Empowering Multilingual Learners: Practical Strategies for Educators
Summary
Humanizing the classroom experience for multilingual learners is a pivotal focus in our discussion today. We delve into practical strategies aimed at fostering an environment where each student feels valued, seen, and safe. The distinction between conversational and academic language is particularly emphasized, as it plays a crucial role in enhancing the learning experience for all students. We explore five fundamental concepts that underpin this humanizing approach: centering relationships, amplifying student voices, honoring individual identities, fostering psychological safety, and prioritizing growth over perfection. Our conversation is enriched by the insights of Dr. Gretchen Oliver, who shares her expertise on supporting multilingual learners and the transformative potential of embracing their diverse backgrounds within the educational landscape.
Additional Notes
A salient theme of this episode is the imperative to humanize the educational experience for multilingual learners, a task that necessitates a profound understanding of the dichotomy between conversational and academic language. The discourse invites educators to prioritize relationships over mere content delivery, thereby affirming the significance of students' identities as integral to their learning journey. It posits that fostering an environment where diverse voices are amplified leads to enhanced psychological safety, allowing students to engage in the learning process without the fear of making mistakes. In addition, the conversation emphasizes the importance of recognizing the rich cultural backgrounds that multilingual learners bring to the classroom, suggesting that these backgrounds should not only be acknowledged but celebrated as assets that enrich the educational landscape. The episode culminates in a discussion with Dr. Gretchen Oliver, who shares her extensive experience and insights regarding effective strategies for supporting multilingual learners, highlighting the transformative power of an inclusive and affirming educational framework.
Takeaways:
- The Wheelhouse emphasizes the importance of centering relationships in education, particularly for multilingual learners, to foster a sense of belonging and value.
- Academic language and conversational language serve distinct purposes, and understanding this distinction is vital for supporting multilingual learners effectively.
- Creating psychological safety in classrooms allows students to take risks in their learning, which is essential for growth and development.
- Honoring students' identities and backgrounds enriches the classroom experience, transforming it into a space where every learner feels valued and respected.
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Transcript
In today's episode, we highlight practical ways to humanize the classroom for multilingual learners, and we'll talk about how the distinction between conversational language and academic language benefits each student.
Speaker A:A new episode of the Wheelhouse begins right now.
Speaker A:Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to give us a listen.
Speaker A:Season 10 features a team of four like minded friends and colleagues, Kathy Mone, Michael Pipa, Dr. Alicia Monroe, and yours truly.
Speaker A:We've opened the conversation this season to think about empowering educators to cultivate open doors and unlimited possibilities for each student.
Speaker A:The Wheelhouse exists to create an inclusive community of empowered educators who believe that together we can disrupt the transactional herding nature of schooling to create districts, schools and classrooms where each student feels confident, optimistic, capable, well supported and emboldened to be and to become who they're meant to be.
Speaker A:Episodes of the Wheelhouse will explore bodies of knowledge and expertise that align to this vision and these guiding principles.
Speaker A:Our team and our guests are committed to this fundamental challenge to realize what we want for each student to experience in school.
Speaker A:In this episode, we're going to focus on the first of four guiding principles.
Speaker A:We are steadfastly committed to each learner and each educator believing they are distinctive and irreplaceable.
Speaker A:You know, for our multilingual learners.
Speaker A:Humanizing the classroom experience includes five big ideas Centering relationships before content so that students see that who they are matters as much as what they know Amplifying voices so students thinking is valued regardless of English proficiency Honoring context and identity so it frames the classroom as a place where each student's pasts enrich the present, creating psychological safety so students feel safe to try even when unsure and finally focusing on growth over perfection so it validates students as learners in the process and not problems to be fixed.
Speaker A:Today, let's dive in deeper with our special guest, Dr. Gretchen Oliver, Siena University Assistant professor of Education, Co Coordinator of TESOL Programs and the Principal Investigator, Project Director for Advancing Language and Literacy for English learners.
Speaker A:Dr. Greta Oliver also serves as an Educational Consultant for Gregory and Oliver Consulting.
Speaker A:Dr. Oliver has worked in a multitude of other roles including as a faculty member at Clarkston University Graduate School, Project Coordinator for grant funded professional development and research projects with the State University of New York.
Speaker A:She's been a faculty member for Casta, an ENL leadership coach, and as a K12 French teacher for almost a decade.
Speaker A:We are thrilled that she is here with us in the Wheelhouse today to share her expertise in supporting multilingual learners with our listeners and Keep in mind, at the end of the day, what we do for some children is even bigger than cultivating hope or killing dreams.
Speaker A:It's a matter of life and death.
Speaker A:This was a great conversation with Gretchen and our team.
Speaker A:I hope you'll listen to the entire episode to hear the details.
Speaker A:Together, let's open doors and unlimited possibilities for each and every student.
Speaker A:And now, episode six in a great conversation with our special guest, Dr. Gretchen Oliver and our wheelhouse team, Kathy mone, Michael Pipa, Dr. Alicia Monroe, yours truly.
Speaker A:Take a listen.
Speaker A:Good afternoon.
Speaker A:I'm Grant Chandler.
Speaker A:Welcome back to the Wheelhouse.
Speaker A:We're taping in the afternoon, so to be careful what I said.
Speaker A:I'm back with my amazing team.
Speaker A:Kathy Mone, Michael Pipa, Annalisea Monroe.
Speaker A:Good afternoon.
Speaker B:Good afternoon.
Speaker C:Good afternoon.
Speaker A:Just like a choir.
Speaker A:It's beautiful.
Speaker A:It's good to see all of you.
Speaker A:We're taping a day late, so my whole week is completely messed up because I'm used to Tuesday morning, right?
Speaker A:So it's good to see you all.
Speaker B:I have been off, and you know that, sir, because as we talk, and you've been trying to get me on track, and it's because I did not start my Tuesdays with this team.
Speaker B:I just have been in such a weird space and just off.
Speaker B:So I'm thrilled to be sharing space with all of you today.
Speaker A:When the holidays come on Monday and you have an extra Monday, and then Tuesday starts and you don't know what day it is, that's just the world we're living in this week.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Well, we are super excited.
Speaker A:I am super excited.
Speaker A:I know the team is as well, and thank you, Michael, for making this amazing connection.
Speaker A:We are delighted to have Dr. Gretchen Oliver here today.
Speaker A:I've done the bio speech in the introduction, so welcome, Dr. Oliver.
Speaker A:We are absolutely thrilled to welcome you to the Wheelhouse.
Speaker C:Thank you so much.
Speaker C:I am thrilled to be here.
Speaker C:And I'm so appreciative to Mike for connecting us, and I am as well.
Speaker A:He has connected some amazing people to us, and you included.
Speaker A:So we're really glad, really glad to.
Speaker A:To welcome you and to be able to have this conversation.
Speaker A:And I always try to kind of focus each of the episodes on one of our guiding principles.
Speaker A:And as I was trying to prepare for today, I was like, you know, we're gonna be talking about multilingual learners, and we're gonna be talking about a lot of children who were not born in this country, and it's like they all fit every single one of the guiding Principles are completely applicable as we talk about it, but you had to choose one.
Speaker A:And so I chose the first one.
Speaker A:You know, steadfastly committed to each learner and to each educator, believing that they're distinctive and irreplaceable.
Speaker A: And I thought, how fitting in: Speaker A:So that's where we're going to go today.
Speaker A:So I'm just going to throw out a question.
Speaker A:And as you know, we just kind of.
Speaker A:We go where we go.
Speaker A:What do you see?
Speaker A:What do you see as some of the needs and potential.
Speaker A:What is it that you'd like us all to know about English language learners?
Speaker C:Well, they have a huge amount of potential, and they bring so many different assets to the classroom with them.
Speaker C:Um, I think one of the misconceptions about English language learners is that they are immigrants or they're refugees, when in fact, many of these students were born here in the United States and they are actually US Citizens.
Speaker C:They were just raised in homes where English is not the first language or English is one of two languages that they learn.
Speaker C:And so when they come into our schools, they're learning English for the first time.
Speaker C:And we have an opportunity to help them develop by literacy and bilingualism.
Speaker C:And that's a real superpower.
Speaker C:So that's.
Speaker C:That's the first thing.
Speaker C:They bring a lot of assets to the classroom.
Speaker C:With them, we have the opportunity to work with their funds of knowledge to help them draw upon their lived experiences, whether those be formal or informal, and use those as a foundation for their new learning.
Speaker C:And so when we look at them through that asset perspective and think about the things that they can do, as opposed to their developing English language proficiency as a deficit, we can really start to look at them in a different light.
Speaker A:You know, I was in another life.
Speaker A:I was a world language teacher for 21 years.
Speaker A:Yes, I'll bet you were.
Speaker A:And I was always jealous of English language learners because of their ability to grow up bilingual or trilingual or quadlingual, and thinking about all of my other students who are struggling English learners, struggling to learn another language as a foreign language in high school, and thinking all these other students that we come in contact with have such a amazing potential that surpasses.
Speaker A:I was jealous, you know, that they.
Speaker A:Because what an.
Speaker A:What an amazing gift to be able to grow up and learn in multiple languages.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:I was a middle school French teacher, and my first, My first encounter with an English language learner, I was in the computer lab with my students.
Speaker C:And they, they hated that because they had to sit in front of the computer and they weren't in the classroom.
Speaker C:We were interacting with one another and telling stupid stories and, you know, building up their.
Speaker C:Their knowledge of the French language in real contextualized ways.
Speaker C:Anyway, I digress, but there was this student in front of a computer, and I asked the TA in the lab, what's going on here?
Speaker C:And she said, oh, he's.
Speaker C:He's new.
Speaker C:He's.
Speaker C:He's an ESL student and he's.
Speaker C:This is what they're doing with him.
Speaker C:And my heart broke for this child because I thought, well, how is he expected to learn English just sitting in front of a computer and where's the teacher?
Speaker C:And this is just so wrong.
Speaker A:I was a French teacher as well, so that's.
Speaker A:We might have to have.
Speaker A:We might have to have another conversation in another world, right?
Speaker A:In another world.
Speaker A:I just have to, you know, I just have to tell you a story.
Speaker A:I was on an airplane once coming back from France with a group of students.
Speaker A:And, you know, the landing, you know, when you're getting ready to land back in the United States, they have landing cards for, for those of us who are non American citizens.
Speaker A:And they were two French teenagers sitting next to me and the steward, you know, the flight attendant comes by and the two girls didn't know how.
Speaker A:They didn't know what they were handed, and they didn't know what they were supposed to do with it.
Speaker A:And the flight attendant just kept speaking louder and louder to them, you know, and I was just cracking up laughing, right?
Speaker A:Because I could hear, of course, I understood everything that they were saying.
Speaker A:And, you know, finally I just was like, they're not hard of hearing.
Speaker A:They don't understand you because you're using.
Speaker A:You know, we're going to talk in a different language and see how you do.
Speaker A:Right, we're going to do that.
Speaker A:And so, you know, long story, but this whole podcast is about humanizing the environment.
Speaker A:We talked last week.
Speaker A:We had an amazing conversation with a teacher, the national teacher from the Teachers hall of Fame, about humanizing the.
Speaker A:The environment for, for all students, for each student.
Speaker A:When you think about humanizing the environment for multilingual learners, what comes to mind in your geniusness?
Speaker C:Well, I think that the first thing that we need to do is just see them for the individuals that they Are we need to build relationships with them.
Speaker C:We need to help them them trust us.
Speaker C:We need to be those adults that they know that they can go to.
Speaker C:We are often their lifeline.
Speaker C:I have a student in my, I'm just coming off of my summer Foundations and TESOL class, and we have a few, few texts that are foundational to our program.
Speaker C:We read Zaretta Hammond's Culturally Responsive Teaching in the Brain.
Speaker C:We use our New York State Culturally Responsive Sustaining Education framework, and we also use the TESOL 6 principles.
Speaker C:And so with this, the big connection here is creating a welcoming and affirming environment.
Speaker C:And so we do a lot with that.
Speaker C:And I have a student in that class who was an English language learner herself.
Speaker C:And she had written in one of her.
Speaker C:Her essays something along the lines of she had an ENL teacher who believed in her before she believed in herself.
Speaker C:And that's what made her really.
Speaker C:She said that that relationship really went beyond academics and it made her feel seen, valued and safe.
Speaker C:And that's the kind of teacher that she wants to.
Speaker C:To be.
Speaker C:And so when I think of like that humanizing educational environment, that's exactly what I think of.
Speaker B:And I think Dr. Dwayne Chisum also, you know, talked to us about the belief gap.
Speaker B:And you started the conversation really.
Speaker B:That's what lifted up to me was around this.
Speaker B:We, we have all of these assumptions about students who don't speak English as their primary language that, you know, all of these beliefs that we bring to the table that more times than not are inaccurate.
Speaker B:So seeing students for who they are and allowing for that space to truly know them and creating a space in which you can, and that vulnerability can be created can be safe and allow for that humanizing environment to truly flourish.
Speaker B:But we have to check ourselves first in what we're seeing and what we're doing if we're going to be able to get to that place of, of truly building that space for students.
Speaker D:Well.
Speaker C:And one of the things that I really tried to emphasize with my students is that we have to be humble and we have to see ourselves not just as teachers, but as learners.
Speaker C:So we have to be willing to learn about our students and be able to use what we learn in, in our lessons, in our activities and use them in positive ways so that we're sending that message.
Speaker C:I see you, I value you.
Speaker C:Your contributions are important.
Speaker D:So I thank you for saying that, because identity is key.
Speaker D:I think about my experience.
Speaker D:I was a double major in college, political science and Spanish.
Speaker D:I identify as Afro, Latina, so in my household, I'm hearing patois on one side and soy boricua.
Speaker D:So I'm hearing Puerto Rican Spanish on the other side.
Speaker D:As I'm moving and matriculating through the Spanish courses towards my major.
Speaker D:It's a hard fit for me, right?
Speaker D:Because my Spanish isn't Castilian Spanish, right?
Speaker D:My spy, my Spanish is near and dear to my heart.
Speaker D:It's dialect Spanish of the country that I'm from.
Speaker D:What helped me was, it was the normalizing of that by my professor, Senora Lopez.
Speaker D:Professor Lopez.
Speaker D:Dr. Lopez.
Speaker D:Dr. Lopez gave me that love that I needed to say, okay, Alicia, I understand your identity just like you said, Dr. Oliver, and we center your identity in this learning space.
Speaker D:However, what I teach you is Castilian Spanish, right?
Speaker D:And some of these words are far fetched for you.
Speaker D:The accent is on a different syllable.
Speaker D:It's, it's my, my, my, my references for, for our nouns and our preterites and our subjunctives were different, right?
Speaker D:Because of how I learned was this is how you get along, Go along to get along when you're in, when you're in the country, right?
Speaker D:And when you're in Jamaica, West Indies, please don't use the English that you learned, right?
Speaker D:Because you will be beat up in the streets.
Speaker D:You learn the patois that we talk about and we use in, in the spaces.
Speaker D:How do you normalize that space for your students while you continue to uplift, Uplift and center their identity?
Speaker C:Well, I, I, I hope this answers your question correctly, but I, I think we really try to emphasize the point that language is such an integral part of identity and it's, it's like, it's deep roots and, and we say roots over fruits, right?
Speaker C:Oftentimes when we think about culture, we think about like dress and food and holidays and all those things that we taught in the beginning level French classes, right?
Speaker A:Yes, ma'.
Speaker D:Am.
Speaker C:But when we think about like the, the roots of culture, it is language, it's worldview, it's core beliefs, it's group values and all of those things.
Speaker C:So I hope that answers your question, Alicia, but that's kind of where my brain's going, right?
Speaker D:So I applaud that, Dr. Oliver, because that's what my, my professor did.
Speaker D:She poured in, right?
Speaker D:She poured in that love, she poured in that empathy and then said, okay, now we need to get you through this, right?
Speaker D:So I, I, I'll get it right.
Speaker D:So I literally would write the hand in the, in the language that I was used to.
Speaker D:And then she would guide me to, okay, this is, we're not going to pass this way, right?
Speaker D:When you do your analysis of Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes, right, You're not gonna, you're not gonna, you're not gonna be able to do that, right?
Speaker D:And I'm writing a 50 page paper, all right, my capstone 50 to 75 page paper, this analysis on Don Quixote and the windmills and this.
Speaker D:And I'm like having to use Spanish that is not familiar to me.
Speaker D:So what she said was write it in the hand that you're used to.
Speaker D:And then my learning process was literally translating into the language that was being taught in the classroom.
Speaker D:I also, when I, when I taught in high school, I taught elementary Spanish, right?
Speaker D:And for a period of time when our Spanish teacher had to leave for health reasons.
Speaker D:And I literally, my, my, my ESL and my ELL was not English to, to Spanish per se.
Speaker D:It was from the Spanish dialect, whether that be from the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico or from somewhere in Mexico into the Spanish.
Speaker D:That was the curriculum based version of the language.
Speaker D:So that experience for me helped me in the teaching and learning process that I was engaged in with my students.
Speaker C:Well, I want to commend your teacher because she did a wonderful job of differentiating for you and meeting you where you were.
Speaker C:She showed you, she, she offered you the opportunity to show what you learned.
Speaker C:And in a way that was where you, where you were with your language skills, right?
Speaker C:So you were able to, to show your content, your conceptual understandings without the language getting in the way.
Speaker C:And then from there she helped you to build up your language.
Speaker C:And so this is like one of those misconceptions I'm constantly dealing with, with in service Te example that students have to have a certain level of English before they can learn grade level content.
Speaker C:And that's just not the case that.
Speaker C:It's not the case.
Speaker C:They, they can learn English through their content areas and content through English.
Speaker C:We had this amazing summer program for our master's degree students put on by a veteran E L teacher where she, they learned about AquaPods.
Speaker C:And these are brand, brand new students to the country, middle school age students.
Speaker C:And they were, they, I went and I visited.
Speaker C:They were having so much fun, they learned so much English.
Speaker C:They're, they're social English developed, their academic English developed.
Speaker C:So this is one of those misconceptions, right?
Speaker C:You can learn both simultaneously and when you give them a context for learning the language, it's going to become way more meaningful.
Speaker E:Dr. Oliver, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna call you Gretchen because it just feels more normal.
Speaker E:You recruited me about seven years ago to be a supervisor in the TESOL program.
Speaker E:And since the inception of my work in the program, I've.
Speaker E:I've not stopped learning about the value our ENL teachers bring to the school community where they work.
Speaker E:Once those relationships are established and the trust is there.
Speaker E:The learning that happens for RLS isn't exclusively about English language.
Speaker E:It is about all of the kinds of learning that happens under a school building roof.
Speaker E:And what, what makes it possible are the structures that, you know, I love working with from our program, whether it's kbic, whether it's how the relationship between a content objective and a language objective serves as such a foundational concept and every single lesson.
Speaker E:And I wondered if you could talk a little bit about how the instructional design training teachers receive in the program gives them that important set of tools to leverage learning for our els so that because of the lesson design, language stops becoming a barrier, concepts are accessible now.
Speaker E:And then the structure for learning and knowledge building is taught so that there is a rinse and repeat sure fire model to create learning.
Speaker E:And that has been one of the most exciting things for me.
Speaker E:The expectations for our ELs are as high as they are for every single other learner in the building, and these structures make that possible for our kids.
Speaker E:Can you talk more about how you guys develop that and how you expect teachers to be working with that?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So we, my dear colleague and friend Karen Gregory and I, we wrote a proposal for a research project, professional development project, that was funded from the US Department of Education, the National Professional Development Project.
Speaker C:We are currently in year four of hopefully five years, and we had to find an evidence based literacy practice that met what Works Clearinghouse efficacy standards.
Speaker C:And so we, we looked at Dr. Noni Lasso and her research team's project around academic vocabulary development and we, we were working with this knowledge building framework.
Speaker C:And consequently New York State actually has developed this framework with their advanced literacies.
Speaker C:Anyway, this is where we come into that knowledge building piece.
Speaker C:And in what knowledge building does is it really, it focuses instructional units of study around big ideas and essential questions and content rich texts.
Speaker C:And so what we teach in our literacy class is having these instructional units around content concepts and then planning intentionally for language development using all four modalities, listening, speaking, reading, writing in an integrated way, and then planning for interaction.
Speaker C:Interaction is essential.
Speaker C:Kids need to be able to use the language to have the language developed.
Speaker C:They can't just sit and listen in a stand and deliver kind of setting.
Speaker C:We also want to assess language and content understanding through performance based assessments.
Speaker C:So we, we did ask them to develop language production projects and these are performance based assessments.
Speaker C:So rather than like getting lost in the minutia and you know, memorizing a ton of facts that they're going to forget later on and only do it through the written word and multiple choice tests that are super easy to grade, we want to go deep, go for depth of learning and study these big ideas.
Speaker C:And I always say I want our students to be interesting guests at a dinner party rather than a good contestant on Jeopardy.
Speaker E:Yay.
Speaker E:Well, you know, one of the things that I've been able to observe over the last six years is the impact of our else students on their, their classmates who are native English speakers.
Speaker E:Those students, as they grow through that continuum of English acquisition, more and more of their personality becomes accessible through language.
Speaker E:But the moment they enter class and are engaged in group activities with their native speaking English students, their personalities just come out.
Speaker E:Because kids are kids.
Speaker E:And the impact and connection that happens across cultures and languages, that's just human is, it's a wonderful thing to watch and to be a part of, to go in and observe.
Speaker E:It's what makes me passionate about the TESOL program and the new teachers who enter the field.
Speaker E:It's just one of the, for, you know, our colleagues who might be listening, who, you know, may not have an ENL program in their building or their population may be just beginning to develop those individuals.
Speaker E:You guys are on a really exciting track because it adds so much dimension to the learning and humanity of the classroom.
Speaker E:But that's one of those important products of all of the philosophical and practical work you guys do because it happens as a result of these new teachers who come in so skilled and ready and they just make those kinds of moments happen again and again on a day to day basis.
Speaker C:It's really exciting for us because we feel like, well, we, we've heard from school leaders.
Speaker C:We have one school leader, we did some consulting for him for the Title 3 funding he had to, to allocate for.
Speaker C:Anyway, he said to us, you guys are really helping us change the culture here.
Speaker C:We've had so many of our teachers go through your program and now everybody's having the same conversation.
Speaker C:And he said, the other thing he said was that these, these things that they're learning, these best practices, they're not just good for English language learners, they're best practices for all students.
Speaker C:And I said, of course.
Speaker C:Because who, who is a native speaker of academic language?
Speaker C:Nobody is.
Speaker C:So you know, when we're putting a focus on, on language development, on academic language, guess what?
Speaker C:All kids are going to benefit.
Speaker C:Not to gentrify things here, but all kids are going to benefit.
Speaker E:Absolutely.
Speaker E:And again, again we hear, and I hope you talk a little bit about the impact of co teaching that occurs when our ENL professionals are working with the gen ed classroom teacher and a co teaching model.
Speaker E:Again and again I hear from those gen ed teachers who take me aside when I come in to observe one of our interns and they just say, I just want to say thank you.
Speaker E:I cannot tell you what a semester of learning I've just had.
Speaker E:This is unbelievable.
Speaker E:There are probably 10 things I could list if you have a moment, that I will be doing differently as a result of my work with your candidate, your intern.
Speaker E:But that co teaching component and how we move teachers to it, can you talk a little bit about its impact on buildings, its impact on gen ed staff?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So we, we really try to position our, our ENL interns in.
Speaker C:ENL is English is a new language here in New York State.
Speaker C:We recognize that students may come to us with already two or three languages.
Speaker C:So we don't want to say English as a second language.
Speaker C:So our ENL interns, they, they will teach in a, in a standalone setting, meaning just English language development.
Speaker C:And then they'll also teach in a co teach integrated setting, usually in the ELA classroom.
Speaker C:And so what we do in our coursework is we, we prepare them to be language development specialists.
Speaker C:And so we focus on the language of the different disciplines.
Speaker C:And when we're, we're asking students to narrate, for example, what is the language of narration?
Speaker C:And we're asking them to inform.
Speaker C:What is the language of inform?
Speaker C:What are the language structures?
Speaker C:What are, what are the types of signal words that we might see?
Speaker C:What are the different types of action verbs that students would be needing to use, what other types of questioning words, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker C:Anyway, and then how is that different from, for example, argue?
Speaker C:So they really have a good understanding of the different key uses of, of language and then they understand how to scaffold the, the content in ways that are appropriate for the various levels of proficiency.
Speaker C:So what they would do for a student at the entering level in the mainstream integrated classroom would be different from some, a student at the transitioning level.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And so they know when to have more supports and how to gradually pull those supports back as students gain more proficiency in the language, we do a lot of work with them.
Speaker C:They, they know the New York State next generation learning standards like the back of their hand.
Speaker C:We insist upon it.
Speaker C:And they even know a little bit around the social studies standards, they know the literacy standards.
Speaker C:So we say to them, you know, if you're going to be integrating in these classrooms, you have to have a sense of what's going to be going on.
Speaker C:You don't have to know all the facts and all of the dates and all of the people, but you need to know what a DBQ is and what the language of a DBQ is.
Speaker C:For example, if a student's going to be having to write a lab report, you need to know what the language of that lab report is and be able to support the student in that.
Speaker C:And so that's what we emphasize in our courses and help them to develop that expertise in.
Speaker B:So it's interesting that you, I mean, I went back to my notes from last week's conversation because as you think about and listen to the conversations throughout this season and really thinking about open doors and unlimited possibilities, and you said, you know, they're language development specialists.
Speaker B:And last week Rich said, I'm a human development specialist.
Speaker B:And that really stood out to me.
Speaker B:And really thinking about how do you, how do you intertwine those pieces to be knowing that, to know that we can come in and we can, we can teach the skills, right.
Speaker B:We can teach the standards, we can teach all of these pieces.
Speaker B:Where does that human factor come in, that human development piece?
Speaker B:And really thinking about how those two intertwine.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So we just finished up our last module and the guiding question for that module was how do we create a warm and welcoming environment?
Speaker C:And we looked at all of the different roles that ENL teachers play throughout the day and throughout an entire school year.
Speaker C:And we, you know, they're advocates, they're counselors, they're the go to person.
Speaker C:They're often called upon to do professional development and curriculum work.
Speaker C:I had the students, my students look at a video of a school in Michigan where it was a school wide effort to make sure that all of the students and their families felt that they were safe and they were welcome and they were seen and valued included.
Speaker C: then I had them listen to the: Speaker C:And what an amazing person Missy is.
Speaker C:She had pictures of all of her different students and she just kind of took us through her experiences as.
Speaker C:As an ESL teacher and the different ways that.
Speaker C:That she does that.
Speaker C:That she humanizes her students and.
Speaker C:And the things that she.
Speaker C:She does to really make them successful.
Speaker C:And one of the quotes that she had, I just love this, and I hope you'll.
Speaker C:You'll take it and run with it.
Speaker C:She said, be the talent scout, not the deficit detector.
Speaker C:And I just thought that was so amazing.
Speaker C:And you know what?
Speaker C:I know every single one of my students listen to that keynote, and it made an impression on them.
Speaker C:And I think that they will take away quite a bit from that and be able to reflect on that and use that.
Speaker C:I think it will impact them because it was just so touching the way that this teacher of the year really had a relationship with all of her students, wanted the absolute best for them, and did everything in her power to make sure that they not only succeeded academically, but they felt that they were seen and they were a part of something.
Speaker A:So when you think about, you know, it's August, right?
Speaker A:It's August and everybody's going back to school.
Speaker A:They're either finishing up summer, right?
Speaker A:And they were.
Speaker A:They're getting ready to go back to school.
Speaker A:Some have started already.
Speaker A:I just finished a conversation with a district in California, and their students were.
Speaker A:Is day three with students already.
Speaker A:And North Carolina went back two weeks ago, and people are all heading back.
Speaker A:What is it that, as you think about this next year and you think about educators who are trained specifically to work with students who are learning in multiple languages, or teachers who are not trained, but who are supporting students who are learning in multiple languages, what is it that you hope that every educator who's listening to this podcast will take with them today?
Speaker C:Just embrace the opportunity to work with multilingual learners.
Speaker C:They will enrich your classrooms.
Speaker C:They.
Speaker C:They will add such a.
Speaker C:A different perspective.
Speaker C:They have different ways of seeing the world.
Speaker C:They will open up the world to your classroom.
Speaker C:Their.
Speaker C:Their developing English proficiency is not a barrier to overcome.
Speaker C:When we put a lens on language, we offer opportunities for everybody to learn about language, and that's a good thing.
Speaker C:Language is beautiful.
Speaker C:And I mean, I. I love language.
Speaker C:I'm a language geek.
Speaker C:But when we can.
Speaker C:When we can really think about language and, and how people use language and what.
Speaker C:What words mean and what phrases mean and where.
Speaker C:Where things have come from, that can be really powerful.
Speaker C:And, you know, words mean things, words carry meaning, and I think that sometimes we lose sight of that.
Speaker A:And I also think that when our students struggle, whether they are multilingual learners or they're learning in the only language they know.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And they struggle.
Speaker A:It is the language that gets in the way.
Speaker A:It is this distinction between common everyday language and academic language.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And there's a huge difference in the two.
Speaker A:And I think for teachers who are not trained in what you're talking about.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Need to be mindful of the difference between everyday colloquial language that we all speak in the cafeteria and in the hallway and the language that we need.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Which is often more formal and more complicated and more complex in an academic situation.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:I mean, it's the language of assessment.
Speaker C:If we're only using social language and we're watering everything down and we're taking like an academic text and we're putting it into an AI tool and it's simplified, we're widening that opportunity gap for kids.
Speaker C:And in a similar vein, if we're translating everything into a student's home language with, with very good intentions, I'm sure that we're not giving them access to English.
Speaker C:And, and frankly, we're sending a message that English isn't for you, that I don't think that you can handle the English.
Speaker C:So rather than doing that, we need to think about how we can engineer a text is a term that we use.
Speaker C:So, you know, you, you chunk it, you, you add white space, you, you use different text and underlining and bold and add a glossary and bring in visuals and do these different things to make it more accessible.
Speaker C:So yeah, there's, there's different ways to go about things, but certainly watering things down and, and giving students things that are way below grade level is, is no way to help them.
Speaker D:The art of languaging is humanizing within itself.
Speaker D:So it is the, it's the foundation of community building.
Speaker D:So when we're talking about powerful student care and dignifying and humanity, the basis is our geological processes.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:And the languaging and how we share, it's also empowering.
Speaker D:To give face and identity to language is empowering.
Speaker D:It's telling me, do I belong here?
Speaker D:Like you said, do you value me or I don't matter?
Speaker D:It's for us to hold space to that diversity which comes within the element of languaging that we need to really develop to really create a humanizing approach to education.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:So I, I, I fully support bringing in students home languages and asking, you know, putting that lens on language and again, using their home languages as an asset.
Speaker C:One of the ways that we suggest doing this with this knowledge building approach is when we're selecting vocabulary to see study find those words that maybe have cognates in a student's home language or thinking about how languages in general are purposeful and patterned.
Speaker C:And so maybe we're looking at different word parts, so maybe suffixes.
Speaker C:So for example, we're going to be looking at adverbs that we know in English and in ly and I know in French that ends in M, E, n, t or in Spanish, whatever it is in Spanish.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker D:Exactly.
Speaker C:So it my point here is that we can help students to learn word learning strategies by putting a lens on language.
Speaker C:We can also look at root words and we can talk about how those root words are similar in English and in students home languages.
Speaker C:And that is saying your home language is important and it is a tool that you can use to be able to build up your content knowledge and your English language skills.
Speaker A:Well, what a fantastic conversation.
Speaker A:And I really, really appreciate us being able to spend an entire time talking about the needs of our multilingual learners and how we support them in a humanizing environment.
Speaker A:Thank you Gretchen Oliver for joining us today and we'll see you next week in the Wheelhouse.
Speaker A:And that's a wrap of Season 10, Episode 6 of the Wheelhouse.
Speaker A:A special thank you to my special guest, Dr. Gretchen Oliver and the Wheelhouse team, Kathy Mone, Michael Pipa and Dr. Alicia Monroe.
Speaker A:We're back in the studio next week and we can't wait to continue the conversation with you.
Speaker A:Coming up next week in episode seven, our special guest, Dr. Shavita West, a performance coach at DeKalb County School District and founder of SL West Consulting and Opal Davis Dawson, an instructional leadership coach, co founder of the Best College Match foundation, an ASCD faculty member and curriculum strategist.
Speaker A:You are not going to want to miss it.
Speaker A:We hope you'll join the Wheelhouse Company.
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Speaker A:That's the Wheelhouse.
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Speaker A:together, our goal is to prove to each student and to each teacher that they are both distinctive and irreplaceable.
Speaker A:Until next time.
Speaker A:Remember, we got this.
