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Curing Initiative Fatigue

For many educators, the beginning of the school year is the best of times and the worst of times. It’s exciting to prepare for a new year and to think about creating something new—but at the same time, too many new initiatives can be overwhelming and lead to the same sense of extreme tiredness that results from mental or physical exertion. Social workers and medical professionals often deal with “compassion fatigue” from spending long hours working with people in crisis. Teachers faced with the chronic introduction of new programs can suffer from “initiative fatigue,” even before the first student ever reaches the classroom.

Imagine that you are a teacher with 22 years of teaching experience and you arrive at your beloved school to begin this year’s service only to discover that the software you had spent so much time learning and attempting to implement will no longer be used. This year, you will be expected to start again with new software and to incorporate that into a blended learning model—which is also new. Or, you are a first-year teacher coming to your first day of new teacher orientation. You don’t know anyone on staff and your school doesn’t have a mentor program. You’ve been told you will need to have your classroom ready and materials available for parents for an open house in two days. But wait! Your next two days will be spent in professional development to become familiar with the district’s latest math initiative. You begin rearranging your schedule to free up the next two evenings. For many teachers across the nation, these scenarios may sound familiar. In fact, they are so common that researchers are studying the potential negative impact of starting the year with too many new initiatives. In his book Transforming Professional Development Into Student Results (ASCD, 2014), Douglas B. Reeves labels this phenomenon the Law of Initiative Fatigue and gives the following definition: the Law of Initiative Fatigue states that when the number of initiatives increases while time, resources, and emotional energy are constant, then each new initiative—no matter how well conceived or well intentioned—will receive fewer minutes, dollars, and ounces of emotional energy than its predecessors. Note that Reeves’ definition gives emotional energy the same weight as time and resources, and that good intentions don’t change the result. When teachers and administrators are required to learn and implement new initiatives year after year, often without knowing the outcome of the previous ones, their emotional energy is reduced over time. Teachers become less invested in the success of initiatives because they come to expect that any new program will have a short shelf life.

Successful initiatives must start with strong leadership, but no matter how clear a superintendent’s vision of what teaching and learning should look like, no matter how thoughtfully chosen the team that shares the responsibility for developing, communicating about, implementing, supporting, monitoring, and evaluating the plan, the initiative will sputter out unless teachers embrace it. One of the challenges repeatedly identified by educators at all levels is unsatisfactory rates of implementation of an initiative, even when professional development has been successfully provided. Our goal here is to address possible reasons for this challenge and to propose solutions for improving initial implementation of academic initiatives to prevent initiative fatigue and lead to greater student achievement.

Challenge 1: Initiative fatigue is more likely when administrators don’t inform and involve teachers. When school districts or other organizations purchase materials and schedule professional development, it is likely that teachers are not involved in the planning or implementation process. This important step is typically postponed until after training happens, because the material/curriculum is new to teachers and administrators and the assumption is that faculty will need to be familiar with the materials before they can identify how to use them. This often leads to questions that can’t be answered and delays in effective implementation. When they are not involved in the process and adequate time is not allocated for discussion of how the new program will be implemented after training, teachers are less likely to be enthusiastic participants and more likely to resist spending the energy—both physical and mental—to put initiatives in place.

Solutions

Encourage the inclusion of a pretraining session with teachers to discuss the purpose of the initiative and to gather their input on the process and timeline for implementation as well as potential issues that can be addressed in advance. Provide an introduction for participants so that they can come to in-service or professional development aware and oriented. This introduction can entail watching a series of videos, accessing and spending time on the software, or becoming familiar with product features.

Challenge 2: Developing a process that guides participants through the stages of implementation after training is essential to reducing initiative fatigue. Professional development is seen by many educators and administrators as a necessary evil. It is often required by school districts or state departments of education for certification, and time set aside to train teachers is often mandated on a monthly or bi-monthly basis. The complaint of many educators is that each year includes training in new curriculum/programs with very limited time for startup or explanations regarding the benefit to students. Teachers have participated in days of PD with promises that a new curriculum/program/technology will lead to greater effectiveness in the classroom and improved test scores. Unfortunately, they have also experienced the reality that many initiatives are abandoned soon after they are begun, often without any real attempt at adequate implementation or delivery of support.

This cycle contributes to initiative fatigue and the reluctance of faculty and administrators to embrace yet another professional development “opportunity.” To establish greater motivation from the start, districts should provide participants with a step-by-step plan for implementation, a clear view of the resources that will be available, and an overview of the process for reviewing and revising during the initial stages and beyond.

Solutions

Professional learning communities (PLCs) that meet regularly and communicate with administrators are key to creating an environment that supports successful initiatives. Because they focus on the issues that the school has identified as priorities and build in the necessary time to look at data in order to make midcourse corrections, PLCs are a natural fit for improving collaboration. Many schools are successfully using PLCs as a way to implement a wide variety of programs of instruction without the associated burnout.

Many districts have begun to assist teachers in the development of professional development plans (PDPs). These documents are useful in identifying individual teachers’ professional and personal goals and linking them to the skills and abilities that will result from implementing new initiatives. For example, a new literacy program that incorporates the blended learning model creates a range of opportunities for teachers who are looking to expand their effectiveness through technology integration. To get the best results and reduce initiative fatigue, teachers generally need two kinds of training. The first is an introduction to an initiative’s model and strategies: the why and the what. This initial meeting allows all participants to understand what the initiative is intended to accomplish, why it was chosen, how to identify which students will use the program and how they will be scheduled, how progress will be monitored, and what will be done if students are not achieving at expected levels. It is also helpful for administrators to be transparent about what will be expected from teachers and what support will be available as they are implementing the program. The second type of training is the how, and it is live, hands-on training with the materials that will be used with students. This training is essential for understanding the features of the program and options for adapting to different student populations. Whenever possible, this training should provide teachers with the opportunity to practice in a controlled environment with trainers or coaches who can provide feedback and identify and correct any errors in program delivery. Another factor is when training is provided. Training at the beginning of the school year, when teachers are focused on preparing their rooms and curriculum, and on the arrival of new students (and often their parents), is not the ideal time. No wonder initiative fatigue begins to occur during in-service: teachers sit in a room and are expected to focus on the next new thing while worrying about how they will finish all of the items that are still to be done. The most successful implementations with the greatest buy-in from teachers result from a planned and purposeful training schedule that allows teachers to be fully engaged.

Solutions

Consider training during the summer with a refresher during in-service that will prepare teachers to begin implementing on schedule after the first few weeks of school. Start small and phase in over time. A committed group of experienced teachers who are willing to serve as the pioneers in a new initiative can dramatically increase the likelihood of successful implementation. By working out the inevitable bugs of any new initiative and devising effective strategies that can be used in the future, these few teachers pave the way for a school or district to expand the initiative to include all teachers, but without the growing pains. An added bonus is that these teachers can then serve as trainers, mentors, and coaches for new and inexperienced teachers.

Final Thoughts

Effective implementation of programs, particularly those that involve new educational models, programs, or technology, presents a number of challenges for educators. Veteran teachers who have been required to implement multiple failed programs over multiple years are often unwilling to participate in another experiment. Initiative fatigue accounts for the gradual withdrawal of emotional investment in initial training and teachers’ resistance to subsequent implementation efforts. Including educators in the decision-making and planning processes for initiatives and considering more effective pretraining and training practices can go a long way in improving teacher support for innovation and, ultimately, greater student success.

This article originally appeared in Language Magazine in September, 2016. Stacy Hurst has degrees in sociology and elementary education and during her 15 years as an educator has been a first-grade teacher, ELL teacher, literacy coach, and reading specialist. Her extensive experience includes coordinating interventions for struggling readers, implementing blended learning, and training thousands of teachers on effective literacy instruction. Laura Axtell has master’s degrees in special education and counseling. She worked with students in residential and nonresidential programs and alternative schools for 18 years before becoming a high school teacher and principal. She recently spent three years at an American international school in Thailand working with ELL students from around the world. Stacy and Laura are education specialists with Reading Horizons.

Translation Commons Partners with International Year of Indigenous Languages

Translation Commons is a social-civil society partner of the International Year of Indigenous Languages 2019 (IYIL2019) and invites volunteers to their joint projects.

According to UNESCO around 40% of the estimated 6,700 languages spoken around the world are in danger of disappearing and the fact that most of these are indigenous languages puts the cultures and knowledge systems to which they belong at risk.

To support efforts to protect all indigenous languages Translation Commons has partnered with the IYIL2019 initiative on two major projects:

1.     Translation Commons is mobilizing over 1,000 universities worldwide to create awareness around their local languages throughout the month of October, 2019.

2.     Translation Commons has created a technology committee tasked to create guidelines on the digitization of indigenous language assets.

Both projects are poised to provide rich volunteer possibilities for anyone with a passion for languages and cultural heritage.

Jeanette Stewart, co-founder and board member of Translation Commons, said: “We would like to mobilize the entire language industry and ask for volunteers – both individuals and companies – who would like to help us and work together with us on this important initiative.”

Cornelia Sittel, Director of Localization at Salesforce Commerce Cloud and board member of Translation Commons mentioned how aligned the two organizations are: “We are proud to assist IYIL2019 in this invaluable initiative to save the world’s linguistic heritage. Translation Commons’ motto is “No language and no linguist ever left behind.” This partnership offers us a great opportunity to put our values into practice.“

To get involved and find out the latest news, visit the Translation Commons website and register your interest to volunteer with them to support IYIL2019.

About Translation Commons

Translation Commons is a nonprofit US Public Charity powered by Translators. It’s a volunteer-based and self-managed online community aiming to bridge all gaps in the language industry.

Translation Commons facilitates cross-functional and cross-disciplinary collaboration among the diverse sectors within the language industry and instigates transparency, trust and free knowledge and encourages an integrated system view of our industry by all stakeholders.

The mission is to offer free access to tools and all other available resources, to facilitate community-driven projects and to share educational and language assets.

Translation Commons is targeted to the needs for professional enrichment of language service professionals and students, translators and interpreters and all under-resourced language groups. Translation Commons responds to the needs of people using endangered and minority languages all over the globe, giving them the chance to participate in the opportunities created by technologies enabling scientific, cultural and economic pursuits.

Talk, Read, Talk, Write

Teachers often feel immense pressure to cover too much material in too little time. They work tirelessly to ensure that their students are adequately prepared for the high-stakes testing that permeates the world of education. In addition to these accountability measures, today’s teachers are asked to communicate a dense and rigorous curriculum to classrooms full of students who have widely varying needs.

In their committed efforts to meet and exceed these expectations, instructional focus can get lost. It is time to move away from a spotlight that is solely placed on curriculum and instead shift back to successfully teaching students. In particular, we need to teach students how to think for themselves.

Students often spend much of their school day listening to teachers and then completing assignments related to the teachers’ mini-lessons or lectures. They have limited opportunities to orally process what they are learning, to make meaning in the company of their peers, and to read or write for authentic purposes. Why is this? Time. It takes time for students to talk, read, and write about academic topics. It is precious time that teachers are not sure they can afford to give.

As Schmoker (2011) clearly explains, however, “It should go without saying that most students won’t optimally learn facts (much less care about them) without abundant opportunities to read, write, and talk.”

Many leaders in the field of literacy, as well as those in educational research, contend that in order for students to achieve at the highest levels, they must actively participate in learning through conversation, reading, and writing (Wilkinson and Silliman, 2000; Tovani, 2004; Daniels and Zemelman, 2004; Gallagher, 2004; Zwiers, 2008). Students develop deep conceptual knowledge in a discipline only by using the habits of reading, writing, and thinking (McConachie et al., 2006; Schleppegrell, 2004).

In other words, in order for students with a vast array of needs to master dense, rigorous curriculum and to demonstrate success on high-stakes assessments, they must have consistent opportunities to talk, read, and write about content-area concepts.

To meet this challenge, teachers may reconcile their constrained time with the need to provide students opportunities for critical literacy practice by adopting the talk, read, talk, write (TRTW) routine.

TRTW is a simple way to deliver content that is centered around students’ practice of literacy skills rather than centered on a teacher’s direct teaching of a concept.
The TRTW routine can be used to teach an entire lesson but is also easily adapted as a routine for teaching individual terms or concepts.

At its core, students are reading a text to learn, rather than listening to their teacher to learn. In addition to reading the text, students engage in structured opportunities to discuss and write about the content.

The TRTW framework is instructionally significant for several reasons. Paramount on the list is that no student, not even the struggling reader, is invisible. All students participate in two conversations with peers, and those conversations directly support their ability to successfully complete both the reading and the writing tasks embedded in the lesson.

Additionally, there are many ways to differentiate within this approach. The selection of the text itself is a differentiation point. For example, a teacher can provide a grade-level article to the majority of the students in his or her class as well as a simplified version of the same article to any readers who are not proficient enough for the original text. The teacher could also provide a more advanced option, offering students a bank of additional resources that also meet the students’ same purpose for reading. Other ways to differentiate the text include providing copies with key points highlighted, teacher notes in the margin of the text, online versions of the text, or native-language text for beginner English language learners.

Differentiating the task is another effective option. For example, the teacher can have more than one purpose for reading a text. Some students may read for a literal and basic purpose, while others might read for a more inferential or evaluative purpose. The teacher can provide more than one version of any graphic organizer or note-taking support in order to specifically target what individual students should focus on during the reading. Furthermore, the writing task does not need to be the same for all students.

Some students might also need differentiation within the talking tasks. Teachers can give sentence stems and word banks to those needing additional support. Another option is to provide different questions to different groups of students. Some discussion groups only have the capacity to address one question at a time, while others could benefit from a list of questions that increase in complexity.

Lastly, the structure of this approach gives valuable time back to the teacher. While students are talking, reading, and writing, the teacher can provide individualized support for those who are struggling. Teachers are no longer the “sage on the stage” but rather true facilitators, equipped with the tools to consistently provide differentiated support as needed throughout the lesson.

Aside from differentiation, another significant benefit of the TRTW routine is that every step of the process builds academic language. Students are listening, speaking, reading, and writing in the language of the content area. They are active users of academic language, rather than passive observers of the teacher’s use of academic language. The responsibility for learning is shared with and then passed on to the students. The TRTW routine requires the students, not the teacher, to accept responsibility for learning. When they do, they become independent thinkers and problem solvers prepared for tasks both within and beyond our classrooms.

Bibliography
Daniels, H. and Zemelman, S. (2004). Subjects Matter: Every Teacher’s Guide to Content-Area Reading. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
McConachie, S., Hall, M., Resnick, L., Ravi, A. K., Bill, V. L., Bitz, J. and Taylor, J. A. (October 2006). “Task, Text, and Talk.” Educational Leadership 64, no. 2, p. 8–14.
Motley, N. (2016). Talk, Read, Talk, Write: A Practical Routine for Learning in All Content Areas (K–12), 2nd ed. San Clemente, CA: Canter Press.
Schleppegrell, M. J. (2004). The Language of Schooling: A Functional Linguistics Perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Schmoker, M. (2011). Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Tovani, C. (2004). Do I Really Have to Teach Reading? Portland, ME: Stenhouse.
Wilkinson, L. C., and Sillman, E. R. (2000). “Classroom Language and Literacy Learning.” In M. L. Kamil, P. B. Mosenthal, P. D. Pearson, and R. Barr (eds.) Handbook of Reading Research, Vol. 3, p. 337–360. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Zwiers, J. (2014). Building Academic Language: Essential Practices for Content Classrooms. 2nd ed. San Francisco, CA: Joley-Bass.

This article originally appeared in Language Magazine in April, 2017. At the time, Nancy Motley was an educational consultant for Seidlitz Education and had written Talk, Read, Talk, Write: A Practical Approach to Learning in the Secondary Classroom. She was also the co-author of The Diverse Learner Flip Book and has developed a variety of training sessions in thinking strategies, vocabulary development, nonfiction reading and writing, and ELPS implementation.

Nancy’s previous educational roles have included classroom teacher, reading specialist, intervention program coordinator, professional development instructor, and curriculum developer.

She was awarded the Alief ISD’s Teacher of the Year Award in 2003. While teaching for Alief in Houston, Texas, she specialized in increasing student achievement for a variety of special populations, including English language learners and students with dyslexia.

Noah Webster’s American Revolution

Noah Webster (1758–1843) was variously called Schoolmaster to the Nation, the Father of American Scholarship and Education, and the Forgotten Founding Father. He saw the untapped promise of the new republic. He was afire with the conviction that a U.S. no longer politically dependent on England should also become independent in language.


In his Dissertations on the English Language, published in 1789, Webster declared linguistic war on the King’s English: “As an independent nation, our honor requires us to have a system of our own, in language as well as government. Great Britain, whose children we are, and whose language we speak, should no longer be our standard; for the taste of her writers is already corrupted, and her language on the decline.”


In putting his vision into practice, Noah Webster traveled throughout the U.S., listening to people’s speech and taking detailed notes. He included in his dictionaries an array of shiny new American words, among them applesauce, bullfrog, chowder, handy, hickory, succotash, tomahawk—and skunk: “a quadruped remarkable for its smell.”


Webster also proudly used quotations by Americans to illustrate and clarify many of his definitions. The likes of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Jay, and Washington Irving took their places as authorities alongside William Shakespeare, John Milton, and the Bible. In shaping the American language, Webster also taught a new nation a new way to spell. He deleted the u from words such as honour, humour, and labour and the k from the likes of musick and publick. He also reversed the last two letters in words such as centre and theatre, and he Americanized the spelling of words such as waggon, plough, and gaol.


Noah Webster was truly a Renaissance man, a genius who seemed able to master every field of knowledge he sought to cultivate. In addition to his popularity as a writer of spellers, grammars, and dictionaries, he was a publisher, school teacher, salesman, lawyer, political theorist, and expert on epidemics that had recently swept the U.S.


His first fame came to him, at the age of 25, as the author of The Blue-Backed Speller, a book more widely read than any other in the U.S., only the Bible excepted. When the Speller went out of print in 1900, 70 million copies had been circulated.
From 1798 to 1828, Webster devoted himself entirely to what would be the crowning achievements of his busy life, his dictionaries. In 1806 he published his Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, and for the next 22 years he worked to expand and improve that lexicon, learning 26 languages, including Old English (Anglo-Saxon), Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, and collecting 70,000 words, 12,000 of which had never been in a dictionary before. Webster published the result, An American Dictionary of the English Language, in 1828, when he was 70.


Perhaps the most enduring gift that Webster brought to the art of lexicography (dictionary making) was the writing style of his definitions, which were more clearly and directly expressed than those reposing in any other dictionary, British or American. Until Noah Webster’s work, the great lexical authority was the Englishman Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (1755), which Webster criticized for its imprecise etymologies, erratic definitions, and irrelevance to U.S. vocabulary and idiom.

Shortly after Noah Webster’s death, on May 28, 1843, Charles and George Merriam of Springfield, Massachusetts, purchased most of the publication rights of Webster’s estate. Merriam-Webster has long been the largest dictionary and reference book company in the world, and the massive Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1961) is the direct descendant of Noah Webster’s mind and spirit.


The name Webster has passed into public domain and become practically synonymous with the word dictionary, as in “according to Webster.” But most Americans think that it was Daniel Webster (orator, congressman, and secretary of state) who compiled the dictionaries. So let us remember Noah Webster and his unsurpassed contributions to our American language, the man who gave a young nation a voice to sing of itself.

Richard Lederer, MAT English and education, PhD linguistics, is the author of more than 50 books on language, history, and humor, available at his website, www.verbivore.com. Please send your questions and comments about language to [email protected].

Skills for a Multilingual, Global Learning Community

In our increasingly diverse and global society, many students are in classrooms receiving instruction in a language that is not their primary language and engaging in new situations with unfamiliar language and practices. Students who are culturally and linguistically diverse are all over the world, and thus their literacy development is a global issue. These multilingual learners face real challenges as they strive to learn rigorous academic content and prepare for college and careers.

Academic Literacies

To support the literacy development and achievement of our multilingual learners, we must extend our focus on discrete language features of academic language (e.g., vocabulary, syntax) as the benchmark of language learning to include academic literacies. Generally speaking, academic literacies develop from making meaning in interactions and engagement in a given situation. They include “knowledge and skills needed to read and write, as well as competencies and understandings of language, its contexts, and its uses” (Molle, Sato, Boals, & Hedgspeth, 2015, p. 277). Such competencies are the ones we should work on developing, rather than simply addressing language in terms of its discrete features or in a manner disconnected from academic content. By doing so, we can help our multilingual learners develop literacy that will facilitate achievement across multiple disciplines and contexts.

Our multilingual learners are challenged with learning the language of instruction at the same time they are learning rigorous academic content. For example, they may be English language learners (ELLs) learning geometry in a class taught in English by an English-speaking teacher. The academic instruction in English includes language critical to learning geometry—for example, words like coordinate and trapezoid, and structures such as those in a geometric proof—as well as ways of communicating and engaging with the content (e.g., individualist vs. collectivist, inductive vs. deductive) that may be unfamiliar to the student. These all pose challenges to someone learning the English language while working to achieve academically.

All students bring to the learning situation competencies that can be leveraged (Hickey & Lewis, 2015; Molle et al., 2015). There are a number of ways educators can tap into existing competencies in order to support multilingual learners’ literacy development. Generally, literacy development involves all four modalities of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Providing opportunities for students to draw on individual strengths (e.g., knowledge, skills, experiences) and use the four language modalities while learning academic content is critical. The nature of the task and conditions for such learning matter, and although the following considerations for facilitating literacy development, including considerations for supporting the development of academic literacies, reflect practices that benefit all learners, they can be particularly beneficial for multilingual learners in situations where their primary language is different from the language of instruction.

Interactions help students make meaning, so providing regular opportunities for students to interact in a purposeful manner is important. Interactions include those between the student and teacher as well as peer interactions, and these interactions can involve all four modalities (e.g., think-pair-share or write-pair-share, “jigsaw” activity, partner/group problem solving). When planned with a clear purpose related to specific learning goals and appropriately managed and supported, interactions provide opportunities to integrate language and literacy competencies with discipline-specific content, as well as allowing participants to draw on and apply individual strengths (Darling-Hammond, Austin, Orcutt, & Martin, 2003). Research shows that students who experience positive interactions—that is, when students are treated as interesting and valuable participants and their contributions are accepted and/or extended by the other(s) with whom they are interacting—are likely to have increased confidence in their ability to contribute to collaborative meaning-making and are likely to become more knowledgeable about the topics that are discussed (Wells, 2009).

Scaffolding is what teachers do for students to give them just enough support to advance their knowledge and skills while enabling them to reflect on and articulate their thoughts and learning (Darling-Hammond et al., 2003). Generally, scaffolding language and content for multilingual learners can take many forms, including paraphrasing (e.g., to define or describe information using alternate wording), highlighting (e.g., to help focus attention on or emphasize information), modeling (e.g., to show or demonstrate information), encouraging (e.g., to elicit or help refine thinking or behavior), praising (e.g., to support developing or desired thinking or behavior), and validating (e.g., to reinforce desired student performance) (The Petrie Partnership for Teacher Excellence Curriculum Development, 2009). Scaffolding also can provide task-specific support in the form of explanations, demonstrations, hands-on activities, and resources (e.g., visual, aural, tactile) that align with specific learning goals and address the developing needs of the student (Hammond & Gibbons, 2005; Hickey & Lewis, 2015). For multilingual learners, drawing attention to linguistic differences can facilitate their development of academic literacies as well as domain-specific understanding. Explicit discussions of how, for example, academic registers differ along different linguistic features and for different audiences and purposes support students’ understanding and use of language (Hickey & Lewis, 2015). Such analyses also can help students learn how to think about language and articulate thoughts about language (metacognition, metalanguage), which also aid their literacy development and learning (Hickey & Lewis, 2015; Young & Fry, 2008).

Decisions about how to structure interactions and which scaffolds to provide students can be informed by the students’ levels of language development. Prepro­duction, also known as the silent period, is the stage at which learners have some receptive vocabulary but do not yet speak the second language. Not all learners go through this stage, but if a learner speaks during this stage, the learner’s utterances typically are imitations of what is heard rather than creative language use. Early production is the stage at which learners are able to speak in short one- or two-word phrases. Learners at this stage also can memorize chunks of language; however, there may be mistakes in their utterances. Speech emergence is the stage at which learners can communicate using simple questions and phrases; however, there may be grammatical errors. Intermediate fluency is the stage at which learners can use more complicated sentence structures and share their thoughts and opinions. At this stage, learners still may make frequent errors when using more complicated sentence structures. The final stage, advanced fluency, is when learners can function at a level close to native speakers (Haynes, 2007; Robertson & Ford, 2015; Williams, 2015).

Across all stages, the following are critical to underscore in supporting the development of literacy and content understanding in our learners (Molle et al., 2015):

• There should be regular opportunities for students to practice and develop both their language and their understanding of academic content. Such practice should have clear goals and feedback that will help student learning and achievement. The practice opportunities could be an individual activity or an activity with peers, and these opportunities could involve all four language modalities.

• Examples that give students the opportunity to engage with and understand both content and language are important for the development of student literacy and content understanding. Using examples that relate to the students’ backgrounds and to settings that are familiar to the students presents opportunities for the students to make connections between their backgrounds and experiences and the new language and/or content to be learned. Discussions of examples provide opportunities, as appropriate for the students’ ages and levels of language development, to include the modeling of metacognitive and metalinguistic awareness.

As we implement more rigorous academic standards and our student population becomes increasingly diverse, we have an opportunity to rethink how we prepare our students for college and careers. A broader definition of literacy that extends beyond the instruction of discrete linguistic features to include academic literacies, along with strategies that are mindful of the particular challenges of multilingual learners and the knowledge and experiences they bring with them to the learning situation, can help us prepare our learners to succeed across a range of disciplines and contexts.

Notes 1 The focus here is on academic language and literacies and facilitating their development through interactions that are more structured than interactions that are typical of social, conversational language. Academic language and literacies and social, conversational language are not distinct, though there are differences. With respect to this discussion, the latter is important for the practice opportunities it provides language learners in terms of, for example, different registers, and it also presents opportunities for scaffolding and feedback in situations that are less formal than that in an academic lesson. However, specific discussion related to social, conversational language and its relationship to the development of academic language and literacies is beyond the scope of this article.

References

Darling-Hammond, L., Rosso, J., Austin, K., Orcutt, S., & Martin, D. (2003). The Learning Classroom: Theory into practice. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University.
Hammond, J. & Gibbons, P. (2005). “Putting scaffolding to work: The contribution of scaffolding in articulating ESL instruction.” Prospect, 20(1), 6-30.
Haynes, J. (2007). Getting Started with English Language Learners: How educators can meet the challenge. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Hickey, P. J. & Lewis, T. (2015). “To win the game, know the rules and legitimize the players: Disciplinary literacy and multilingual learners.” The Language and Literacy Spectrum, 25.
Hill, J. D. & Bjork, C. L. (2008). “Classroom instruction that works with English language learners participant’s workbook.” Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/ books/108053/chapters/The-Stages-of-Second-Language-Acquisition.aspx.
Molle, D., Sato, E., Boals, T., & Hedgspeth, C. A. (Eds.) (2015). Multilingual Learners and Academic Literacies: Sociocultural contexts of literacy development in adolescents. New York: Routledge.
Robertson, K. & Ford, K. (2015). “Language acquisition: An overview.” Retrieved from http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/language-acquisition-overview#h-instructional-strategies.
Shenendehowa ESL (2015). “The four stages of language acquisition.” Retrieved from http://www.shenet.org/arongen/ sfarenell/P04.htm.
The Petrie Partnership for Teacher Excellence Curriculum Development (2009). “L2 acquisition & ESL methodology & techniques for content-area teachers.” Retrieved from http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/teachlearn/mms/english_language_learners.
Wells, G. (2009). “The social context of language and literacy development.” In Barbarin, O. A., Frome, P., & Marie-Winn, D. (Eds.) The Handbook of Child Development and Early Education (pp. 271-302). London: Sage.
Williams, V. (2015). “Building to code.” Language Magazine. Retrieved from https://languagemagazine.com/?page_id=124487.
Young, A. & Fry, J. D. (2008). “Metacognitive awareness and academic achievement in college students.” Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 8(2), 1-10.

This article originally appeared in Language Magazine in November, 2015. At the time, Edynn Sato was a principal research scientist in the Center for NextGen Learning & Assessment at Pearson’s Research & Innovation Network. Dr. Sato’s research focused on issues affecting the learning and achievement of English language learners and students with disabilities. Prior to joining Pearson, she worked in academic, nonprofit, small for-profit, Fortune 500, and internet-based organizations. Dr. Sato received her master’s degree and doctorate in education from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Managing Diversity

“I know that I don’t have a background in working with English language learners, but aren’t you using far too many videos in your class?” said the district level administrator. “You need to make sure that you are teaching the curriculum ‘as is.’ We can’t have you teaching any differently than the other teachers.” The principal stood by silently after admitting unfamiliarity with best practice for ELs but sided with his supervisor. Unfortunately, variations on this conversation are being repeated in schools throughout the country.

Administrators or team lead teachers without knowledge of second-language acquisition and best practices for providing culturally and linguistically responsive instruction often question EL specialists or even pressure them to alter their teaching methods. Many EL teachers I have spoken to nationwide say they feel like they are being turned into reading specialists who happen to work with ELs. Many schools, in a misguided attempt to help ELs close the achievement gap, are not actually meeting their needs and are missing out on the many benefits of having a culturally and linguistically diverse student population. I strive to be the type of administrator who will have the information needed prior to making any programmatic decision that will impact a student.

As an EL/bilingual teacher, I worked with a wide range of administrators. There were some who trusted my knowledge and experience in working with EL students and either sought information from me on best practices or wanted to understand my rationale for the approaches I was using. These administrators were usually supportive when I requested materials or approval for carrying out special projects with my students. Others, such as the one in my introduction, did not have an understanding of second-language acquisition yet they wanted to control the instructional delivery, even when I knew it was against best practice. I did my best to advocate for my students while following administrative guidelines. Informed administrators are at the core of providing the increasing number of ELs with the instruction they need to increase their English language proficiency and to meet or exceed rigorous academic standards.

Required of All Schools

Federal law requires that all students qualifying as LEP (Limited English Proficient) must be provided an equal opportunity to access curriculum and instruction which is appropriate for their current level of English-language proficiency. All teachers are legally responsible for the education of EL students, not only the bilingual or EL specialists. Administrators must ensure that their bilingual and EL students are making gains in English-language proficiency while meeting challenging academic standards. EL and bilingual students need to receive culturally and linguistically responsive instruction from every staff member who works with them.

Furthermore, schools must strive to build connections with all of the parents of their school communities. The parents of our EL and bilingual students often remain outsiders from our schools for a variety of reasons, including their own limited English proficiency and unfamiliarity with both the structure of American schools and the opportunities to become involved. Some cultural belief systems hold explicit trust in the education system to provide their children with what they need to make academic gains. When families speak other languages, they may feel both intimidated and disenfranchised by their inability to comfortably communicate through the dominant language of power, English.

Administrators need to look at all aspects of their schools through the lens of EL or bilingual families. Are signs in place that will help all feel welcomed? Are documents and newsletters provided in multiple languages? Do families have the ability to translate content from your website easily into their native languages? Are there representative members from your school population participating in parent/teacher organizations? Are family members provided the opportunity to spend time volunteering in classrooms or sharing information about their cultures?

While there are external signs to look for in a school to determine the level of inclusion of all families, there is a deeper, less-visible layer to a school that must also be examined. This layer is the level of bias and cultural superiority that can be expressed silently through the attitudes and actions of staff members who may have deeply ingrained beliefs such as “they live in this country and they need to learn English.” Even if this message is never directly articulated, if the belief is held by staff members, it will be felt by those with culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

Administrators must help their staff honestly evaluate their convictions and beliefs while articulating the clear expectation that the building not only values but celebrates diversity. Multilingualism is not viewed as a deficit but as an asset; this viewpoint is demonstrated at all levels. All students are encouraged and provided opportunities to become multilingual so they can excel in our increasingly global community. Do students in the school feel that they should maintain their native languages as they increase their English-language proficiency? Do multilingual students understand and feel the pride of having more than one language? Are teachers encouraged to reach out to both families and students in their native languages?

Knowledge Is Power

Even when all students and families feel welcomed, and valued and are actively involved within a school community, are EL and bilingual students receiving the instruction that they need to succeed? Are administrators familiar with best practices in EL and bilingual instruction? Do they know what to look for as they observe the instruction of EL and bilingual students in all settings throughout the school? Can they provide instructional leadership and support to those teachers who are finding increasing numbers of EL and bilingual students in their classrooms?

Administrators need to acquire the knowledge necessary to ensure culturally and linguistically responsive instruction for all of their students. This includes knowledge of second-language acquisition, understanding common myths and misconceptions regarding EL and bilingual education, visible ways to embrace native language and culture, establishing learning communities that encourage students to take risks with their new language, and providing comprehensible input that provides access to academic content, while continually moving students to increasing levels of English proficiency.
There are several key practices in place in the schools that are successfully meeting all of the needs of their EL and bilingual students. Some of these include:

• Comprehensible Input: Ensuring that teachers know the current English-language-proficiency levels of their students and plan instruction and content assessments accordingly. Students are continually receiving meaningful instruction, and assessments are reflective of academic gains rather than current English levels.

• Explicit Objectives: Schools that are meeting the needs of EL and bilingual students require staff to provide students explicit content and language objectives for each learning episode. All students understand what they are to learn in each lesson. These objectives start and end the lessons. Students are provided opportunities to reflect and take ownership of their learning.

• Increased Student Talk: Teachers structure their classes so that all students have several opportunities to engage in academic conversations with peers. This may be with a partner or small group. All students have time to share their thinking and make newly acquired academic content and vocabulary their own. There is an intentional shift to decrease teacher talking time while increasing student talk.

• Skillful Scaffolding: Teachers support their students’ learning through scaffolding techniques that enable students to gain academic knowledge while increasing language development. They make use of instructional aids such as graphic supports including charts, tables, graphic organizers, or timelines. In addition, sensory supports such as realia, videos, manipulatives, and models, along with interactive supports through cooperative structures such as partner work, small groups, and use of native language is part of a successful program.

• Meaningful Use of English: Providing students with meaningful, authentic reasons to use their new English language. This may include involvement in service learning projects such as writing to seniors or veterans, publishing and sharing their own stories, and becoming writing buddies with other students or mentors. All of these provide reasons to use English while building connections to the school community and empowering the students.

Response to Intervention (RtI)

While schools across the country are using differentiated instruction, problem-solving teams, research-based interventions, and data to best meet the needs of all students, many do not have considerations in place when working to best meet the needs of EL and bilingual students who are not making gains. As administrators, we must review our current RtI system and ensure that we are not under- or over-identifying EL and bilingual students as qualifying for special-education support services. Is a student’s struggle to make academic growth a language issue or a processing issue?

First, we must circle back to the quality of core instruction that our EL and bilingual students are receiving. If students do not have comprehensible instruction or their academic growth is being measured through assessments that are beyond their current English-proficiency level, then we must address this core deficit before accurately determining a student’s academic ability. Once confident in the appropriateness of instruction and assessment, we need to look closer at language or ability to learn.

We need to provide relevant information to all team members that includes the students’ formal academic backgrounds and their language allocation indicating the expressive and receptive use of languages in the home. Interviews with the families should also be conducted to determine if the families have any of the same concerns or observations regarding the students’ learning or language use at home. It is important to explore any cultural beliefs that may be impacting a student’s educational experience, such as not asking questions or interacting with students of another gender. The better we understand the individual learner we are trying to help, the better we will be able to make the appropriate determinations about his or her learning.

We may need to conduct qualification testing both in English and the native language to provide the data needed to arrive at informed decisions. If we are implementing an intervention for that student, we need to ensure that it has been researched to show effectiveness with EL or bilingual students. If the determination is made that an EL or bilingual student is in need of receiving special-education support, it is imperative to ensure that the student continues to receive language support services and that your special education staff receives training in best practices for EL and bilingual students. Effective schools have structures and protocols in place to ensure that all staff members working with the same students collaborate and plan together on a regular basis.

Proportional Increase

As the number of English language learners and bilingual students continues to increase in our nation’s schools, it is our responsibility to increase our knowledge base in this area to best meet their needs. If administrators continue to lead without this information, we face increasing risk of the achievement gap widening, students not connecting with our schools, and students slipping through the system without realizing their true potential. These factors will contribute to the increase of the dropout rate of this population. We must walk the talk of lifelong learning and take the steps needed to confidently lead the education of all of our students.

You can further your knowledge base in this area through professional journals, blogs, and online articles. Consider enrolling in a graduate course relating to the education of EL and bilingual students. Go directly to the source: learn from the knowledge and experience of an EL or bilingual teacher or director whom you respect. Use your knowledge to survey your school, take action, make improvements, articulate expectations, and support your teachers in meeting the needs of all of our students.

This article originally appeared in Language Magazine in January, 2015. At the time, Anne Scatchell was an assistant principal at Sarah Adams Elementary School in Lake Zurich, IL. She designed and taught a graduate-level course in innovative methods for teaching EL at the Illinois Resource Center for National Louis University. She presented at the state and national level on EL topics and was a contributing author to TESOL publication Language Teaching Insights from Other Fields.

Destination Andalucía

Leanna Robinson rallies for Andalucía as a study abroad location for Spanish immersion

There is nothing quite like learning Spanish in Spain. While many people set their sights on popular large cities like Barcelona or Madrid, smaller and often overlooked cities, such as Granada, have many upsides as immersion locations. Looking outside of the mainstream has many advantages for students and is often rewarded with an enriching and unique experience that major cities cannot offer. I decided to see for myself what studying Spanish in Andalucía would be like and set off to Escuela Delengua in Granada this June to learn not only the language but the culture and history of the region as well.

Small-City Benefits

The allure of learning Spanish in larger cities is understandable—many social opportunities, big-city living, great restaurants, museums, entertainment, and large populations of foreign visitors. These upsides are also their downsides. In large, popular cities, many locals speak English in order to communicate with English-speaking travelers. Sometimes prospective learning environments where immersions students could practice their Spanish-speaking chops, such as restaurants, markets, and social situations, are missed out on because the students speak English instead of Spanish. While many people in smaller cities such as Granada speak English (and other languages like German and French), it is more likely to encounter Spanish monolinguals in a smaller city. This allows students to practice their Spanish-speaking skills at all times without reverting to English.


There is also something to be said about being able to settle into an immersion language-learning environment. In a large city such as Madrid or Barcelona, it can take months or even years to fully grasp and understand the layout of the city. Smaller cities, on the other hand, are easier to navigate and offer environments in which students can learn how to get around within days. This gives students an opportunity to feel as if they are living in a place rather than just visiting.

On Andalucía

The history of Spain and its various kingdoms is rich and complicated, making for good content for language learning, but the legacy of Moorish rule from the eighth to 15th century makes the historical background of the southern region of Spain unique and distinct. The large, autonomous region takes its name from Al-Andalus, the Arabic name for the Muslim-occupied area of modern-day Spain. In its early period, it was a medieval Muslim territory and cultural domain that occupied most of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and even parts of France as far as the Alps. The boundaries of Al-Andalus changed as Christians reconquered the peninsula, eventually shrinking to the south around modern-day Andalucía, and then to the Emirate of Granada.


The 800 years of Arabic influence are evident in the architecture and culture of the streets of Granada, where Arabic is spoken alongside Spanish. This is especially common in the Albaicín, a district within the city that has retained its narrow, winding cobblestone streets from its medieval times and been rewarded with recognition as a World Heritage Site. Escuela Delengua is located at the lower end of this neighborhood, so I was lucky enough to walk through its streets every day. The influence of Granada on the history of Spain has been recognized in the national flag, where a part of the crest depicts a flower symbolizing the kingdom of Granada.
From the Alhambra in Granada to the Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba to the Royal Alcázar of Seville, Andalucía is filled with architectural sites for language students to enjoy. A tip is to take audio tours of architectural sites in Spanish to further practice listening skills. A wonderful aspect of studying in Granada and Andalucía in general is that the region is dotted with villages called pueblos blancos, or white villages, which are just a short bus or car ride away. Most schools have planned excursions to take on the weekends, and Escuela Delengua offered trips to a region of these white villages called the Alpujarras. The region, which is located on the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains adjacent to Granada, is a great place to dig deeper into the Moorish history of the region. The villages were the last stronghold of the Moors when they fled from Granada in 1492 after being forced to convert to Christianity. When visiting the Alpujarras, I made sure to do as the locals do and eat the rustic food of the region, including chorizo, blood sausage, Serrano ham, and fresh eggs. Like much of Spain, it’s not quite a vegetarian’s paradise, although there are vegan and health-food stores in some of the villages.


Andalucía isn’t just mountains and villages, though. Just south of Granada is the Costa del Sol, a region of sprawling coastline with yellow-sand beaches, caves, and high-rise resorts. Málaga is a popular destination for both its beaches and its history. The city is the birthplace of Picasso and one of the oldest cities in the world, having been founded in 770 BC. Schools such as the Malaca Instituto offer intensive and superintensive classes for students looking for a more cosmopolitan beach environment for immersion classe


Granada is also a great place for language learners on a budget, as it is still
customary for bars and restaurants to offer free tapas to accompany each beverage ordered. Students should make like Granada locals and enjoy a glass of sangria or soda while munching on some free paella before setting back to their apartments or homestays for a siesta.

Learning Face to Face


When learning a second language, nothing beats learning in an immersion environment. I began my classes at Escuela Delengua by taking a placement test and was put in a small group of four people—with a French woman, a Scotsman, and a man from Austria. The mixed backgrounds made it fun and dynamic and improved my listening skills, as I had to learn how to understand Spanish in a French accent when talking to my classmate.


The first hour and a half were composed of a grammar lesson, followed by a 30-minute break and then an hour and a half of conversation with a different teacher. The teachers were enthusiastic and engaging, particularly since they incorporated current events and history into their lessons. I was lucky enough to be in Granada during their Corpus Christi—a week-long celebration of processions, flamenco, tapas, and music. The celebration happens in tandem with Granada’s feria, which is a standard fair complete with rides and cotton candy.


Each week we changed teachers, which kept the classes feeling fresh and interesting. Throughout the days and weeks, I felt myself growing more confident in the conversation part of class and could sense my Spanish improving. Like with anything, students get out what they put in. When taking immersion classes, it’s important to participate in conversations and activities instead of just going through the motions or sitting back quietly.

¡Estoy Flipando en Eolores!


Studying Spanish in Granada at Escuela Delengua was everything that I expected and more, and I cannot recommend it enough for people of any age interested in learning Spanish at an immersion school. Letting oneself soak in the southern Spanish air, surrounded by fields of sunflowers and olive trees, while listening to someone pluck a Spanish guitar in the distance sounds like a dream but is reality in Andalucía—a region perfect for settling in and learning about the language and culture of Spain.

Leanna Robinson is assistant editor and creative director of Language Magazine.

Google Translate Camera Gets Automatic Upgrade

The Google Translate camera app has long been a source of quick and convenient translation. Simply hold up the camera to text that is in a language that you don’t understand, whether it’s a menu, street sign, or poster, and the camera will (theoretically) translate the text for you into the language that you understand. While this feature is handy, the upgrade for automatic detection of language takes the guesswork out of using the app. Say you are in a country where the people speak multiple languages, and you approach a sign that you don’t know which language the writing is in, instead of guessing and toggling through options on the camera app, the app not automatically detects the language.

Google Translate’s camera (or computer vision translation capabilities) also got an upgrade with an addition of 60 new languages for instant translation. Approximately 25 of the newly added languages, including Arabic, Swahili, and Urdu, are available for offline translations and require no network connection. However, translations are more accurate when your device is connected to the internet.

There’s also a new look with three features on the bottom of the app. “Instant” translates text into your language when you simply point your camera at it. “Scan” is used for when you take a photo of text to be translated, and highlight the text to translate into your native language. “Import” lets you translate text from photos that you have already taken.

Below are the languages from which you can translate:

Afrikaans

Albanian

Arabic

Azerbaijani

Basque

Belarusian

Bengali

Bosnian

Bulgarian

Catalan

Cebuano

Chichewa

Chinese

Corsican

Croatian

Czech

Danish

Dutch

English

Esperanto

Estonian

Filipino

Finnish

French

Frisian

Galician

German

Greek

Haitian Creole

Hausa

Hawaiian

Hindi

Hmong

Hungarian

Icelandic

Igbo

Indonesian

Irish

Italian

Japanese

Javanese

Kazakh

Korean

Kurdish

Kyrgyz

Latin

Latvian

Lithuanian

Luxembourgish

Macedonian

Malagasy

Malay

Maltese

Maori

Marathi

Mongolian

Nepali

Norwegian

Pashto

Persian          

Polish

Portuguese

Romanian

Russian

Samoan

Scots Gaelic

Serbian

Sesotho

Shona

Sindhi

Slovak

Slovenian

Somali

Spanish

Sundanese

Swahili

Swedish

Tajik

Thai

Turkish

Ukrainian

Urdu

Uzbek

Vietnamese

Welsh

Xhosa

Yoruba

Zulu

You can translate the source language into any of the languages supported in Google Translate.

Playing With Other Children Affects Toddlers’ Language Skills

According to a new study published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, any toddlers who have more exposure to other children, such as those in daycare, may be particularly good at certain word learning skills. Young language learners acquire their first language(s) from the speech they are exposed to in their environment. For some children, like those in daycare, this environmental speech includes a large quantity of speech from other children, rather than from just adults and parents. Researchers at the University of Waterloo examined the word processing skills of toddlers who spend most of their time with adults, compared to those toddlers who have more exposure to groups of children. The researchers were interested in how well the toddlers understood the speech of other children.

Across two experiments, researchers assessed 21 to 23 month olds processing of a child’s speech, and found that toddlers processed the child speaker’s productions as well as those of an adult and with the same level of sensitivity to phonetic detail previously shown for adult speakers. This means that the toddlers understood the child speaker at roughly the same ability as an adult speaker. Although all of the children were good at processing child speech, the study found that toddlers who had more exposure to other children were better at associating a new word to a new object, which is a key process for language learning.

Very young children’s speech is characterized by a number of differences from adults. These changes include (among others) substitutions of one sound for another (e.g., fumb for thumb) and omissions of sounds (or syllables) altogether (e.g., nake for snake) and can lead to low intelligibility. The majority of these more significant deviations have decreased by 4 years of age, and they are largely absent after 6 years. However, even once these larger deviations are no longer present, children continue to show less accuracy and more variability in their productions than adults. These deviations and increased variability mean that child speech may be more difficult for young language learners to process than adult speech.

Because toddlers who have more environmental experience around other children were able to understand and identify new (or novel) words with new (or novel) objects, it led researchers to a few conclusions. One conclusion is that speaker variability introduced during the learning process affects attention to phonetic detail and the generalizability of word representations. Another possibility is that exposure to multiple speakers in the environment has effects on vocabulary size (perhaps via the influence of variability or as a result of having a wider variety of interactions in which different topics or objects are discussed) and that this in turn affects novel label processing.

Overall, these findings demonstrate that child speech may represent useful input for young language learners.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022096518305629?via%3Dihub

New Spanish Program for Early Grades

Alba y Gael is a new series from Difusion for grades 2–6, designed to comply with the World Readiness Standards for Learning Languages as recommended by ACTFL, to include communication, cultures, connections, comparisons, and communities.
The series provides a Spanish language curriculum designed exclusively for children’s Spanish language learning. Images, music, and games are used to introduce students to the Hispanic world with an intercultural and integral perspective. Facilitating a gradual progression with lexical and grammatical aids, it contains dynamic and entertaining activities that enhance creativity, as well as a sociocultural complement, a visual glossary, and a section of cutouts to streamline activities. The e-book contains interactive PDFs, direct access to audio/video files, and navigation of the book. The platform subscription allows twelve months’ access to the Blink platform and includes interactive digital text, a workbook, activities with answers, and complete LMS for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, and delivery of the course. www.difusion.us/albaygael

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