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Spain May End Catalan-Only Schools

The constitutional crisis in Spain’s autonomous region of Cataluña may soon affect its classrooms. Madrid’s control over Catalan regional affairs is continuing in the wake of the region’s inability to form a government following December’s election, a situation that began after the Catalan parliament declared unilateral independence in late October.
The central government may now make changes to the region’s education policies, which favor the use of Catalan at school over Castilian Spanish. Ciudadanos, the political party that won the most votes in the December election, is now demanding changes to what it views as a pro-independence bias in regional education guidelines.

At a recent press conference, Spain’s education minister, Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, said that the Spanish executive is committed to guaranteeing parents’ right to school their children in Spanish to the extent provided for by law in Cataluña, but did not explain how, adding: “There will be no changes to a linguistic model that was approved by a parliament; the government cannot modify a law that was approved by the regional chamber.”

The main separatist parties, Junts per Catalunya (Together for Cataluña) and the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), expressed confidence that they will soon reach a governing deal to such changes from taking place.

The language of instruction at Catalan schools has been a controversial issue since long before the moves toward independence. In 2012, Spain’s education minister, José Ignacio Wert, made a controversial statement about plans to “Hispanicize Catalan students” and make them “just as proud to be Spanish as to be Catalan.”

Méndez de Vigo may introduce student-enrollment documents allowing parents to choose the language of instruction for their children. “We’re working on it,” said Marcial Marín, secretary of state for education, at a press conference. “We are sensitive to the problem and we will soon announce a decision.”

“We are asking the government to introduce trilingualism in the 2018–2019 school year,” tweeted Ciudadanos party leader Albert Rivera, referring to the use of Catalan, Spanish, and English in schools.

However, there is considerable opposition. “If the government uses Article 155 to blow up linguistic immersion, it will be evident that it wishes to continue hurting Cataluña. It will also evidence our own irresponsibility in failing to form a government,” said Joan Tardà, an ERC leader who sits in Spain’s national Congress in Madrid.

In Cataluña, Catalan is the main working language at school. Spanish is taught for two hours per week in elementary school, three hours per week in secondary school, and two hours per week at the pre-university level. As for the other subjects, teachers may choose which language to use in the classroom.

Families wishing to educate their children in Spanish must go through a complicated administrative procedure that involves requesting a subsidy to enroll in a private school. According to Catalan Education Department data, there were 560 requests made in the last three school years, and 50 were approved.

Pakistan Has NOT Made Chinese Official

Domes of the The Badshahi Mosque (Emperor Mosque ) built in 1673 by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in Lahore, Pakistan

Pakistani and Indian media jumped on a story last month that Pakistan had decided to make Chinese one of the country’s official languages, in addition Urdu and English. According to reports, the Senate of Pakistan had approved a motion to this effect to strengthen the country’s ties with China and help those people working on the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to communicate better.

In India, it was reported as another example of Pakistan’s appeasement of rival China, with headlines like “CPEC Effect: Pakistan Tags China’s Mandarin as Official Language Month after Replacing Dollar with Yuan for Bilateral Trade,” from the Financial Express. However, the story was fake news.

A motion pertaining to the Chinese language had indeed been passed in the Pakistani Senate, with a mention of CPEC and the word official in it, but it merely suggested that the official Chinese language be taught in Pakistan: “This House recommends that, in view of the growing collaboration between Pakistan and China under the CPEC, courses of the Official Chinese Language should be launched for all current and prospective Pakistani CPEC human resource in order to overcome any costly communication barriers.”

The motion was not about making Chinese an official language of Pakistan, but it still demonstrates the growing allegiance between the countries on either side of India. Chinese language learning is becoming increasingly popular in Pakistan, but Pakistan has not afforded official status to a foreign language in a country that has numerous indigenous, regional languages, many of which are in dire need of revitalization.

Spain Recognizes Ladino as Spanish

More than half a millennium after most Jews were expelled from the country in 1492, Spain is officially recognizing their language, Ladino, as a type of Spanish.

In Madrid last month, the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE—Real Academia Española) announced the establishment of a new Ladino academy in Israel. “One of its goals will be to save Ladino from fading away,” says Professor Shmuel Rafael, director of Bar-Ilan University’s Salti Center for Ladino Studies.

Ladino, also known as Judeo-Spanish or Giudeo-Spagnola, “was the main tool for creating, disseminating, and preserving the spoken and written culture of the Spanish Jews,” Rafael says.

He says Spain’s decision derives from an understanding that Ladino is a Spanish language in the same way as the Spanish dialects spoken in Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, the Philippines, and elsewhere. “Remember, there’s no single form of Spanish throughout the world,” Rafael says.

One of the new academy’s first tasks may be to put together a historical dictionary of Ladino that collects textual sources in the

language from the many places where it has thrived in different periods. Also, with Ladino becoming an official language, Spain will be able to add Ladino words and phrases to its popular online historical dictionary, for the benefit of the world’s 500 million Spanish speakers. UNESCO currently classifies Ladino as an endangered language, and the number of speakers is believed to be just a few thousand. Studies indicate that many people who claim to be Ladino speakers do not master the language and their vocabulary is often limited.

In Israel, Ladino is studied and taught at Bar-Ilan University, Ben-Gurion University, and the Hebrew University. The new academy will aim to act as “a crossroads for a vast amount of scholarship,” Rafael says—scholarship that will spread well beyond the institution. The academy will operate in Israel as an arm of the Israeli National Authority for Ladino and Its Culture, which was established in 1996.

“This is a very important moment, a historic moment,” Professor Tamar Alexander, chairwoman of the Ladino authority and a scholar of Spanish-Jewish culture, told the Madrid conference.

Year-Round Reading

Michael Haggen explains how summer reading is an integral and achievable part of every district’s comprehensive literacy plan

With the end of another school year nearing, we must remember to keep the imperative message of reading over the summer top of mind, even as we look forward to end-of-year activities. Because the summer slide—the common loss of academic skills while students are not in school—is responsible for as much as 85% of the reading achievement gap between higher- and lower-income students (Allington and McGill-Franzen, 2009), we cannot risk entering summer without a plan to make the home-to-school connection around literacy.

I have been re-energized around summer learning thanks to the incredible work I have seen in districts across the country, and also because I have been reminded there is still much work to be done. The Scholastic Kids & Family Reading Report™: 6th Edition, a national survey of children ages six to 17 and their parents, revealed that only 48% of parents have heard of the summer slide. There is also an inequity of information: only 38% of low-income parents are aware of the summer slide, and one in five kids from low-income families told us they did not read any books over the summer. This is a problem that we need to address.

Overall, we found that for parents who have heard of the summer slide, teachers and schools are their number-one source of information about it. This is a strong call to action for educators to ensure all families in our communities have access to the information and resources they need to make summer count and turn the summer slide into a summer leap.

An excellent model for this can be found in Greenville County Schools in South Carolina. Last year, local nonprofit Public Education Partners (PEP) released results of a new research study examining the effects of Make Summer Count 2016, a reading initiative supporting summer learning for 18,000 students in grades K–5 across 29 higher-needs elementary schools. PEP and Scholastic provided participating students with the opportunity to select eleven books of their choice to take home for summer reading and hosted 23 Family Reading Night events to foster family engagement.

The research findings indicate that with increased access to books and family engagement, a majority of students maintained or increased their reading levels over the summer of 2016, and also that the program had an overall positive impact on students’ reading habits and attitudes. In October 2017, Make Summer Count was awarded the Dick and Tunky Riley WhatWorksSC Award for Excellence for demonstrating successful strategies to help prevent summer learning loss, in large part due to the research around the program displaying an overwhelmingly positive impact. You can find the full results in the report “Addressing Summer Reading Loss: A Public Education Partners and Greenville County Schools Initiative,” but here are a few incredible highlights:

Among students in grades 3–5, 78% maintained or increased their reading levels from spring to fall 2016.

Students read an average of 14.7 books, compared to the national average of twelve books—a statistic reported in the Kids & Family Reading Report: 6th Edition.

The percentage of students who read for one hour or more without stopping grew from 13% to 26%.

Eighty-two percent of students agreed that they were better readers after the summer.

Ninety-eight percent of families agreed that their children were better readers because of summer reading.

Ninety-nine percent of families agreed that the program contributed to their children reading more books over the summer.

One hundred percent of families found Family Reading Nights valuable for learning about how to support their children’s reading.

While reflecting on the powerful results of the work done in Greenville, I want to call attention to four essential factors that I believe significantly contribute to the success of programs such as Make Summer Count, which can be replicated across the country.

Families Are Great Supporters for Their Children’s Success

Literacy can be a focus throughout the year when caregivers make time for reading at home. According to the Kids & Family Reading Report, kids ages six to eleven and their parents agree that they enjoy read-aloud time, with the top reasons being it is a special time together (72% and 77%, respectively) and reading together is fun (66% and 67%). Also, according to the report, 82% of kids agree that parents are their number-one source of encouragement to read books for fun.

The process of learning to read is different for every student, and striving readers—students who are reading six to 24 months below grade level, as well as young children who have arrived in kindergarten or first grade without preschool or the learning of pre-K literacy concepts—can especially benefit from incremental support from their families when school is out of session.

Engaging families is hard, but sharing information about the summer slide and highlighting the importance of making time for reading at home is a great place to start in making literacy a year-round priority. It is important that we also give families the tools and resources that they need to feel comfortable and confident reading with their children.

Family engagement events and increasing access to books are great opportunities for sharing information and providing practical tips for utilizing it. The events can be facilitated by members of the school community or by trained literacy ambassadors from various community groups. Giving families, school leaders, and local organizations opportunities to interact in literacy-rich environments is an important part of growing a strong community of readers.

Provide Professional Learning 

Opportunities for Educators over the Summer

An important part of being a summer learning advocate is creating a school culture of year-round learning, and that includes faculty and staff. The Teacher & Principal School Report: Equity in Education revealed that 98% of teachers and principals agree that they want effective, ongoing, relevant professional development. Summer is an ideal time to provide educators with the high-quality professional development that they deserve. Sessions around literacy and family engagement can strengthen the entire school community, enhancing the effectiveness of instructional strategies and emphasizing the importance of building those partnerships with families that will lead to year-round success for students.

Developing a strategic multiyear plan for professional learning is key in delivering what educators need in order to build upon their expertise in a sustainable way that stays with the district. As part of this plan, districts can invite education experts to host summer workshops that foster a collaborative environment for educators while school is out of session. Once the school year begins, coaches can continue to work with educators to help implement the techniques that they need to master in order to more effectively reach all students and their families.

Book Selection and Pleasure Reading Are Key

Year after year, kids tell us through the Kids & Family Reading Report that their favorite books and the ones they are most likely to finish are the ones they pick out themselves. From the same report, 62% of kids ages six to 17 shared that they love or like summer reading a lot. This may be contrary to what many of us have believed to be true. Kids like reading, even over the summer! Academic research displays that the opportunity to practice independent reading every day leads to higher test scores on measurements of reading comprehension (OECD, 2009). There could be no better time to support this idea than summer.

With multilayered support from the educators, families, and community members, students will be able to explore and discover their interests through books and independent reading time while building their reading skills. And for all kids, choice is critical. We want our kids to be reading books that they are interested in because this will help engage them in reading. One study from 2010 found that providing children from lower-income families with self-selected books for summer reading eliminates the summer slide and creates reading gains comparable to advancements experienced by children from middle-income families (Allington, McGill-Franzen, Camilli, et al., 2010). All kids should be able to read whenever they want, and whatever they want, especially over the summer.

Access to Books Must Be Increased 

We know that access to books is essential for helping kids become lifelong readers, and there are a number of places where kids can get their hands on reading material. Ninety-one percent of teachers and principals surveyed in the Teacher & Principal School Report: Equity in Education agree that schools play an important role in expanding access to books at home, but we find that educators also do not have the access to books they need to better support students. Thirty-one percent of teachers have fewer than 50 books in their classroom libraries. Kids should be able to pick up a book that they are interested in and read it whenever they want to, but this is not a reality for all children. According to the Kids & Family Reading Report, the average U.S. household has 104 children’s books for the entire family. This dips to fewer than 70 books in the homes of lower-income families. Work needs to be done to increase access to books in children’s lives altogether.

Planning a take-home book initiative such as the one implemented in Greenville is a research-based tactic that the entire community can get behind to expand access to books beyond what is currently available in schools, particularly for lower-income families. In addition to building home libraries, let us make books plentiful and abundant throughout our communities. Tell your students where they can find books outside of the classroom, whether that is at the public library or in various community centers around town. Let’s talk about books and where to find them. Reaching out to community and business partners has been a great resource for schools and districts with limited funds. They are working together to deplete book deserts and help build home libraries.

Students can then challenge themselves to seek out books at any level of difficulty on the topics about which they are most passionate, grabbing those books that are above reading level. We want our students to be reading whole books, working through authentic text, and becoming engrossed in stories. Continually introducing students to authentic text is essential for helping them learn how to find books that they will enjoy over and over again. Successful reading experiences will inspire a journey of discovery and ultimately, a lifelong love of reading.

Schools, families, and community partners have tremendous strength when they come together to work toward stemming the summer slide and empowering students to discover a love of reading.

Providing families with the tools and resources that they need to help their children succeed, providing educators with professional learning opportunities, offering access to books throughout the year, and giving students agency to choose the books they want to read can help all of our kids leap in learning over the summer. We should also be sure to communicate with families about the summer slide and provide kids with the encouragement to stay motivated. Together, we can pledge to strengthen our communities by making literacy and independent reading a year-round priority.

Michael Haggen, chief academic officer of Scholastic Education, brings more than 20 years of academic experience, having served as a teacher, principal, chief academic officer, and direct report to superintendents in three school districts. Michael ensures that Scholastic Education is best able to support educators in improving student learning through its focus on instructional materials, professional learning programs, and family and community engagement initiatives. For more information about Scholastic Education, visit www.scholastic.com/education.

Why UDL Matters for English Language Learners

Katie Novak explains why the implementation of universal design for learning (UDL) is best practice to increase engagement in all students

In 1922, my grandmother moved from Trois-Rivières, a city in Quebec, Canada, at the age of eleven. Speaking only French, and traveling with her older sister, she was determined to learn English once she arrived. Each day, after she finished her official au pair duties, she walked to the local market to teach herself English. Her textbooks? The handwritten signs posted above the food and day-old newspapers. Her teachers? The store owner and passersby completing their nightly shopping.

Before she died, she bragged that she was fluent in groceries long before she mastered conversational English. Her strategy was simple, she said. She befriended the store owner, who gave her the permission she needed to amble around the store, picking up fruits, vegetables, boxes of cereal, and newspapers. And if the signs did not exist?

She would pick up a shiny apple or a handful of walnuts and ask anyone who would listen, “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” She recalls the kindness of her strangers, always patient as they helped build her comprehension and provided her with feedback.

Without any formal education beyond third grade, Mémère became fluent in English because of her daily market visits. Knowing now what I know about education, it is clear that Mémère’s “teachers” exemplified the principles of universal design for learning (UDL), a framework that provides options to ensure that all students have the opportunity to experience growth and success. Mémère got not just one way but a whole basket of tips and assistance to learn English.

The Building Blocks of UDL

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) urges states to adopt UDL in a number of areas. For example, it says assessments should be designed using the principles of UDL. It also requires schools to use the principles of UDL to support the learning needs of all students, including English learners (ESSA, 2015, Section 4104).

In a recent publication of WIDA Focus On, a series of bulletins on topics of interest to educators of English language learners, it notes, “Accessibility principles, including processes like Universal Design for Learning (CAST, 2008), can help educators rethink how they position language development support within activities.” The building blocks of UDL include three core principles, which remind educators to provide options to ensure that all students have equal opportunities to access and engage with rigorous academic curriculum.

Provide Multiple Means of Representation

The first principle of UDL reminds educators to provide multiple means of representation to build knowledge and comprehension in all learners. In the case of my Mémère, she had manipulatives: pungent onions, stalks of celery, and newspapers that stamped her fingers with black ink. But that was not enough for her to develop and use English. In addition, she had options to build background knowledge by accessing visual support through pictures and words and accessing auditory support through conversations with individuals who encouraged her language expression.

She also had access to her native language, as the storeowner spoke French. We can foster multiple means of representation in the classroom by providing all students with access to visual support as well as the option to listen to texts in English via peer reading, audio books, and text-to-speech.

One of my colleagues, ELL teacher Cheney Harper, designed a lesson for her students on the rainforest and took them on a “virtual field trip.” At the beginning of the lesson, Cheney welcomed all students at the door, which was decorated with a lush, green poster of the rain forest. She then opened up an “explorer backpack,” from which she gave them each rain forest props to begin their rain forest scavenger hunt.

Each student received a scavenger hunt list, and they had to find twelve animals that live in the rain forest by searching around the classroom and in books. In the classroom, she had hidden twelve stuffed animals, each attached to informational text that provided details about the animals. As they found the animals, she identified the names of the animals (i.e., jaguar, caiman, speckled bear) and shared characteristics of the animals.

She then took them on a “rain forest tour” on the iPad so they could build more background knowledge on the rain forest. As they worked, they had access to translation software and dictionaries, so they had access to their native languages. Having access to the multiple means of representation allowed all students to actively participate in the activity, learn academic vocabulary, and engage with peers in a fun, meaningful way.

Provide Multiple Means of Action and Expression

It is not enough to comprehend information if there is no way to express it. Students need numerous methods to express their understanding as they develop into writers and speakers.

When we examine the Common Core State Standards, teaching methods, materials, and assessments are not outlined. This provides us with an opportunity to create multiple pathways to meet the same destination by providing students with options.

This is no accident, as the Common Core endorses UDL as the framework to support all students as they reach for the standards. The standards are only the “what.” UDL is the “how.”

There are many different paths to reach the same destination. We, as educators, need to embrace the many possible journeys that our students can take in order to arrive at the same place. Traditional assessments are one-size-fits-all and expect the same product from all students (i.e., everyone is expected to write informative text as a five-paragraph essay).

UDL encourages multiple options for expression and multiple scaffolds to help all students reach the goal. Take the anchor standard, “Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly.”

Sentence frames, graphic organizers, collaborative work, exemplars, and the use of the WIDA English Language Development Standards provide necessary supports that allow all students to express what they know in inclusive, diverse classrooms while working toward the same standard. Additionally, since students master speaking before writing, educators may provide English learners the option to audio record their learning, supplement with visuals, or use voice-recognition software to scaffold the language process as they continue to develop into writers.

Provide Multiple Means of Engagement

Engagement is at the core of all learning experiences. If we want students to learn, we have to foster both attention and commitment by providing students with authentic, meaningful experiences in learning. All students need access to options that help them connect their own cultural backgrounds to new learning activities, as well as access to their peers to foster collaboration and community. In order to master a skill, one needs practice.

A lot of practice. Peers provide an amazing opportunity for English learners to practice speaking in the classroom. Just as my Mémère befriended countless customers at the market, our students need to interact with their peers.

From “do-nows” to brainstorming sessions to collaborative discussions, authentic opportunities to build language with others are what build a solid foundation to learn academic English. Teachers can observe these collaborative conversations, informally assess students, and give feedback on their language structures and use of vocabulary to provide additional means for action and expression in authentic settings.

These three principles of UDL—provide multiple means of representation, provide multiple means of action and expression, and provide multiple means of engagement—remind all educators to ensure that English language learners always have the option to build background knowledge, interact with information visually and auditorily, access rich scaffolds and supports to help highlight the patterns of language, and have numerous opportunities to express what they know in ways that are authentic and meaningful, all while experiencing the value of collaboration and feedback.

Of course, in the early 1900s, my grandmother had no concept of universal design for learning, nor did her teachers. David Rose, Anne Meyer, and their colleagues at CAST would not articulate the UDL principles until the very end of the century. But something happened in that marketplace which exemplifies what we want teaching and learning to look like today.

Now that we have a framework that is intertwined with our Common Core State Standards, WIDA briefs, and federal legislation, it is time to optimize and scale the framework in all classrooms. Let us make that happen so our students can experience the same magic that my Mémère did, as she learned to appreciate the power of language.

Katie Novak, EdD, is the assistant superintendent of the Groton-Dunstable Regional School District in Massachusetts and a leading expert on universal design for learning implementation. She is the author of four books, including UDL Now! (CAST Professional Publishing, 2016), Universally Designed Leadership (CAST, 2016), and Let Them Thrive (CAST, 2017). Learn more at http://www.katienovakudl.com. 

Web-Based Bilingual Learning

Little Sponges is the first and only interactive bilingual curriculum that leverages the power of real-life videos and interactive games to teach young students listening, speaking, and reading skills in multiple languages: English, Spanish, Chinese, French, German, and Russian. The web-based platform enables personalized learning on any device for children ages two to eight. The research-based curriculum integrates language learning and academic content across the main learning domains.

Little Sponges is unique because it teaches in the way young children learn best. It engages young minds by using real-life videos from around the world, interactive games, engaging characters, memorable songs, and native audio and subtitles. Little Sponges utilizes a two-way dual-immersion method of teaching, where students are taught in both their native language and their second languages. This method has been proven to be more effective than one-way dual immersion and full immersion.

Each language track includes English and a second language. The main characters of the program, Mishka and Frog, take children on many adventures that cover key educational topics. While Frog always speaks English, Mishka always speaks the second language, and the two languages mirror each other as vocabulary is presented. This gives students comprehensible input and accelerates their learning. Teachers can personalize the learning experience by allowing students to select the language track that incorporates their native language and the target language.

This level of customization is impossible to achieve in the traditional classroom as most teachers do not speak multiple languages, nor can they personalize their instruction for all students simultaneously. The child-friendly interface allows even the youngest students to navigate the program on their own. The on-demand content allows each child to learn at his or her own pace by pausing and/or repeating learning modules.

Through creative use of technology, Little Sponges makes bilingual learning more accessible, effective, and equitable than the traditional approaches. Providing personalized dual-language instruction is more important than ever before as the number of dual-language students continues to grow in U.S. schools. www.little-sponges.com

Bringing Radio Stories into the Classroom


Listenwise builds listening comprehension across the curriculum. Listenwise is a website that offers teachers free access to curated NPR public radio stories and podcasts. It features an audio library offering thousands of curated NPR stories that are aligned to curriculum topics and state standards. Listenwise provides access to high-quality academic language, channeled through engaging content, which is invaluable for all students, especially English language learners.

Designed to inspire thought-provoking discussions, each lesson presents high-quality news reporting about important and timely topics that matter. Flexible design supports a wide range of settings and can be used whether a classroom is blended, flipped, or 1:1. Additional resources make academic language from the stories accessible, without reducing rigor for ELs and struggling readers. These engaging lessons integrate listening skills practice with content aligned across the curriculum for grades 5–12.

Listenwise can be used to assess and grow listening comprehension to prepare for the CAASPP. Unique assessments are embedded with the curriculum collections for easy integration into instruction. Using a research-based approach to identify the key areas of listening comprehension, their assessments test eight listening sub-skills.

Teachers can use Listenwise across a broad range of learners, settings, and subjects, and it is adaptive. The materials are accessible, can be adapted for many types of learners, and are effective for advancing intermediate and advanced English learners toward college- and career-readiness standards. Teachers are seeing that students gain vocabulary through context after multiple listens and are particularly interested in stories that are culturally relevant. Learn more about how teachers are using Listenwise, sign up for a free Listenwise account, or try a free trial of Listenwise Premium at www.listenwise.com. Premium is the full-school solution that allows teachers to create custom online assignments and includes interactive transcripts, slower versions of the audio, and tiered vocabulary.

Pearson’s University Success: Breaking It Down and Dishing It Out into Bite-Sized Chunks for EAP Student Success

Anyone who has taught university-level English language learners knows that no matter how well they may have performed in their English language courses, they are usually not prepared for the shock of the real university classroom, which includes massive amounts of reading, competing in a classroom of native speakers, listening to hour-long lectures, and writing papers without their helpful English teachers nearby. How to help EAP students bridge this gap has been a subject of research and experimentation by English language teaching professionals for the last several decades, myself included. Delineating and then breaking down those necessary skills that native-English-speaking students take for granted has been a struggle for those of us working with this student population.

University Success, a new three-level series from Pearson, gets to the heart of the matter when it comes to helping students cross this bridge between their English language courses and life in a real university classroom. Each of the levels—intermediate to high intermediate, advanced, transitional—is divided into reading, writing, and oral communication skills, so three separate standalone textbooks at each of the three levels.
Each of the textbooks is consistently divided into the five content areas of biology, humanities, engineering, sociology, and economics, as well as three sub-skill areas—fundamental skills, critical thinking skills, and authentic extended content.

Although there are myriad EAP textbooks, many of which I have used in my 32-year teaching career at the University of Washington, this series brings together the best ideas from those texts into one book. For example, in the transitional level’s oral communication text, one can find activities covering everything from how to elaborate on a point one is trying to make to creating and communicating a visual, such as a graph or diagram. The critical thinking section of this particular text in the series includes a section on “interpreting and utilizing hedging devices,” something one might not think to teach but which is extremely useful.

Another feature unique to this series is the level of attention given to the metacognition of language learning, which again is a nice feature for both teachers and students. “It is very worthwhile for teachers to understand the importance of metacognition in language learning because it helps learners to become autonomous and self-regulated language learners… teachers should focus on both teaching language content and teaching the ways and processes of learning” (Raoofi, Chan, Mukundan, and Rashid, 2014, p. 45). University Success textbooks operate on this assumption.

One other factor that I always look for in a textbook is the layout and design. The pages of the transitional level of University Success are dense, the print is small, and the units are one to two pages in length. There are plenty of visuals to break up the pages—tables, photos, graphs, cultural notes in boxes—all making this, at least for me, a respectable-looking book to bring to the table for my graduate and undergraduate students.
In terms of support materials, the University Success series is accompanied by the online MyEnglishLab, where students go for the listening component of various activities throughout the textbooks, including the lectures and a self-assessment component at the beginning of each chapter.

As usual with textbooks, there is more than enough and maybe too much material. I would be hard put to get through all the activities in one textbook in the ten-week quarters we have in our English language programs at the UW. Still, as an experienced teacher, I would pick and choose from this text and could put together a solid ten-week course using just this resource. I also think it is an excellent series for new teachers who are trying to wrap their heads around how to help their university-level students bridge that gap between their English classes and their university courses.

As one of the three series editors, Lawrence Zwier, an associate director of the English Language Center at Michigan State University, puts it, this series provides an “academic onramp” for students, and I think it is definitely worth a look for EAP courses.

Mary Kay Seales has been an English language instructor at the University of Washington for over 30 years, specializing in instruction for EAP students. She also has extensive experience in teacher training in the U.S. and abroad.

A Case of Motivation


Third-grade teacher Enolar Callands used to spend hours tracking down quality stories to support the ELA standards. “It could take forever,” she explains. The selections she found were “mundane” and drained students’ enthusiasm for reading. Her fellow teachers at Beecher Hills Elementary in Atlanta faced similar issues. After searching for a schoolwide solution for 2016–2017, the school chose Total Motivation ELA from Mentoring Minds because of its close standards alignment, rigor, and critical thinking emphasis.

A Week in the Classroom
Callands began each week by introducing the lesson to the classroom and projects the content onto a whiteboard. Together, they read the selection and identify vocabulary. Callands enjoyed how “they can see me model and do it along with me.” Higher-level learners moved on to a journal activity to practice writing skills and answer questions about the selection in the Student Edition (SE). “They already know what they need to do,” she explains of the easy-to-use format.

To help less-independent learners, Callands relied on the suggested interventions outlined in the Teacher Edition (TE). On Thursdays, she evaluated student progress by using the unit’s assessment. The online Standards Mastery Report and its data let her quickly see “who has mastered the standards and who is struggling.”

Impact on Learning
By the year’s end, Callands was seeing results in her classroom. In August, 80% of her students had been “below pathway.” By April, after using Total Motivation ELA for three hours each week, their scores spiked 99 points on Atlanta PSD’s Benchmark, and 86% were reading above grade level.

In addition to the quantitative improvements, Callands also noticed the quality of learning improve. “I don’t have to spoon-feed them anymore,” she explains, noting that because her students were increasingly independent and confident, she could give more time to slower learners.

Beecher Hill’s academic coach, Neal Christian, relies on Total Motivation ELA to provide “all students access to quality curriculum.” He notes, for example, how the TE provides a flexible grid of Lexile levels and passages from which to choose. “Teachers can start there and teach main ideas and supporting details to specific levels of students,” he says.
The impact on lesson planning was significant as well. It reduced prep time because of the variety of activities and close standards alignment. Callands explains, “Having all that information on the standard takes out all of that legwork for me. I’ve come to rely on it.”
Learn more about Total Motivation ELA at mentoringminds.com/total-motivation.

Speech Sounds Visualized

When faced with the challenge of improving their pronunciation skills, most people feel that there is no replacement for the connection that occurs with face-to-face communication. Yet how can we help those who, for whatever reason, are unable to access quality one-on-one instruction? That was the dilemma that Keri Jones, a speech language pathologist with over 18 years of experience, set out to address. With guidance from the Center for Learning and Innovation at Pullman Regional Hospital, Jones and her team created an app called Speech Sounds Visualized.

Through the use of revolutionary moving X-rays, Speech Sounds Visualized tells the story of how each English sound is formed, in a way that has not been seen before. The videos are paired with careful instruction written by Jones for each and every sound, as well as advanced recording capability, providing the English language learner with many different ways of learning. Speech Sounds Visualized is currently available for iPhone and iPad.

“An accent is something to be proud of,” Jones says. “It is a representation of who you are and where you come from. The goal is never to eliminate the accent; the goal is simply to reduce the accent such that others can understand you better, and thereby reduce chronic and frustrating communication breakdown.”

While it is a useful tool for a broad range of people and needs, the app is best suited for adolescents through adults. However, given the assistance of an English language learning teacher, this app may also be used with younger children as a part of their overall curriculum. As Speech Sounds Visualized enters its first year of operation, Jones and her team are heartened by the number of people of varying backgrounds and experiences that unite in one common goal, which is to help people connect with one another through the art form of communication.

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