessment as learning as a classroom practice is a student-driven activity that broadcasts multilingual learners' voice, empowerment, and identity. Assessment as learning can occur face to face or online when multilingual learners interact with their peers in the language(s) of their choice to:

explore topics or issues of mutual interest

contribute to crafting classroom activities or tasks

engage in self- and peer assessment

pursue learning from their own perspectives

select preferred mode(s) of communication (e.g., oral, written, graphic, visual) for processing information and expressing learning.

Assessment for learning might begin with teacher and student conversations leading to collaboration in making mutually agreed upon learning goals. Both are keenly aware of where multilingual learners are in their learning that is anchored to grade-level academic content and language proficiency/development standards. In assessment for learning, multilingual learners interact with their teachers in English or their shared language(s) to:

co-construct criteria for success and types of acceptable evidence for their work

apply criteria for success to give criterion-referenced feedback

plan differentiated instruction for content and language learning

give feedback in real time to student performance or needs.

Assessment of learning at a classroom level is shaped by teachers, individually or as a department or grade-level team, with input from students. It represents what students have accomplished at the culmination of a period of instruction, such as a unit of learning. Assessment of learning is geared to determining student growth over time and centers on collaboration among teachers with support of school or district leaders to:

match evidence for assessment with learning targets

document extent of meeting standards for units of learning

share of learning for products, performances, or projects

guide student production of capstone projects or portfolios

Together, assessment as, for, and of learning offers a comprehensive system that optimizes opportunities for multilingual learners to participate as educators strive to maximize linguistic and cultural equity for their students.

'Formal and Informal Assessments'
Vivian Micolta Simmons was born in Colombia and has been in the U.S. for seven years. She has been a teacher for 14 years and is currently working as a ESL/DLI lead teacher for the Iredell-Statesville schools in N.C:
When assessing my culturally and linguistically diverse students, I always like to think about my own experience as a language learner. We all function differently; we are all smart with certain dominant areas or language skills. For instance, I consider myself good at speaking and pronunciation, but writing is an area where I need extra help. That does not mean that I cannot produce in a second language. It only means that I need to polish specific language skills.

I like to rely on both formal and informal assessments and make my recommendations-to homeroom teachers and parents-based on the data I can gather from these instruments.

Listening and reading activities, writing prompts (that provide sentence starters), formal and informal conversations (my favorite), and role-plays are some of my preferred activities to assess my students.

Pop quizzes, games, note-sketching, prior knowledge questions, video recordings (like Flipgrid), and formal pretests and post-tests are all part of my assessment arsenal. You can pick and choose from a great selection of data-collection options. For sure, I loathe paper-pencil assessment as the only performance measurement (for children and adults). They do not show what we are all capable of in terms of language production.

Rubrics, Portfolios, & Conferences
Cindy Garcia has been a bilingual educator for 15 years and is currently a districtwide specialist for PK-6 bilingual/ESL mathematics. She is active on Twitter @CindyGarciaTX and on her blog:
When assessing multilingual learners, teachers have to keep in mind both content and language. Teachers also have to be focused about what they assess and academic-language development might not always be something they need to assess.

Rubrics can be an effective way to assess student understanding because there are multiple indicators that students are trying to meet. Rubrics are also a good tool for assessing multilingual learners because they provide a consistent criterion for grading when tasks or projects might be subjective. This criterion helps teachers ignore other factors and use only the criteria in the rubric to assess student learning. Instead of multiple-choice type of assessment where there is only one correct response, a rubric allows the teacher to pinpoint what the student is understanding and what the student has yet to master. A rubric has a rating scale that provides the teacher with a way to provide feedback for students that will help them think about their work, ask questions, seek clarification, and improve their work. Rubrics also help students take ownership of their learning, because they are able to use the rubric to evaluate their work before they submit it for grading.

Portfolios are another great way to assess multilingual learners because the teacher is able to see evidence of student work and learning for a longer period of time than an end-of-unit assessment. This allows the teacher to see if the students "got it" right away and have they been able to "keep it" for longer than the length of the unit of instruction. When compiling a student portfolio, there are usually multiple pieces of evidence or student work for each concept, standard, or topic. Student-work samples could be writing prompts, a project, multiple-choice test, etc. This means that student portfolios also show a clearer picture of how a student learns.

Another effective strategy to assess multilingual learners is student-teacher conferences. Conferring with students provides students the opportunity to explain and share what they have learned without the usual stress of completing a formal test. Conferring also allows the teacher to provide more authentic feedback because it's real-time feedback that addresses student questions, wonderings, or misconceptions. Conferring makes it easier for the teacher to focus the conversation just on content, academic-language development, or another area. The goal of each conference can be focused on the precise needs of each student and provide the specific data that teachers need to plan for instruction.

'Portfolio-Based Assessment'
Karen Nemeth, Ed.M., is an author, consultant, and advocate focusing on early-childhood education for ELLs/DLLs. She has leadership roles in NAEYC, NABE, and TESOL. She hosts a resource website, Language Castle:
Developmentally appropriate assessment strategies for young English-/dual-language learners do not focus on one-shot test scores. The truth is, 4- and 5-year-old children are just not that interested in displaying their knowledge on demand. Terms like portfolio, sampling, and multiple measures guide best practices for the early years.

Children who are developing multiple languages have separate language systems for each of their languages. They learn some content in one language and some content in the other language. Even if they seem very strong in English, they may not have English words for all of the knowledge they've developed in their other language(s).

It is important to provide all screening and assessment in both of their languages. Further, the bilingual brain does not function the same way as two monolingual brains. According to research, the best screening and assessment tools would be designed specifically for bilingual thinkers and would capture what they know and can do in both of their languages. These kinds of tools are not available with sufficient quality and in the variety of languages needed. Kindergarten-entry assessments and other district-mandated monolingual assessments are not very accurate for young children who are multilingual learners. The best approach is to gather data about a child's skills and knowledge through a variety of measures over time. I like to say that, in the early years, assessment is not a score, it's a folder. Scores might be in the folder along with lots of other information that teachers can use to chart a child's progress and determine their learning needs.

The solution recommended by most experts is to practice portfolio-based assessment. Instead of focusing on a snapshot or numeric score, portfolios allow teachers to gather authentic evidence about what each child understands and talks about. Portfolio-assessment software is available with some curriculum models or as independent products. They may include prompts, benchmarks, and a variety of ways to enter data on an ongoing basis.

It is very important that teachers should be allowed to use phones or tablets to record language and activity at any time during the day. This is critical for multilingual learners because it is the most accurate way to fully capture what the children actually say when they are talking in a language that is unfamiliar to the teacher. It is also critical that teacher assistants who are bilingual must be carefully prepared to participate in the assessment process as they may be the only adults who have home-language interactions with some of the bilingual children.

Information obtained from families can be another important component of the assessment process. A teacher might not ask the parents of a 7 th grader about how they are doing with algebra at home, but many preschool and kindergarten children show advances in language and learning at home that may not be evident in the classroom. For example, a shy English-learner may not participate in singing activities at school but the family might send a video of the child singing happily with sophisticated lyrics at home. Young children may not always perform on demand or in expected ways at school. Families can also provide cultural context and information about the young child's interests that help the teacher scaffold learning for each individual child. Multiple measures over an array of activities and times of day will make it possible for young children to show more accurately what they know and can do-and what they are ready to do next.

Thanks to Margo, Vivian, Cindy, and Karen 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.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@epe.org. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it's selected or if you'd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.
Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email (The RSS feed for this blog, and for all Ed Week articles, has been changed by the new redesign-new ones won't be available until February). And if you missed any of the highlights from the first nine years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below. I am also creating a Twitter list including all contributors to this column.
You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo.

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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Four educators share practical assessment strategies to support English-language learners.

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This resources Ives illustrative approaches to four assessments that fit within a formative assessment framework for EL learners. Each takes on a different tactic that is beneficial for different learners across different levels.

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References

Bailey, A.L., and M. Heritage. 2014. The role of language learning progressions in improved instruction and assessment of English language learners. TESOL Quarterly 48: 480-506.

NGSS Lead States. 2013. Next Generation Science Standards: For states, by states. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. www.nextgenscience.org/next-generation-science-standards.

Furtak, E.M., S.C. Heredia, and D. Morrison. 2019. Formative assessment in science education: Mapping a shifting terrain. In Handbook of formative assessment in the disciplines, eds. H. Andrade and R.E. Bennett, pp. 97-125. Philadelphia: Routledge.

Heritage, M., A. Walqui, and R. Linquanti. 2015. English language learners and the new standards: Developing language, content knowledge, and analytical practices in the classroom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Lee, O., L. Llosa, S.E. Grapin, A. Haas, and M. Goggins. 2019. Science and language integration with English learners:A conceptual framework guiding instructional materials development. Science Education 103: 317-337.

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References Bailey, A.L., and M. Heritage. 2014. The role of language learning progressions in improved instruction and assessment of English language learners. TESOL Quarterly 48: 480-506. NGSS Lead States. 2013. Next Generation Science Standards: For states, by states. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. www.nextgenscience.org/next-generation-science-standards. Furtak, E.M., S.C. Heredia, and D.

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This resource breaks down a formative assessment into multiple parts and approach. It maximizes linguistic and cultural equity in assessment approaches, and curates an opportunity for development before and after the assessment.

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This week's new question-of-the-week is:
What are effective assessment strategies for multilingual learners?
Assessment is a key element of teaching-we need to know where our students are in the learning process, how effective our instructional strategies have been, and if there are additional challenges we need to be aware of as we plan future lessons and student support.

Assessments, however, cannot be used in a one-size-fits-all strategy.

Today, Margo Gottlieb, Vivian Micolta Simmons, Cindy Garcia, and Karen Nemeth, Ed.M., share strategies educators can use to effectively assess English-language learners. Margo, Vivian, and Cindy were also guests on my 10-minute BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

Maximizing 'Linguistic and Cultural Equity'

Margo Gottlieb, WIDA co-founder and lead developer, introduces assessment as, for, and of learning in her 2016 book, Assessing English Language Learners: Bridges to Equity, and expands on the approaches in subsequent books, chapters, and articles. Her most current publication is Classroom Assessment in Multiple Languages: A Handbook for Teachers (Corwin, 2021):

When thinking about effective assessment strategies for multilingual learners, what if we switched our attention away from school or district scores generated from testing that leave "gaps" in student performance and revisit data through the lens of stakeholders? Let's start with a series of questions about multilingual learners, our most important stakeholders, to help position their centrality in the assessment process and provide a context for interpreting assessment data.

What are the languages, cultures, and educational backgrounds of your multilingual learners?

To what extent does your language program leverage your multilingual learners' languages and cultures in curriculum and instruction?

To what extent do your multilingual learners connect their personal interests and their home/community life to school?

The first step in planning classroom assessment is to determine its purpose. How might you prioritize the primary reasons for assessing multilingual learners in one or more languages?

Do you want to get a pulse on multilingual learners' thinking, how they are feeling, and their self-reflection on learning? Being more inclusive of students' views and encouraging student agency are features of assessment as learning.

Do you want to provide feedback to multilingual learners to move their learning forward? Acting on insight from the interaction between students and teachers during instruction reflects assessment for learning.

Do you want to contribute to programmatic or schoolwide accountability? Using student projects, performances, and products, along with uniform criteria for success formulated by teachers with input from students, are representations of assessment of learning.

Now that you have a purpose and a corresponding approach to assessment in mind, let's explore their associated effective strategies.

Assessment as learning as a classroom practice is a student-driven activity that broadcasts multilingual learners' voice, empowerment, and identity. Assessment as learning can occur face to face or online when multilingual learners interact with their peers in the language(s) of their choice to:

explore topics or issues of mutual interest

contribute to crafting classroom activities or tasks

engage in self- and peer assessment

pursue learning from their own perspectives

select preferred mode(s) of communication (e.g., oral, written, graphic, visual) for processing information and expressing learning.

Assessment for learning might begin with teacher and student conversations leading to collaboration in making mutually agreed upon learning goals. Both are keenly aware of where multilingual learners are in their learning that is anchored to grade-level academic content and language proficiency/development standards. In assessment for learning, multilingual learners interact with their teachers in English or their shared language(s) to:

co-construct criteria for success and types of acceptable evidence for their work

apply criteria for success to give criterion-referenced feedback

plan differentiated instruction for content and language learning

give feedback in real time to student performance or needs.

Assessment of learning at a classroom level is shaped by teachers, individually or as a department or grade-level team, with input from students. It represents what students have accomplished at the culmination of a period of instruction, such as a unit of learning. Assessment of learning is geared to determining student growth over time and centers on collaboration among teachers with support of school or district leaders to:

match evidence for assessment with learning targets

document extent of meeting standards for units of learning

share of learning for products, performances, or projects

guide student production of capstone projects or portfolios

Together, assessment as, for, and of learning offers a comprehensive system that optimizes opportunities for multilingual learners to participate as educators strive to maximize linguistic and cultural equity for their students.

'Formal and Informal Assessments'
Vivian Micolta Simmons was born in Colombia and has been in the U.S. for seven years. She has been a teacher for 14 years and is currently working as a ESL/DLI lead teacher for the Iredell-Statesville schools in N.C:
When assessing my culturally and linguistically diverse students, I always like to think about my own experience as a language learner. We all function differently; we are all smart with certain dominant areas or language skills. For instance, I consider myself good at speaking and pronunciation, but writing is an area where I need extra help. That does not mean that I cannot produce in a second language. It only means that I need to polish specific language skills.

I like to rely on both formal and informal assessments and make my recommendations-to homeroom teachers and parents-based on the data I can gather from these instruments.

Listening and reading activities, writing prompts (that provide sentence starters), formal and informal conversations (my favorite), and role-plays are some of my preferred activities to assess my students.

Pop quizzes, games, note-sketching, prior knowledge questions, video recordings (like Flipgrid), and formal pretests and post-tests are all part of my assessment arsenal. You can pick and choose from a great selection of data-collection options. For sure, I loathe paper-pencil assessment as the only performance measurement (for children and adults). They do not show what we are all capable of in terms of language production.

Rubrics, Portfolios, & Conferences
Cindy Garcia has been a bilingual educator for 15 years and is currently a districtwide specialist for PK-6 bilingual/ESL mathematics. She is active on Twitter @CindyGarciaTX and on her blog:
When assessing multilingual learners, teachers have to keep in mind both content and language. Teachers also have to be focused about what they assess and academic-language development might not always be something they need to assess.

Rubrics can be an effective way to assess student understanding because there are multiple indicators that students are trying to meet. Rubrics are also a good tool for assessing multilingual learners because they provide a consistent criterion for grading when tasks or projects might be subjective. This criterion helps teachers ignore other factors and use only the criteria in the rubric to assess student learning. Instead of multiple-choice type of assessment where there is only one correct response, a rubric allows the teacher to pinpoint what the student is understanding and what the student has yet to master. A rubric has a rating scale that provides the teacher with a way to provide feedback for students that will help them think about their work, ask questions, seek clarification, and improve their work. Rubrics also help students take ownership of their learning, because they are able to use the rubric to evaluate their work before they submit it for grading.

Portfolios are another great way to assess multilingual learners because the teacher is able to see evidence of student work and learning for a longer period of time than an end-of-unit assessment. This allows the teacher to see if the students "got it" right away and have they been able to "keep it" for longer than the length of the unit of instruction. When compiling a student portfolio, there are usually multiple pieces of evidence or student work for each concept, standard, or topic. Student-work samples could be writing prompts, a project, multiple-choice test, etc. This means that student portfolios also show a clearer picture of how a student learns.

Another effective strategy to assess multilingual learners is student-teacher conferences. Conferring with students provides students the opportunity to explain and share what they have learned without the usual stress of completing a formal test. Conferring also allows the teacher to provide more authentic feedback because it's real-time feedback that addresses student questions, wonderings, or misconceptions. Conferring makes it easier for the teacher to focus the conversation just on content, academic-language development, or another area. The goal of each conference can be focused on the precise needs of each student and provide the specific data that teachers need to plan for instruction.

'Portfolio-Based Assessment'
Karen Nemeth, Ed.M., is an author, consultant, and advocate focusing on early-childhood education for ELLs/DLLs. She has leadership roles in NAEYC, NABE, and TESOL. She hosts a resource website, Language Castle:
Developmentally appropriate assessment strategies for young English-/dual-language learners do not focus on one-shot test scores. The truth is, 4- and 5-year-old children are just not that interested in displaying their knowledge on demand. Terms like portfolio, sampling, and multiple measures guide best practices for the early years.

Children who are developing multiple languages have separate language systems for each of their languages. They learn some content in one language and some content in the other language. Even if they seem very strong in English, they may not have English words for all of the knowledge they've developed in their other language(s).

It is important to provide all screening and assessment in both of their languages. Further, the bilingual brain does not function the same way as two monolingual brains. According to research, the best screening and assessment tools would be designed specifically for bilingual thinkers and would capture what they know and can do in both of their languages. These kinds of tools are not available with sufficient quality and in the variety of languages needed. Kindergarten-entry assessments and other district-mandated monolingual assessments are not very accurate for young children who are multilingual learners. The best approach is to gather data about a child's skills and knowledge through a variety of measures over time. I like to say that, in the early years, assessment is not a score, it's a folder. Scores might be in the folder along with lots of other information that teachers can use to chart a child's progress and determine their learning needs.

The solution recommended by most experts is to practice portfolio-based assessment. Instead of focusing on a snapshot or numeric score, portfolios allow teachers to gather authentic evidence about what each child understands and talks about. Portfolio-assessment software is available with some curriculum models or as independent products. They may include prompts, benchmarks, and a variety of ways to enter data on an ongoing basis.

It is very important that teachers should be allowed to use phones or tablets to record language and activity at any time during the day. This is critical for multilingual learners because it is the most accurate way to fully capture what the children actually say when they are talking in a language that is unfamiliar to the teacher. It is also critical that teacher assistants who are bilingual must be carefully prepared to participate in the assessment process as they may be the only adults who have home-language interactions with some of the bilingual children.

Information obtained from families can be another important component of the assessment process. A teacher might not ask the parents of a 7 th grader about how they are doing with algebra at home, but many preschool and kindergarten children show advances in language and learning at home that may not be evident in the classroom. For example, a shy English-learner may not participate in singing activities at school but the family might send a video of the child singing happily with sophisticated lyrics at home. Young children may not always perform on demand or in expected ways at school. Families can also provide cultural context and information about the young child's interests that help the teacher scaffold learning for each individual child. Multiple measures over an array of activities and times of day will make it possible for young children to show more accurately what they know and can do-and what they are ready to do next.

Thanks to Margo, Vivian, Cindy, and Karen 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.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@epe.org. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it's selected or if you'd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.
Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email (The RSS feed for this blog, and for all Ed Week articles, has been changed by the new redesign-new ones won't be available until February). And if you missed any of the highlights from the first nine years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below. I am also creating a Twitter list including all contributors to this column.
You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo.

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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Four educators share practical assessment strategies to support English-language learners.

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This site provides TONS of useful information about summative assessments, applying them inside and outside of the classroom, approaching them for EL students, and breaks it down throughout a yearly timeline. Within itself as well, are multiple use case options for approved activities and lessons for teachers to use in the summative approach.

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This is a composed list of books/readings that are useful in specific special need classrooms or situations. This is great for accommodation to a double over approach for this kind of teaching, and gives useful resources for teachers in this specific area.

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The titles on this booklist focus on providing appropriate academic support for English language learners and approaches for determining when special education screening or services are needed, as well as tips for communicating with culturally diverse families about assessment, intervention, and instruction.

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Special Education and English Language Learners

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The titles on this booklist focus on providing appropriate academic support for English language learners and approaches for determining when special education screening or services are needed, as well as tips for communicating with culturally diverse families about assessment, intervention, and instruction.

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This is a collective report of research and applied strategies for SPED and ESL engaged classrooms. The research and methods given are extensive and include a wide range of topics for educators to dive into for their own classroom, or generally learn about these two environments for learning.

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In English Language Learners with Special Needs: Effective Instructional Strategies, Alba Ortiz provides a framework for ELL instruction that focuses on preventing school failure and providing early intervention for struggling learners. In this context, Ortiz discusses such topics as creating supportive learning environments, fostering school-community collaborations, designing effective instructional programs, and deciding when to refer students for special education evaluation.

Citation

Ortiz, A. (2001). English Language Learners with Special Needs: Effective Instructional Strategies. Austin, TX: University of Texas.

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English Language Learners with Special Needs: Effective Instructional Strategies

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In English Language Learners with Special Needs: Effective Instructional Strategies, Alba Ortiz provides a framework for ELL instruction that focuses on preventing school failure and providing early intervention for struggling learners. In this context, Ortiz discusses such topics as creating supportive learning environments, fostering school-community collaborations, designing effective instructional programs, and deciding when to refer students for special education evaluation.

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This resource is very useful and has a lot of information regarding different approaches for ELL acquisition in the everyday classroom. The variety and very general pointed directives are easy for any teacher to adapt and apply in their classroom.

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It is possible to help a beginning English-language learner (ELL) improve so much in a matter of months that he or she can pass the sixth through eighth grade state standardized tests. This student can go from five to 50 percent on a school curriculum test. It's happening in my middle school classroom, and it can happen in your classrooms, too. With the right support and differentiation, ELLs will be successful in your general education or language arts classroom.

As you read the following, keep in mind that these ELL strategies are good for engaging all students. That's because they're interactive and focus on the four domains of language -- reading, writing, speaking, and listening -- which all students need support in developing. Often with general education students, reading and writing get the most attention, while speaking and listening development are neglected.

1. Students should read a book of choice every day.

Research shows that reading daily improves a student's fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, analytical skills, and memory. Work with your librarian to give your students access to books at all levels. Encourage them to read books from different genres at their level. If you have students still struggling with English, computer programs such as i-Ready, Kurzweil, or Starfall can give them a foundation. Transition them to children's books or graphic novels after a month or two.

Once the students are finished reading, creatively tie their silent reading time into your curriculum and lessons. If you're introducing or reviewing "conflict," ask the students to explain and define the conflicts in their books. Relate back to their books with any of the other reading concepts, too. If you're working on a writing conventions mini lesson, have the students refer back to their books to see how their author uses these conventions. The students need to know that their silent reading relates to the big picture.

2. Your lessons should be multimodal.

Teachers need to present material in various ways to reach all types of learners. You can easily prepare ahead of time by adding visuals that will help the students gain access to the content.

Before each lesson, pull up different internet tabs (or apps like the Oxford Picture Dictionary) that include images, videos, and other multimedia to help ELLs understand parts of the vocabulary lesson. A folktale lesson about the "The Crane Maiden," for example, should include vocabulary like crane, marsh, loom, and quilt. These vocabulary words will add to a general idea of what the story is about. Pull up pictures on Google Images and click through them during the lesson as you explain and pre-teach the vocabulary. The story also talks about a maiden using a loom. Along with the images, present a YouTube video of someone using a loom to make a beautiful quilt. These activities will bring about authentic learning and draw from background knowledge.

3. Shorten your lecture.

When students are engaged daily in structured conversations, they are learning. The teacher should facilitate that learning. Structure your class so that you're giving five- to seven-minute lectures and then allowing the students to discuss the subject with guided questions and prompts that use academic vocabulary.

As the rest of the class reads from L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz, ELLs might read from a children's version and watch a few video clips from the classic MGM film that go with the chapter. Show them the tornado scene, the Munchkin scene, and the Yellow Brick Road introduction, giving them visuals to help them during the structured conversations. After reading, the groups will have meaningful, authentic conversations about what they just read. While the teacher facilitates the process, instead of standing in front explaining, the beginners can start piecing together vocabulary that they see and hear.

4. The students must be writing.

The only way students are going to improve at writing ideas and conventions is to actually write. They should practice writing what they are passionate about -- and that doesn't come from worksheets and drills. After writing sentences and essays, they should learn how to edit and revise their own errors. We should not be correcting their essays for them.

Allow the students to choose topics of their choice. Give them a guide to follow, but don't confine them to certain topics, number of paragraphs, or sentences. They should decide what they want to write about and how they want to write. As they finish their first draft, guide them through ratiocination techniques. In terms of language, this means focusing on word usage, "to be" verbs, run-on sentences, repeated words, and more, rather than the content. Don't correct students' errors for them. This helps them recognize their own errors now and for the future. ELLs can use these techniques, too. When you use mentor texts to explain writing conventions in mini lessons, students will learn how to write as they see these models and look for their own errors. They will jump from beginners to intermediate or advanced writers in a matter of months using these skills.

With these four strategies, I guarantee that you will see incredible improvements in your middle school students. My students were engaged in the lessons and learned new vocabulary words and content each day. I didn't have discipline problems with them because they weren't bored or confused. They improved on curriculum and district tests at an average rate of 15-30 percent when we followed these four strategies.

ELLs and other students can all benefit from these strategies in general education classrooms. Let's not shelter them from this authentic and enriching learning environment.

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4 Strategies to Help ELLs in the Mainstream Classroom

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It is possible to help a beginning English-language learner (ELL) improve so much in a matter of months that he or she can pass the sixth through eighth grade state standardized tests. This student can go from five to 50 percent on a school curriculum test.

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This link leads to many helpful base’s of content and information for the focus of language principles and the structure of English for second language learners. With many different outlets, one main thing is the English Language Professionals Guide, and Resource center.

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This resource, the IRIS Center, has a collection of research and applied strategies for language principle applications and education for many ages and settings. This is helpful for the teacher in the multidisciplinary field, and can be accessed anywhere with regular updates and support!

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Page 6: Linguistic Supports

Culturally responsive teachers create a classroom environment that makes students feel comfortable, regardless of their language differences. Students with diverse language needs can adequately meet academic goals when teachers use appropriate strategies and check for student understanding. Also important for ensuring student success is for instructors to provide supports, examples of which are offered below.

Cultural Connection

In science class, Mr. Bennett is teaching a lesson on solar energy-specifically how materials reflect solar energy in differing amounts. He pre-teaches the terms solar energy and reflection and adds them to the word wall both in English and Spanish.

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Culturally responsive teachers create a classroom environment that makes students feel comfortable, regardless of their language differences. Students with diverse language needs can adequately meet academic goals when teachers use appropriate strategies and check for student understanding. Also important for ensuring student success is for instructors to provide supports, examples of which are offered below.

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This study is a very advanced and marketable resource for teacher and administrators coordinating the balance and application of gifted EBs/ELs. It contains data, they’re successful and failed data, and connects educators to valuable information not taught in any sort of webinar or lecture.

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Cultural community based definitions of giftedness were obtained in survey interviews with 300 Mexican Americans in three Texas cities and incorporated into a behavior rating scale and an adjectival scale (for parents) to identify the gifted and talented among 108 bilingual Mexican American children in kindergarten-grade 3. The children were nominated by teachers and administered the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children; the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, Verbal and Figural Form A; and the De Avila Cartoon Conservation Scales. Fifty-four children were rated on the behavior and adjectival scales by parents. Thirty-four children were judged gifted according to results on at least one of the five tests. Parentally rated scales were available for 22 of the 34 gifted students. Some of the results from interviews revealed that Mexican Americans believe giftedness requires verve and style as well as intelligence; and that the gifted display traits such as using imagination freely, being more active and aware, and associating more with adults. Multivariate discriminate analysis of the 43-item behavioral rating scale indicated significant differentiation between the gifted and nongifted groups. Individual items on the behavior rating and adjectival scales also discriminated between the two groups. (Included are original and revised versions of the behavior rating scale and the adjectival scales, a summary of techniques for identifying gifted minority children, and the community survey in English and Spanish.) (MC)

Descriptors: Ability Identification, Behavior Rating Scales, Community Attitudes, Cultural Influences, Disadvantaged Youth, Exceptional Child Research, Gifted, Kindergarten, Mexican Americans, Minority Groups, Primary Education, Surveys, Talent Identification, Test Construction

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ERIC - ED090743 - Analysis of Giftedness in Mexican American Children and Design of a Prototype Identification Instrument., 1974-Mar

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Cultural community based definitions of giftedness were obtained in survey interviews with 300 Mexican Americans in three Texas cities and incorporated into a behavior rating scale and an adjectival scale (for parents) to identify the gifted and talented among 108 bilingual Mexican American children in kindergarten-grade 3.

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This publication is a collection of bias, stereotypes, and practices educators may knowingly or blindly do in a context of having a GT EL student. It helps recognize and evaluate educational methods, and how a student can be pursued in the sense of language acquisition with gifted and talented traits.

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Of the 3 million students identified as gifted in the U.S., English Language Learners are by far the most underrepresented. And nobody knows that better than 17-year-old Alejandra Galindo.

"It's just kind of hard to not see people who look like me in my classes," she says. "I'm a minority in the gifted world."

Alejandra is a senior at North Canyon High School in Phoenix. Before she was identified as gifted, she was identified as an English Language Learner, or ELL. You know, those kids who are often assigned to separate classrooms while they learn English. That was Alejandra.

"She would cry and not want to go to school," says her mom, Norma Galindo. "She didn't want to be Hispanic. She didn't want to speak our language."

Norma Galindo is originally from El Salvador. Her husband, Arnulfo, is from Mexico. They've always known their daughter was bright beyond her years.

"I remember Alejandra coming to me and saying, 'Mom, I'm bored at school. Classes are so easy,' " says Norma Galindo. "And I said, 'You're not supposed to be bored at school. You need to be challenged.' So I talked to her teacher and asked, 'Can you do something for her?' "

Parents are usually the first ones to figure out that their child is gifted, but that message often doesn't get to the educators in schools.

Many schools don't even test ELLs for giftedness, and most teachers aren't trained to identify those students.

It doesn't have to be that way, says Alejandra.

"I think it's just all about letting those kids know that [they] have just as much potential as any other kid," she says, "regardless of your skin color or where your parents came from or what language you speak."

Alejandra was lucky. In fourth grade, a teacher singled her out and asked that she be tested. The results showed that her verbal reasoning skills were off the charts, a sign of giftedness not just in English but Spanish as well.

"Now that I'm older," says Alejandra, "I realize that being bilingual is very, very important. That in combination with being gifted, it's like so many doors have opened."

At North Canyon High, those doors have opened wide. Alejandra has excelled in just about every college-level course she has taken. Her academic success has motivated her to fine-tune her other gift, singing. She's a section leader on the school choir.

With graduation right around the corner, Alejandra has set her sights on college and a career in international studies, maybe doing humanitarian work.

It's not clear how many Alejandras there are out there.

Arizona has identified more than 80,000 gifted students statewide, but that number is not broken down by race or ethnicity. It's also impossible to know how many gifted ELLs are never identified and tested.

Nationally, 32 states, including Arizona, mandate gifted education, according to the National Association For Gifted Children. Only four fully fund gifted programs, the organization says in this report. Few, if any, require that ELLs be tested.

That's a problem says Chester Finn, a former U.S. assistant secretary of education and author of the recent book, Failing Our Brightest Kids.

"An awful lot of Latino kids are arriving with parents who are undocumented. They really do depend on schools to help them," says Finn. "[But] we're losing talent of kids from poorly educated parents who don't know their way around the American system."

Finn says schools must do more to reach out to non-English-speaking parents, and to train teachers to be more like talent scouts. Then, he adds, schools must give gifted ELLs as much academic enrichment as they can handle.

No argument there, says Peter Laing. He oversees gifted education for Arizona's Department of Public Instruction. Arizona currently does not provide any funding for gifted education. Laing says what little money gifted kids get has to come from local school districts.

He says that, with the ELL population growing so fast in Arizona, educators and policymakers need to better serve those students, especially the brightest among them: "This is a moral, ethical obligation on the part of schools."

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Gifted, But Still Learning English, Many Bright Students Get Overlooked

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Of the 3 million students identified as gifted in the U.S., English Language Learners are by far the most underrepresented. And nobody knows that better than 17-year-old Alejandra Galindo. "It's just kind of hard to not see people who look like me in my classes," she says.

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From the ACTFL, this is a practical assessment of the use and focus of technology in the classroom, specifically applied to language development/acquisition. It differentiates the role of the teacher and student, as well as identifies traditional concerns for using a heavy technology based system while promoting appropriate resources educators may use to help this development.

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ACTFL | The Role of Technology in Language Learning

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ACTFL strongly recommends that a language educator be responsible for the planning, instruction, assessment, and facilitation of any language course, leveraging technology to support language learning. Language instruction is best guided by language educators rather than solely delivered via a…

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Tech Tools to Support Language Development

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Tech Tools to Support Language Development

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This links to a full and up to date report on language development with technological resources. It focuses on special interest groups, and the successful implementation of tech in language development across different classrooms with base in research.

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Literacy Daily is a space to connect educators, students, and leaders with the latest news, ideas, tools, strategies, and research in literacy instruction.

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Latino Literacy is full, and not subjected to, resources, practices, and developmental recommendations for families and educators working with an EB/EL family. It links to many programs that anyone can access and customize to their specific needs.

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The 10 top resources for parent engagement with English learners (ELs) on the following websites are some of the best places to start looking when teachers and staff want to learn more about getting parents more involved. Here's a brief breakdown of each:

NAFSCE says on its website that it's the only professional association dedicated solely to those who spend each and every day making family engagement happen, as well as advancing high impact practices, promoting evidence-based policies and striving to engage all families, like English language learners, in the development of their children.

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 learners that also includes lots of terrific articles on parental involvement with ELs.

The largest child advocacy organization in the United States, the National PTA, has launched a multifaceted parent involvement initiative to increase awareness of the benefits of parent involvement and the need for building successful partnerships in schools, all of which are key in working with English learners.

Project Appleseed provides a variety of excellent resources for families who want to be engaged in their children's education, including ELs.

The Latino Family Literacy Project knows that parental involvement is one of the core components which has been shown to provide a healthy and positive effect on the academic achievement levels of children in grades K-12. To help strengthen parental engagement both at home and at school, it offers professional development in the areas of family reading, vocabulary development and overall language development with English learners.

The Latino Family Literacy Project is a program of Lectura Books, a national educational publisher specializing in parent involvement and English Learners.

Raising the next generation is a shared responsibility, says the Department of Education. When families, communities and schools work together, students are more successful and the entire community benefits.

Take a look at the terrific resources on the Department of Education website that supports the framework for building greater support and capacity in schools, homes and communities, so all students, like English learners and other at-risk youth, have the chance to succeed.

America's Promise Alliance is the nation's largest cross-sector alliance of nonprofit, community organizations, businesses, and government organizations dedicated to improving the lives of young people. The organization works to raise awareness about the importance of these resources, including parental involvement, and inspires actions that help more children and youth, such as ELs, receive them.

Child Trends is the country's leading nonprofit research organization focused exclusively on improving the lives and prospects of children, youth, and their families. It includes a variety of statistics related to children and specific articles on how we can help our nation's kids, including English learners, and how to get parents involved.

Edutopia is a trusted educational foundation shining a spotlight on what works in education, such as the importance of parent engagement for all students, including ELs.

Through articles, commentaries and special features, Education Week offers the latest news about parent involvement for all students, including ELLs. It also helps teachers forge deeper connections with students and their families.

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10 Top Resources for Parent Engagement with English Learners (ELs)

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The 10 top resources for parent engagement with English learners (ELs) on the following websites are some of the best places to start looking when teachers and staff want to learn more about getting parents...

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Highlighting real-life families and educators that worked with growing their students and families language development/acquisition, this link publishes multiple different articles and practices. As a regular and trusted resource, anyone invested in the education of a language learned can greatly benefit from this past the classroom relevance.

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Education Week - K-12 education news and information

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At Education Week, we believe that all children deserve a high-quality education.

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This book contains research and observations over the advocacy and development of supporting English learners across the educational system. Any age, background, and individual is pursued and anyone that accesses this resource is given numerous different subjects and concentrations for advocacy.

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Here, readers can connect with other advocating individuals, programs, and resources! Growing in advocacy and awareness of the every changing climate of language acquisition and development is a key factor to ELs success, so having the proper awareness for these kinds of topics is highlighted well!

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I began my teaching career in 1997 as a mainstream, 3rd grade teacher at a suburban public school near Houston, Texas. Our school had one teacher designated to serve English language learners (ELLs) through a pull-out setting. I understood my job as teaching students the general education curriculum while she taught my ELLs the English language. I never knew exactly what my students did when they were with the ESL teacher; nor was I sure whether she knew what they were doing when they were with me.

Fast forward to the present and my current activities-working with teachers across the U.S. to strengthen their knowledge and skillset for serving students who are learning English as an additional language. From this vantage point, I can see that my early years as a teacher did not provide a great structure for teaching content or language and that all educators need to know how to serve all students.

The problem is that English learning specialists may be preaching to the choir. We gather on Facebook groups, Instagram, or on Twitter to share information with one another. But we need to spread this mission to our educator friends-those who may not see themselves as ELL specialists yet need to know more about teaching students who are learning English as an additional language. We have to become advocates for English language learners. Here's how:

Learn all that you can about the laws and policies concerning ELLs in your state.

How we serve English language learners is mandated by federal law. From that, states build their own laws and policies. Knowing these laws will help you to serve students and teachers. Educators need to understand these important considerations:

Attend meetings that involve English language learners.

While attending PLCs, RTI meetings, etc. use your knowledge about laws and policies regarding ELLs to advocate for students' rights. Be a voice for students during such meetings and share these rights with families of ELLs. One way to connect with ELLs families when there is a language barrier in the messages you send home is through Talking Points , a free app that translates messages into senders home languages.

Volunteer to present strategies that support ELLs.

English language learners spend most of their day in classrooms with mainstream teachers who may or may not be certified to teach ELLs. Either way, ongoing professional development on strategies that support language and content acquisition will help teachers understand how to leverage language to maximize academic growth. Ask your administrator if you can present at a professional learning meeting. Select research-based strategies that are powerful for all students but necessary for ELLs. Even if you share an article or facilitate a book study, your teachers will benefit.

Plan with grade-level teachers.

Regular grade-level planning is the best way to make an impact on instruction. You can support mainstream teachers on the spot with accommodations and scaffolds that meet the needs of their students. If weekly planning is not possible, try long-term planning on a monthly basis. Virtual planning also becomes a feasible option when meeting in real time is impossible. Some teachers use shared lesson-planning templates on Google Drive or other sharable platforms. Planning together is a great opportunity to sneak in small bits of professional learning, too. It can provide a casual space for educators to share teaching techniques that improve student achievement.

Seek professional learning opportunities within and outside your district.

Several years ago, I worked as a professional development specialist in a suburban district with a large ELLs population. We offered to send ESL and content teachers to a Title III symposium for two days to learn about research-based information that would help them serve English language learners. Many coteachers attended together and were able to build relationships while learning as a team. When we only train EL specialists on strategies, we limit the potential for their use and for student gains. , , , your local TESOL affiliate, and ASCD offer opportunities for in-person PD.

For no-cost, virtual PD, access these resources:

<LINK URL="https://sites.google.com/view/virtuel/home?authuser=0" LINKTARGET="_blank">VirtuEL</LINK> (a free, online conference for teachers of English language learners)

Podcasts (<LINK URL="https://anchor.fm/highest-aspirations" LINKTARGET="_blank">Highest Aspirations</LINK> by Ellevation or <LINK URL="http://voiced.ca/the-boosting-achievement-esl-podcast-with-carol-salva/" LINKTARGET="_blank">Boosting Achievement</LINK> with Carol Salva)

Twitter (EL leaders to follow: <LINK URL="http://www.twitter.com/LarryFerlazzo" LINKTARGET="_blank">@LarryFerlazzo</LINK>, <LINK URL="http://www.twitter.com/TanELLclassroom" LINKTARGET="_blank">@TanELLclassroom</LINK>, <LINK URL="http://www.twitter.com/emilyfranESL" LINKTARGET="_blank">@emilyfranESL</LINK>, <LINK URL="http://www.twitter.com/MsSalvac" LINKTARGET="_blank">@MsSalvac</LINK>, <LINK URL="http://www.twitter.com/Toppel_ELD" LINKTARGET="_blank">@Toppel_ELD</LINK>)

Online Book Studies like #ELLChat_BkClub (to learn more about this, visit <LINK URL="http://ellchatbkclub.blogspot.com" LINKTARGET="_blank">ellchatbkclub.blogspot.com</LINK>)

Facebook Groups such as Advocating for ELLs, Leading ELLs, Colorin Colorado's ELL Educator Group

Consider sending out an email regularly to spotlight an instructional method that supports ELLs. One colleague created a Padlet with resources (all tied to ELLs instruction) that he's curated. He shares this with content teachers in his district. Another ELL specialist creates a Smore page where she regularly highlights three instructional strategies that teachers can access in either 1, 5, or 15 minutes.

Build a team and momentum.

No matter your role, you can gather a team to support ELL students. Every educator (along with the parents) that works with the students on your campus is a part of their success. The team has a higher success rate when each member recognizes that we can't do it alone. A team can also provide the structure to make this work ongoing. What is regularly discussed and revisited is remembered. We have to bring ELLs and the instructional methods that are most powerful to the forefront, not just at the beginning of the school year and then again at testing season, but all throughout the year.

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Be an Advocate for English Language Learners

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I began my teaching career in 1997 as a mainstream, 3rd grade teacher at a suburban public school near Houston, Texas. Our school had one teacher designated to serve English language learners (ELLs) through a pull-out setting. I understood my job as teaching students the general education curriculum while she taught my ELLs the English language.

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This resource, from the University of Michigan, breaks down the different facets of the English language with the dialects across the locational differences. This is really useful for a teacher who experiences or may encounter students that move around the nation, or they themself move fairly often. Students who experience this may face different types of challenges and practices as they encounter English in different ways, so this awareness is important for the success of the student and teacher!

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Dialects play an important role in identity and diversity. They can have unique grammatical features, pronunciations, and lexical items. Linguists document dialects to uncover the diversity that exists within languages, both based within a single country (e.g. regional dialects of American English) and across the world (American English, British English, South African English, etc.).

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Lumos Learning- English Variety Resources

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Lumos Learning- English Variety Resources

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In this link, anyone that needs online resources for education in the sense of English variety is given many here! Lumos focuses on connecting the resources together, but are just as useful alone.

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Varieties of English with Online Resources

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You can also use this page to find sample questions, videos, worksheets, lessons, infographics and presentations related to Varieties of English.