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BAP 121 Keys to an Effective Language Assistance Program ft. Khalil El-Saghir

In this episode, Khalil El-Saghir shares insight about supporting the educators of Multilingual Learners.  His background is extensive! In the first half of this episode, we get to hear about where his passion comes from.  The second half of the show ended up being a blueprint for an effective Language Assistance Program as he shares specific, essential elements every program should have.

Profile photo of Khalil El-Saghir

You can listen to this show in your favorite podcast app or right here:

Listen to “BAP121 Keys to an Effective Language Assistance Program ft. Khalil El-Sagir” on Spreaker.

As promised in the show, here are links to some of the things we both mentioned:

Wayne RESA (A Regional Education Service Agency in Michigan)

NAELPA (The National Association of EL Program Administrators)

The SIOP Model (A proven instructional framework for making content comprehensible and developing academic language.  The framework was developed by Dr. Jana Echevarría, Dr. MaryEllen Vogt, and Dr. Deborah Short)

Boosting Achievement: Reaching Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (A book I co-authored with Anna Matis)

Khalil’s email: (He offers it if you have questions)

Here are some of my favorite Khalil quotes from this show:

“You can’t be a good teacher if you can’t be a good learner.”

“We need to break down the silos.  We don’t want walls.”

“Building a viable program is a journey, not a destination.”

“We want to make every classroom an EL classroom. It is enriching to everyone.”

“I am a language learner… [looking back] as an adult, I wish I would have had those scaffolds”

Key Elements for an Effective Language Assistance Program:

Khalil is clear that this is by no means an exhaustive list, but these are definitely important principles for a solid foundation:

  • Establishing clear measurable objectives and goals
  • Hiring teachers and staff who are qualified.
  • Providing those teachers with ongoing professional learning on best practices PD
  • Implementing instructional strategies and materials that reflect the cultural and linguistic diversity of students.
  • Considering students’ backgrounds as an asset and implementing differentiated instruction tailored to their unique needs.
  • Implementing differentiated instruction for all content areas.
  • Employing multiple assessment tools to monitor progress and inform instruction.
  • Fostering collaboration among educators, specialists, administrators, families, community organizations, and leaders.
  • Providing access to grade-level content while developing English proficiency using scaffolding strategies.
  • Ensuring adequate resources such as funding, materials, technology, and professional development opportunities.
  • Encouraging districts to apply for available state and federal funds allocated for multilingual education through partnerships and consortiums.
  • Regularly evaluating the effectiveness of the program based on data and feedback from stakeholders.

My big takeaways were that collaboration, continuous improvement, support networks, and ongoing learning are key components in creating a successful Language Assistance Program that supports both the academic success and language proficiency of students.

🙏🏽BIG THANK YOU to Khalil for reinforcing these important principles. It was such a good conversation for my learning journey.

At the end of the show, I mentioned that the ML Summit is coming up this summer again!  Stay tuned for more on that! But you can go to the summit right now.  There are SEVEN YEARS of past sessions right there for you!

Thank you again for tuning in to this podcast.  I’d love to hear your thoughts about it.

Find me on Facebook

Find me on X

Find me on LinkedIN

Or just reach out to me at Carol@SeidlitzEducation.com if you’d like to know more about how we work with districts to support their teachers who teach Multilingual Learners.

Take good care,

Carol

BAP 120 Newcomer Numbers Rising? Reboot Your ESL Classroom

Rising number of Newcomers? Happened to me too. Mid-year/Winter break was a great time to hit the reset button. This was always the time of year that behavoir and sheer number of students coming in regularly made me do a hard stop to reset things. But what worked for me can be implemented any time of year. You can listen to the show on the podcast app of your choice or right here:

Listen to “BAP120 ESL Classroom Reboot” on Spreaker.

If you are not at a holiday break, a great time is after a long weekend, or even a regular weekend.  Just come back to school ready to reset expectations, reinforce the reasons we do certain activities or maybe try new things.  I thought you might like to see my top tips for getting a class back on track. Some of it is about behavior expectations but some of it is just GOOD newcomer classroom activities that keep everyone engaged. I did this same show back in 2019 but I’ve added some stuff here as well.

For example, recent data from the UNHCR shows a drastic increase in the number of forcibly displaced persons worldwide.

I also promised to share the free resources from the Boosting Achievement book.  You can find it here.   (note that it is called a ‘book study’ but you can do it without the book!)

Below is recycled from the 2019 show but it all holds true today.

  1. Routines. Have them and spend time training your students on the routines.  What should they do when they come in?  Where do they turn in homework? What should they do if we finish their work early? Spend some time explicitly teaching routines and then stick by them.
  2. Co-create Classroom Norms  It doesn’t have to be a social contract but get imput from your students. Revisit why the norms are important and allow students to help you create them so they feel ownership in the learning environment.  Here is a show that goes deeper into the steps and rationale for creating a social contract.
  3. Language Experience Approach as often as possible.  Co-creating text with your students will automatically increase engagement because you are honoring their ideas and allowing them to speak and contribute to the text you are scribing. You can write about a recent experience but you can also summarize a video or spark interest and preview grade level vocabulary or content that will be taught in their content classes.  Check out this blog post and video for a lot more on how to do LEA with your students.
  4. Use questioning strategies that boost achievement and set ALL students up for success.  All of your students will be engaged if you use QSSSA.  If you need to know more about this technique, check out this padlet by Christopher Hagy.  He used it to offer his teachers choice in their PD.   That strategy is critical for the ESL classroom.  Just practice it a lot and get your students comfortable talking a out engaging topics so you can establish the routine.   I also mentioned W.I.T.  That structure is to question with more rigor.  It is a great way to differentiate. You’ll find a WIT graphic on that padlet as well.

5. Teach Students What to Say Instead of “I Don’t Know”  Explain to your students that it is totally OKAY not to know the answer to a question.  But from now on, we won’t be saying “I don’t know” anymore.  From this point forward, they can use one of these questions to be able to find more information.  By teaching students what to say instead of I don’t know, you’re empowering all students to be successful and also giving kids a life skill they can use immediately in other areas of their lives.  It is incredibly important for newcomers to have phrases like these so they are not stressed out when they start being ready to participate and be called on.  They are also the type of questions /phrases that help as these students become the language brokers for their families (at the doctor’s office, at the grocery store, etc..)

https://x.com/DrCarolSalva/status/925171885008179203?s=20

BONUS:

Use Kahoot!   A lot!  Don’t just review with this awesome platform. You can do so much more! Here is a page with many ways to use the platform.  ESL teachers can use some of the Kahoot Studio quizzes to pre-teach vocabulary for content teachers.  You can let your students create Kahoot quizzes and more.  Did you know that there is now a single-player app?  Any of your Kahoot quizzes can be played by a student 3 questions at a time so they can review concepts on their own. If you’re the Newcomer teacher, you’ll love this video on Kahoot for Non-English Speakers:

You can even review those classroom norms by creating a Kahoot out of them!

The Boosting Achievement Classroom Management Reboot chat happened back in 2018 and here is a collection of input from so many people on what to do if behavior is getting out of hand mid year:

Something I ended the show with back in 2019 was a quote from Emily Francis. I had recently heard her say that tf your students FEEL valued and important they WILL  be successful.  I agree 100%.  Their timeline may be different as they grow in bilingualism or gain literacy.

But eventually,  if they don’t give up, and if they believe it’s possible, they will experience success.  Thank you for supporting that.

Hey, Newcomer Teacher: YOU ARE DOING GREAT WORK!! You are amazing and you ARE making a difference. I know things get so stressful when your caseload increases. Please remember that we know how to serve them. Kindness, patience, and holding them in high regard has the biggest effect on their long-term success.

So get yourself a reboot too. Please take care of yourself.

{{HUGS}}

Carol

PS:  Did you know that our Newcomer division is getting results when districts work with us to implement systemic change?  Please email me at Carol@SeidlitzEducation.com if you’d like to know more.

 

 

 

BAP119 When Perfect Ruins Your Good

Are you letting the perfect ruin the good?

Image credit: azquotes.com

You can listen to this show in your favorite podcast app or right here:

“Perfect is the Enemy of Good” – Voltaire

What does this quote mean to you?  To me, it has meant that I was not producing this show for a while because I have not had time to make the show notes as extensive as I normally do.

How unfortunate that is when I get SO MUCH good from putting out any show.  My learning is on overdrive every time I re-listen to a show to post it.  So expect more shows.  And expect them to be even MORE imperfect than ever before.  But for me, they will be good enough.  🙂

Links to What I Mention

In this show, I mention a great book by author and educational consultant (and my mentor), Nancy Motley.

Every educator should own Small Moves, Big Gains

Thanks for listening.  You are really helping me in my journey.

I hope you have a takeaway that helps you in your journey!

All the best!

Carol

BAP118 Making Americans ft Jessica Lander

I have some really great, free education for us in this show!  The wonderful Jessica Lander is here to share about her book (that I LOVE), Making Americans: Stories of Historic Struggles, New Ideas, and Inspiration in Immigrant Education.  I’m thrilled to tell you that she shares so many ideas from the book in this interview.

You can find this show in your favorite podcast app or listen to it right here:

Listen to “BAP118 Making Americans ft J Lander” on Spreaker.

Jessica is not only the author of this great book, she currently teaches history and civics to recent immigrant students in an urban Massachusetts public high school.   Read about the many awards she has won and more about her impressive background right here.

I was honored when Jessica called me a few years ago to get ideas for her research.  I was even more excited to see my suggestions appear in her book!  In this show, we talk about this and several other innovative ideas that are happening right now.  She shares several!

In the show, Jessica explains that school communities must work to nurture a sense of belonging for immigrant-origin students.  I couldn’t agree more!  So then the eight chapters of the book are organized by the eight essential principles she details on the show.  Here is a peek at the chapters so you can see what she is talking about:

Making Americans: Stories of Historic Struggles, New Ideas, and Inspiration in Immigrant Education

Introduction, Part 1 & 2 from the Table of Contents:

  • Introduction: Belonging
    • Present: Lowell High School, Massachusetts
    • Personal: Robert
  • Part 1
    • Chapter 1: New Beginnings
      • Past: Americanization Movement
      • Present: Las Americas, Texas
      • Personal: Srey Neth
    • Chapter 2: Community
      • Past: Settlement House Movement
      • Present: Aurora ACTION Zone, Colorado
      • Personal: Julian
    • Chapter 3: Security
      • Past: Meyer v. Nebraska
      • Present: Fargo South High, North Dakota
      • Personal: Choori
    • Chapter 4: Opportunities to Dream
      • Past: Mendez v. Westminster
      • Present: ENLACE, Massachusetts
      • Personal: Safiya
    • Chapter 5: Advocates
      • Past: LBJ and Education
      • Present: Guilford School District, North Carolina
      • Personal: Robert
  • Part 2
    • Chapter 6: Seeing Strengths
      • Past: Lau v. Nichols
      • Present: International School at Langley Park, Maryland
      • Personal: Carla
    • Chapter 7: Acceptance
      • Past: Plyler v. Doe
      • Present: Global Village Project, Georgia
      • Personal: Diane
    • Chapter 8: Voice
      •  Past: Bilingual Education
  • Possible: Reimagining Immigrant Education
  • Epilogue: Belonging
  • Personal: Robert

I loved listening to her share about the past, the present, and the personal examples from the book.  She has really captured what we need to focus on from those three angles.

I also mentioned Dr. Marie Moreno who was mentioned in the book and was the principal of a newcomer center here in Houston, Texas. I am super excited that I suggested Jessica connect with Dr. Moreno when she was doing her research on folks doing interesting, innovative work for recent immigrants.

In case it is helpful, here is a link to my dissertation that I talked about briefly.

And I often talk about Dr. Ilene Winokur when I talk about belonging.  She is a great person to follow as well!

Jessica suggests that we find more ways to connect and share.  She has given us seven schools/examples, that are so important to know about, but she tells us to go beyond reading this book.  The more connected we are, the more we will learn.  And the more we can share.

She poses the question:  How do we create more communities of practice so we can collaborate?  She tells us that this is the work of now.

So please connect with her and with me.  We are both passionate about learning and sharing with our online networks. That is at least a start!

Jessica encourages us to support local bookstores.  It is also available at bigger book stores and you can click here to see that Amazon has the hard copy and audio versions available.  I am listening to it AGAIN because it is just a fantastic education for me and it is such a lovely read. I really appreciate her writing and storytelling.

You can also find the book and more at Jessica’s website:  JessicaLander.com

.

You can follow her on Twitter here:  https://twitter.com/jessica_lander

and she also mentioned Instagram here:  https://www.instagram.com/jessicalander9

I appreciate Jessica and this book so much.  Big thanks to her again for all the work and everything she puts into the world.

How we can connect:

At the end of the show, I mention how you can register for the ML Summit if you are reading this real-time (Summer 2023).  That info is below.  HOWEVER, if you see this after July 15, 2023… the sessions should be streaming at the website for free so still go & check it out:  www.MLSummit.net

Larry Ferlazzo and I are excited to be Masters of Ceremonies.  We are all excited to learn together.  Just check out the lineup!

Hope to see you in the Zoom or on Twitter using the #MLSummit hashtag!  You can find me here:

THANK YOU again for being a passionate EduHero.  I appreciate you so much!

Hugs,

Carol

BAP117 Co-Creating Text to Support Grade-Level Content Learning

Want to support grade-level content learning for newcomers?  I’ve got you!  The school year may be winding down or over in many places but this is a great time to reflect on how you might use co-created text next year with your emergent bilingual students.  Or use it as part of an effective summer school routine.

This show follows Episode 115, where I explained how to use co-created text to teach literacy and accelerate language acquisition.  In that show, I promised to do a show about how to use it to support content area learning.  You can listen to this show in your favorite podcast app or right here:

Listen to “BAP117 CoCreating Text for Grade-Level Content Learning” on Spreaker.

What is LEA?

I often share about a practice called Language Experience Approach. I try to be clear that I don’t do it exactly as it was/is intended.  I am not an LEA purist because I adapt this technique based on the kids in front of me and the reason we are doing it.  But here is more on what LEA is:

Steps to Language Experience Approach (See photo for more detailed explanation)

  1. Students have a shared experience. (ex: we are looking at a poster with the water cycle)
  2. Students have a discussion about the experience. (ex: “I notice…”)
  3. Teacher writes key words and phrases on the board.
  4. Teacher writes sentences from the key words
  5. Teacher reads the constructed writing aloud.
  6. Students use the text in various ways.

The LEA [Language Experience Approach] is as diverse in practice as its practitioners. Nonetheless, some characteristics remain consistent (Hall, 1970): Materials are learner-generated. –All communication skills–reading, writing, listening, and speaking–are integrated. –Difficulty of vocabulary and grammar are determined by the learner’s own language use. –Learning and teaching are personalized, communicative, and creative.  – Can be found at https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED350887.pdf

I have written about this strategy in Ep 26 and Ep 115.  Again, I don’t carry out this technique exactly as it is explained by researchers and there are many folks who know more about it than I do.  But I DO know that some form of co-creating text *AFTER MY STUDENTS HAVE BEEN ENGAGED IN A CONVERSATION* has really helped accelerate language acquisition.

I am here today to tell you that it can also help you differentiate, it can help you be inclusive in content classrooms, and it can help all the students with grade-level learning.

Why Write?

I mention all the reasons we want writing in content areas for the average learner.  You can read about that at this post I wrote for Seidlitz Education’s blog:

Some of the research I mention on the show is from John Hattie’s Visible Learning work.  Writing can help us reflect and Hattie’s work suggests that Reflection and Evaluation have a strong effect on learning (.75 effect size).

I always mention Joseph Maurer when I talk about effective content teaching.  Joseph was a math teacher when I trained with him and he was also my own son’s Algebra teacher. We all marveled at what a skilled math teacher he was with newcomer and low socioeconomic students.  But he was also effective with gifted and grade-level learners.  In his trainings, Joseph explained that writing in Math (or any content area) is important for learners because it is basic to thinking, it promotes introspection and speculation, and it individualizes instruction (Fulwiler 1979, 1983).

I mention this math lesson where the teacher is using Seidlitz’s Seven Steps to a Language Rich, Interactive Classroom.  It shows what I mean by writing in Math being effective for thinking:

I also quote Tom Romano from his book Clearing the Way: Working with Teenage Writers.  He explains that we are not asking Math teachers to teach writing.  We are asking them to USE writing to teach Math.  That is key for effective math instruction.

Co-Creating Text Before, During, or After Instruction

This show offers ideas about co-creating text with students prior to teaching, during a lesson or after instruction.  Here are a few examples of what co-created content writing can look like:

Don’t forget to follow the incredible HS educators, Kim Thyberg (@KimberlyThyberg) for more secondary examples!

I also mentioned the amazing Aly Averitt (@AlyAveritt) as someone to follow.  She is a great Elementary teacher sharing a lot on co-creating text.

Here is the video of Ali I mentioned as a great activity we do at the end of each school year.

Here is how Gisele Belyea (@GiseleBelyea follow her too!) and her students improved on this idea using heritage language:

Also gave Alan November a shout out!  He wrote, “Who Owns the Learning.”  That is a great book that shaped how I partner with students.

Thank you for tuning in or for checking out the show notes on Ep 117.  I appreciate you so much!

Hope to see you over on Twitter (@DrCarolSalva) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/SalvaBlog).  I’d love to be connected!

Take good care,

Carol

PS:  If you missed this workshop, check out Upcoming Events to see what else we might be offering through Seidlitz Education. 

And please email me (Carol@SeidlitzEducation.com) if we can come to your district to help you develop a plan for serving Newcomers!  One day of consulting is making a huge difference for our clients!  Reach out if you’d like to hear!

 

 

BAP116 The Student Motivation Handbook with Author Larry Ferlazzo

Guess What!  I have a ton of free resources on supporting intrinsic motivation for you in this post.
Our guest for this episode is world-renowned educator, Larry Ferlazzo.  He graciously joined me to talk about his new book, The Student Motivation Handbook: 50 Ways to Boost an Intrinsic Desire to Learn.  You can listen to the show right here or in your favorite podcast app:

Listen to “Ep 116 The Student Motivation Handbook ft Larry Ferlazzo” on Spreaker.

Here are some links I promised in this show:

The book is out NOW.  Get yours here.
The publisher’s webpage for this book has TONS of free resources.
For my own learning, I wrote out notes and reflections on my conversation with Larry.  Those notes are right here if you’d like to read them.
Thanks for tuning in!
Thanks again to Larry and thank YOU for being such a passionate educator.  If you are looking for PD in podcasts, there is no doubt about that!
My best,
Carol

BAP115 – Beyond Language Experience Approach – 5 Ideas!

Welcome Back!  This episode is full of ideas for what we can do to support language acquisition through the re-purposing of co-created text.

You can listen to this episode right here or in your favorite podcast app:

Listen to “BAP115 Five Ideas to Go Beyond Language Experience Approach” on Spreaker.

Re-using the text we created in class was foundational to accelerating language acquisition in my Newcomer classroom.  We saw our biggest gains when our routines supported a culture of conversation and students were willingly reading, discussing, and writing without my prompting.  Here are five ideas for how to re-use text you have created with your students.

After a while, the Newcomer class could look like this:

Quick Reminder of HOW we co-create Text

If you want more specifics on HOW to create text with your newcomers, please refer to episode 114 or go back and revisit episode 26. I offer a great deal of information on the Language Experience Approach to co-creating text and how I adapted it for my class of older newcomers. Here is a snap of p. 83 of the Boostin Achievement of SLIFE book to refresh your memory on how Anna Matis and I recommend doing this:

A Few Ideas of What to do with Your Co-Created Text

In the show go over just five ideas (of MANY) that are being done for newcomers in language-rich, interactive newcomer classrooms.  I talk about each one in depth:

  1. Re-read these texts for fluency.
  2. Annotate the text WITH students to make it more comprehensible or more complex.  You can do both at the same time.
  3. Re-enter the text and work with the class to change the writing. (Example: Use our imagination to come up with a different beginning or ending to a retelling,…write an opposing view…offer more ideas on a subject, etc…)
  4. Use the texts to teach the foundational skills that some of the students need.  (They don’t all need the same foundational skills)
  5. After students are familiar with the above routines, have them choose activities where they are working with partners to “read the room” for one of the activities above.  Reading the room can be facilitated with scripts that lead to authentic conversations.

Creating a culture of conversation is KEY

LINKS MENTIONED IN THE SHOW:

Here are my students comparing and contrasting different things we wrote about Emily:
I mentioned the research of Stephen Krashen’s with respect to Reading and ML’s language acquisition.
Here is a slide on that:
POST-IT Sticky Chart paper is the ONE thing I ask for in terms of supplies.
If anyone ever wanted to buy things for my room, my next ask would be Saddleback Hi Lo Readers
We used A LOT of News In Levels to propel kids’ reading after they read with us often enough to have more background for the language.
Don’t think that this is too babyish for our secondary students:

Remember, so much is possible because we are creating a culture of conversation.  For that, I recommend:

  • WIT (for elaboration)

  • Quick Writes to get our ideas down on a regular basis before talking.  Here is a post on that by Joan Sedita.  But don’t over think this.  Your newcomers can just free-write for 2 minutes and then start talking

I hope this episode was helpful.  Please comment or tag me on Twitter (@DrCarolSalva) or Facebook (@SalvaBlog) with more ideas!  There are so many. I know that I and other teachers would benefit from all the sharing.

Thanks for all you do!
Carol

PS:  If you’re interested in training, coaching or modeling.  We have some great results in districts that work with our Newcomer Division.

And this is coming up on Zoom March 22, 2023 for principals and other program leaders!

  Register right here: 

BAP114 Literacy for Older Newcomers, What is Practical and Effective

How can foundational literacy skills be taught to older Emergent Bilingual students?  This show is in direct response to educators and education leaders asking about phonics instruction (based on what we are hearing from the Science of Reading) and how that makes sense for our Multilingual Learners. I have lots of resources and practical ideas for you!

You can listen right here or in your favorite podcast app:

Listen to “BAP114 Literacy for Older Newcomers, What is Practical and Effective” on Spreaker.

I completely agree that every child needs to learn essential elements of reading.  But I would also offer you that our Multilingual Learners need more.  And please know that I was making all of this harder than it needed to be.  This show will outline what I did why I did it, why the students were learning so quickly, and where the research is that supports all of this.

Here are the links I mentioned in the show:

Much of what I talked about was from the Boosting Achievement book I wrote with Anna Matis. 

 

From the Seidlitz Education Blog

I promised the link to my blogpost on using writing in content classes:

RESEARCH and RESOURCES

Third Quarter NAELPA Webinar:  LINK TO VIDEO

Fourth Quarter NAELPA Webinar

From that webinar, I mentioned Dr. Denise Furlong, Emily Francis, Margarita Cruz and Elise Diaz. I recommend following all of them!

Dec 2022 Ellevation Impact Webinar

Here is the video recording     Here are the slides with the Links

Types of Newcomers & What Literacy Instruction Should Include

I also discussed what I use to guide my literacy instruction.  This is a visual of what I was explaining in the show:

Language Experience Approach (Co-Creating Text)

  1. Discuss a shared experience, such as a field trip or classroom project.
  2. As students discuss the experience in their own words, the teacher reframes their statements, recording their thoughts on chart paper for all students to see. At this point, students are connecting oral to written language by seeing their own thoughts and words recorded on paper.
  3. Once constructed, the teacher reads the text out loud to the students, modeling the sounds of the language with expression. Then with the teacher’s help, students practice reading the text several times.
  4. The teacher guides the students in recognizing specific words and aids in their development of reading skills such as determining meaning from context, phonics, and structures of the language.
  5. Students then use the shared text as a springboard for writing original compositions.

Below is an example of a recent co-created text I did with a class full of middle school newcomers.  I explained this one in the show.  I am also sharing some video clips of my high school students using co-created text in different ways.  (of NOTE: I did not have my own classroom in these videos.  My class was conducted in other teachers’ rooms during their planning periods.)

QSSSA – Encourage Speaking and Support Them to Communicate!

Newcomers (all students) *NEED* to talk before we begin writing together.  I promised resources for helping newcomers speak if you need that.  Episode 108 has a TON of resources on QSSSA. That is our top tip for structured conversations and it works great for newcomers:

Stuck on what to write about? You may want this post by Larry Ferlazzo which has great videos for using with Newcomers.  Larry has SO MANY resources.  ProTIP:  Subscribe to his blog!

Tracking Growth and Teaching Foundations

I use assessments like the ones below to get a quick formative assessment on what a child can read.  I just highlight what they can decode and file it away.  I pull out a clean copy every few weeks to see if we have more sounds, words, etc.  I am looking to show them growth.  Dyslexia Logic has many free printables.

Honetly, I pick ONE that is a challenge for a student and track that one but the other forms at this website can help guide what you show the student or your class:

For me, the key was to use text they cared about to teach foundations.  So these are assessments to show them growth.  But my lessons done with co-created text, shared reading or text we have made comprehensible for context.

Environmental Print – Capitalize on It!

I mentioned a super-powerful idea which is teaching phonetics from print in the learner’s environment.  Here is an example of an environmental alphabet made by Amanda McLaughlin in Omaha Public Schools.

And here is that FANTASTIC MLSummit (previously VirtuEL) session by Dr. Harvey Oaxaca.

I also mentioned that I did a show a while back with Jordan Mayer.  He has great insight for teaching foundational skills.  I learned a lot from him in that episode.

I hope this has been helpful.

Please connect with me on Twitter or Facebook.  I’d love to hear from you.

EVEN MORE RESOURCES (projects and more)

Check out my Rapid Literacy padlet.  It links to other padlets with many literacy resources.  Look for a video of a newcomer doing a “personal playlist” project.  (Thanks to Noa Daniel for all her wisdom in HOW we do projects!)

THANKS and HUGS!!

Carol

CAN WE HELP YOU?  PLEASE REACH OUT!

Did you know that I am part of an amazing team of Newcomer specialists?  I am!  We would love to talk to you about supporting your district’s needs so that you can support your Multilingual Learners and SLIFE in practial, powerful ways.  Just email me at Carol@SeidlitzEducation.com to learn more.

 

BAP113 After a Traumatic Event ft. Kimberly Thyberg

Welcome to the Boosting Achievement ESL podcast. This show is about teaching your class after a traumatic event.  You can listen or watch the show in this post or find it wherever you get your podcasts.

Listen to “BAP113 After a Traumatic Event ft Kim Thyberg” on Spreaker.

In this episode, Kimberly Thyberg reached out to talk about returning to our classrooms after a traumatic event.  I highly recommend Newcomer teachers follow Kim because she is constantly sharing things that are working in her classroom.  Some of her tweets are below.

We recorded this show a while back so you’ll hear Kim and me talking about how we might create a sense of safety for our students following something difficult and frightening that we all experienced together.

I am proud to say that our company, Seidlitz Education, has now added two very important people to our Newcomer Division.

Elise Diaz & Dr. Marie Heath have extensive experience with newcomers and they bring deep backgrounds in trauma-informed teaching and social-emotional learning.  Dr. Michelle Yzquierdo was the first newcomer specialist at Seidlitz Education and I know what I know about newcomers because of her.  Please reach out ( carol@seidlitzeducation.com ) to learn more about how our Newcomer Division can support your work.

I have not had the same experience Kim’s class had gone through.  But I was able to tell her what we did when our community went through a natural disaster.  I wrote a blog post about teaching immigrants after that disaster back in 2017 and it was shared around the world. Classes in Canada reached out to my class because of that post.  It may be useful if you’re looking for ideas and resources along the lines of what Kim and I discussed.
In this show I mentioned the number of people displaced in the world and why Kim and I teach so many students who have limited formal education and have already lived through difficult circumstances.

Trauma Informed Educators Network

In our conversation, you’ll hear me tell Kim that I am subscribed to the Trauma Informed Educators Network Podcast.

At that link, you will find ways to follow them on Facebook and other opportunities to learn from TIENetwork. Their website explains that the TIENetwork is a social media network made up of 29,000+ practitioners in 100+ countries collaborating and connecting around being trauma-informed.

Teaching to Strengths Book

I also mention Teaching to Strengths: Supporting students living with trauma, violence, and chronic stress.  I have mentioned this book in other episodes, it is an important resource from Zacharian, Alvarez-Ortiz and Haynes.  You can find it here. 

211.org The United Way Help Line and Website.

Some of What Kim Did with her Students After Our Talk

You can find this printable at
We also talked about all the great things Kim shares.  She is constantly showing what is working with her newcomers.  She is a great follow!

Thank you again, Kim for taking time to talk with me about this difficult part of our job.  ALL of us have now gone through a pandemic and so we can all connect to some of the difficulties you were experiencing.  We appreciate your vulnerability and your willingness to come on the show. It helps all of us reflect and learn.

STRONG HUGS!! 🤗

OTHER THINGS I PROMISED in this show:

Nov 15th 4pm ET: Free webinar on Literacy for Emergent Bilinguals in Secondary: https://bit.ly/NAELPALiteracy

Our 3rd Quarter NAELPA/OELA/NCEL webinar on effective literacy (Elementary focus)

WEBINAR in REPLAY AND RESOURCES

 

Emily Francis’ PLC4Newcomers Meeting where I shared about Literacy for Secondary Newcomers

 

I hope these resources are helpful.  Thank you for checking them out and thank you for stopping by this podcast.  You are really extending my learning.

Take good care!

Carol

 

 

BAP112 Free Voluntary Reading ft. Emily Francis

In today’s show, the author of If You Only knew; Letters from an Immigrant Teacher is joining us. That’s right, THE Emily Francis is here to help us talk and think about free voluntary reading.   We get some amazing ideas from Emily but this show offers so much more than that!  These notes are a mixture of links, my reflections and quotes from Emily.  They also include a short excerpt from her book that I read during the podcast.

Listen to “BAP112 Free Voluntary Reading ft Emily Francis” on Spreaker.

You listen here or in your favorite podcast app.  You can watch the YouTube version or just browse through some of the resources below.

And if you want to just run over and get this book, you can do that on Amazon or on the Seidlitz Education website.  You won’t regret it!

Emily is the perfect guest for this show because she is a shining example of what is possible with passion and persistence.  On this show, we usually focus on the most marginalized student, and that is a student who among other challenges, my not yet have literacy in their heritage language. How do we help that child while helping the entire class?  Emily is still in the classroom so educators stop and listen when she shares.  And she is constantly sharing!

In her own words, “Thank you so much for having me. It’s always a pleasure. Boosting achievement is always part of my teacher tool kit, and it’s always in my heart. You always bring in excellent tasks that we can take away to better serve our multilingual students. So if know me or you don’t, I am an ESL teacher. I teach English as a second language at the high school level is my fifth year, but it is my 11th year teaching.  It is my 19th year in my district as I was a teacher assistant before becoming a teacher. It is at the High School level where I found my passion, where I found my calling, where I found where I belong. …. If you know me on social media, I’m always sharing what’s happening in the classroom, on campus, in our community, anything that will highlight the excellence that our ELLs can reach.”

PLC4Newcomers

#PLC4Newcomers is a professional learning community that has come together to share and learn from other newcomer teachers.  Emily founded this group and keeps it alive with strong guest speakers and regular learning opportunities through synchronous asynchronous connections. You can search the hashtag on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Be sure to subscribe to Emily’s blog so you don’t miss her updates on this and other happenings.

Free Voluntary Reading for Newcomers

I asked her to respond to people who say that free voluntary reading is not appropriate for students who are not yet literate in their heritage language or the target language of English.  Emily’s response was, “I think the people who have those comments, I don’t think they have seen it in action. … they need to see what it is that they’re doing. So if you are raising your hand saying that free voluntary reading doesn’t work for newcomers because they don’t have, “ the literacy skills you need to” go and see what is really happening. In my classroom, I had twelve newcomers sitting there, opening a book and reading books.  Saddleback is my Go-To!  Just open that box and they just go at it picking books that they find interesting. Sometimes it’s just the cover that it might be interesting. ‘Hey, there is something that looks like my country, let me read this book.’ As long as it’s something that the student can relate to, and as long as it’s something that the student can share that can make a personal connection, then the student can sit down and read it.  The most important thing is that they can turn around and share. You know, so I have had newcomers who may not read the entire book. They may read one page. Maybe that whole class time they took to read that one page, but that one page can turn into, ‘Hey, I made a personal connection. Hey, let me tell you, let me tell my partner what I read.’ Because there were so many choices for them. And that student finds that one book that he or she can connect with. There was one time where one of my students found one about a cell phone, you know, ‘Oh my gosh, I love cell phones! What is this book about?’ And that was it. That’s all that student needed to be able to sit down and read. So again, I’m the type that I never teach an entire book. I’m all about opening the book and finding what connects with you. And it works. And it works.”

Honoring Students

Emily also shared about the importance of autonomy and honoring our students’ interests. She explained that offering choice and grade-level text is about dignity and humanity. The audio episode is so powerful to hear Emily describe what her students get out of connections with different types of text.”  During this part of the conversation, we talked about the work of Dr. Stephen Krashen who is one of the leaders in research on second language acquisition. His work recommends that we find compelling text and then allow students to choose what they want to read.  Emily’s work is right in alignment with Dr. Krashen.

Ideas for Free Voluntary Reading with Newcomers

Emily described different ideas including:

  • word banks that are generated with the students based on their interests.
  • pairing up students who read similar texts so they can share about what they are reading.
  • developing a positive classroom culture
  • fostering connections with our students and between them.
  • Making sure they feel valued.

Posting to Social Media and Raising the Bar

I thanked Emily for sharing what her students are doing in class. Her social media posts are important for my learning journey.  She describes her intent this way,  “So the expectation. We have to set the bar as a language acquisition expert, we have to set the bar. When I post, hey, look at all the writing my newcomers are doing, look at the presentation. Or here’s a video of Louise reading in English. Then a content teacher might see that and say, well, if he’s doing that in her class, then he’s going to do that in mine, too. So, we set the bar. We do that as language acquisition experts.”

Getting to Know our Newcomers

Emily gets busy on DAY ONE engaging students in books and learning more about them.  Her explanation was “At the beginning of the year you can do ‘I am’ poems.  For example, I am Frijoles, I am Tamales, I am Mexico, I am Soccer. When you make activities that you get to know what’s interesting about the student, and then you post it in the room, that gives you ideas of what kind of books or what kind of magazines to bring in. So, there is some pre-work that needs to be done before you provide text. That way you can actually provide what they really would like to pick from.

Using Emily’s Story

I first heard Emily’s migration story when she was brave enough to write it down and then contacted me and Tan Huynh to get our opinions about publishing the post.  This post was compelling for me and for my students. We read together by chunking the text, tracking print, and stopping often to discuss what was happening.  As always, I allowed Google Translate to get the gist but we did our shared work in English.  You can do this type of activity with Emily’s story right here.

If You Only Knew: Letters from an Immigrant Teacher.

If I could recommend one book this year for your classroom library, this would be it.  When I told Emily how much the book meant to me, she said “I always have to say I thank you, and I hope you have read the acknowledgements, because I do mention you there. I published my blog about my personal life because you encouraged it. And then I got a phone call from John Seidlitz because you mentioned me at the table. So, I have so much to be grateful for you sharing about the possibilities, and reaffirming my story. Because as immigrants, it comes to a point when that story that we have kept inside of us, unvalued and unaffirmed, needs to come out. And sometimes it comes from people like you, like, hey, say your story is important, or sometimes it’s through text. I want to read a book that I’m going to say, oh, my goodness, this is my story. And so that’s my hope behind the book. So, when John Seidlitz and my editor Sarah Welch, sat down with me to talk about my book, we talked about the memoir version. Hey, here’s Emily telling her story…and it wouldn’t flow. It’s just the story of Emily. I don’t know. It wasn’t juicy. It wasn’t what we really wanted to until we started mentioning, okay, my story is like so-and-so in this area.  I started retelling students stories. And there you go. That was the key, the mixture, the intertwining of my story with the students. Centering students in the book.  It wasn’t about Ms. Emily Francis.  It was about students and their teacher. That relationship that we have built. I’ve got to learn a lot about my students through activities like I just mentioned earlier, like the I Am poems or readings, and students will come up to me and tell me how they relate to the text. So, all of these students identified in one way or another to me, and here am I sitting, looking at them and saying, oh, my gosh. I experienced what Sarah experienced. I am experiencing what Oliver is experiencing and those connections that I was able to make with students, that’s how the book ended up being letters to students.

There are eight letters in the story, and in each letter, there’s a theme that evolves. It could be immigration, it could be family separation, it could be addiction. So many things that come up throughout the chapters. But if there’s that one chapter that a student opens up and says, ‘This is me, and I can’t wait to tell the world about my story because I just read it in a book and I need to tell the world.’

So that’s one of my hopes, that a student can see this book as a mirror. And then again, those students or teachers who have never experienced anything like this, like the pictures you were just showing about teachers in South Carolina reading the stories, they don’t know what it is to cross a border. They don’t know what it is not to have anything to eat. They don’t know what it is not to be with your mother for several years. They don’t know what it is to take care of children at the age of 13. So, when they read something like this, my hope is that they have a light will go on and say, ‘I have students like that, and I need to do something about that.’ I have never experienced it, but I just read what it is to be sitting in that classroom, longing to be part of the classroom, longing to be someone, longing to break cycles, longing to be somebody. And that teacher can become that mediator.

That teacher can become the hero that student needs to reach the possibilities. So those are my hopes.”

 

I always get emotional when I hear Emily talking passionately about teachers or students. I told her that I loved this because books can be so powerful and can offer all of us that perspective.  They offer us a different world. They can transport us.  They open our minds.

As soon as Emily was brave enough to tell her story, it had an immediate impact on others.  That day it had an impact on me and it had an impact on Tan.  When she asked my opinion about what she had written for a blog post…I can’t even tell you the effect it had on me. I was blown away.  I said, Yes.  Right now.  Right now!  I thought, “This is going to be big.  This is so important.”

And it was big. Emily has continued to share her story, she has also gone on to several speaking engagements bringing people to tears and stoking advocacy from her keynote presentations to being featured on the Ellen show.

She is such an example to everyone.  It is such a powerful text because even so many young people would not have this type of experience, right? But through her book, she is giving it to them.  The book offers us so many things!  Teachers should be able to use it to teach about Mindset, a person’s value, Funds of Knowledge and more.

I recently published my dissertation on why SLIFE (Students with limited formal education) might drop out or continue in high school and graduate.  One of the major themes was how valuable they were made to feel.  It was “Degree of Esteem” that we held them in.  So even though they may not understand the words, you know, when someone doesn’t value you, you know it.  When I mentioned it, Emily had some things to say about this.  She responded with “Students will always have a story to tell about the campus they attended, whether it’s a good story or a bad story. And what do we want our students to tell about? If I belong, if you created an environment where you made me feel like I belong, I’m going to have a good story to tell about you, your classroom, and your campus. If I did not, then I will have a story, but it won’t be a pretty one. It won’t be a good story. Your name will be out there today. I can tell you I have nothing good to say about Martin VanBuren because I never felt like I belonged. …that sense of belonging, it’s key for our students. Even if they don’t graduate, because I’ve had students who just didn’t make it. They made 21. They did not graduate, but they left my campus with a sense of understanding that they have a place in society, that they can walk through a community college and get a GED and move on with their lives, because they know their value.”

They know that they can contribute to our society. So it’s really not about handing them that diploma. It’s about how do we make them feel? What place do they have in our society? – Emily Francis

I shared with Emily that she and others continue to challenge my mindset.  I shared that someone asked me why our newcomers don’t have a space on Student Council and I had no reply. These are the moments I need to help me reconsider the regard in which I actually hold newcomers.  We have to keep raising the bar in or minds and Emily is here to help us do that.

Excerpt from Emily’s Book

Emily allowed me to read just a few paragraphs from the book.  This is the part that I read. In this letter Emily is connecting to a student’s story and telling them what it was like when she first got out of high school and applied for different jobs.

“…Even when they didn’t require a diploma, there was always something else that held me back. I remember applying for jobs at banks and thinking how cool it would be to work in a nice, clean place like that. Some banks I applied for required a test to show how fast you could count money and process information. I’m not sure if it was my lack of confidence or my lack of English proficiency, but I was never able to pass those tests either. Another job I applied for was at an insurance office. All I was supposed to do was answer calls and sell the product. When I started practicing for the position, I was intimidated by the people on the other side of the line. I remember thinking, what if they ask me something I can’t understand? What if I can’t remember everything I’m supposed to know? So I called the next day and I told the office manager I wasn’t interested.

After that phone call, I realized I was not ready for the workforce. Even though I had completed my years of high school, I was not ready to contribute to society. I was scared and confused. I felt useless. But you know, Marco, we shouldn’t need a diploma to feel useful. We shouldn’t need a diploma to feel prepared to serve our society. What we need is the feeling that we matter, a sense of belonging in this country, a clear idea that who and what we are can impact those around us.”

THIS IS WHY YOU AND YOUR STUDENTS WILL LOVE IT!

Emily responded with “That’s a reflection of what happened when I was interviewed as a teacher assistant. After working so many years as a cashier, I was interviewed as a teacher assistant. And what gave me the idea that it could work, that I could be that teacher assistant is the validation of my story, the recognition that what I have experienced was enough, that what I had gone through throughout these years as an immigrant, as a student, was enough for me to contribute to society. And that’s all I needed to have that mind shift that I can be more than scanning a grocery store.”

Emily and I have talked about being a cashier and there is nothing wrong with that job.  It is a noble profession, for sure, but she had in her heart that she wanted to be a teacher.  We just want the students to understand that all of us can always go further. We can always look forward. That is the message I get from Emily is that she had that realization that she actually could do more. Always.

I loved her response to me.  She said, “It’s doing whatever you’re passionate about, whatever it is that you feel like I can contribute to society, whether it’s cutting hair like my sister, whether it’s running  an 18-Wheeler business like my other sister, whether it’s a realtor as apartments as my brother. I mean, we all have different choices. You are contributing, but at the same time, the core of that contribution is who we are not versus who people want us to be.”

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Boosting Achievement ESL podcast. I’m super grateful to Emily. She adds so much to the field and so do you. I hope you know if you’re supporting educators or supporting students as a teacher, how important you are, how valuable you are. I know a lot of times it might feel like you’re not doing enough and there’s not enough time, but I think this episode with Emily, I hope it helps you remember how important it is to make a student feel valued that has such a big impact. And yes, we are just a piece of their journey, but it’s an important piece and you can have a lasting impression.  That’s going to be one of the most powerful things you can do.

So if you’re listening to Education Radio, I’m pretty sure that you are passionate about supporting students and multilingual learners if you’re listening to the show. And so I want to thank you. Thanks for helping me with my journey and thanks for everything you’re doing.

All right, take good care.

Bye.