The Doughboy Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to World War I education, offers a comprehensive suite of high-quality WWI Teaching Resources that aim to support the ability of teachers to convey and students to grasp the profound effect of WWI on America.
The resources, which include Augmented Reality Apps and lessons that provide an interactive and engaging way to teach and learn about World War I, can be accessed through Verizon Innovative Learning HQ. Verizon Innovative Learning HQ is an award-winning, free education portal that makes next-gen learning tools, including a curated collection of lesson plans, available to K–12 educators nationwide.
The Doughboy Foundation’s WWI Teaching Resources, which were created under the direction of the U.S. WWI Centennial Commission, include a series of video documentaries called “How WWI Changed America,” which were developed with the help of prominent WWI historical experts. The scholars include Dr. Libby O’Connell, Chief Historian Emeritus for the Discovery Channel; Dr. Chris Capozzola, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Dr. Jennifer Keene from Chapman University; Dr. John Morrow Jr. of the University of Georgia; Dr. Jeffrey Sammons from New York University; and Dr. Herman Viola, Curator Emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution, among others.
The resources include:
Adaptable teacher guides aligned to common standards;
A comprehensive 20-page history eBook called The United States in WWI;
Augmented Reality Apps providing an interactive and immersive experience of WWI history;
A series of 5-7 minute documentaries, “How WWI Changed America,” designed to initiate discussion and engagement;
Compelling primary source “Spot Lights” for in-depth exploration of topics;
Easy-to-use teacher guides; and
Student worksheets with suggested activities.
To provide a complete picture of the impact of the war on American society, the WWI Teaching Resources look at the war through the experiences of women, Black and Native Americans, and immigrants; as well as through lenses such as the Bill of Rights, propaganda, and more.
Created for use in history or civic classes in grades 7–12, the free resources are standards-driven and flexible. Teachers can use them to plan and deliver lessons about WWI for as short as a single day or as long as a full school week or more.
To further immerse today’s students in history, the Doughboy Foundation has also made its National WWI Memorial “Virtual Explorer” and “Visitor Guide” apps available through Verizon Innovative Learning HQ, as well as through the Apple and Android app stores. Using the new National WWI Memorial in Washington DC as an organizing principle, these interactive apps bring WWI history to life with augmented reality objects like a 50 ft. tall timeline tower, full size walk-around models of WWI vehicles like airplanes, tanks and ambulances, and over 60 embedded video discoveries, all while offering a virtual field trip to the Memorial.
Educators can learn more about the WWI Teaching Resources and access them through Verizon Innovative Learning HQ here.
While the pandemic presented obstacles for many students during the 2020–21 school year, the federal General Accounting Office’s (GAO’s) nationwide survey of public K–12 teachers showed that teachers with certain vulnerable student populations were more likely to have students who faced significant obstacles to learning and an increased risk of falling behind academically. GAO estimates that teachers who taught in a virtual environment for the majority of the year with mostly high-poverty students were about six to 23 times more likely to have students who lacked an appropriate workspace, compared to all other teachers in their grade-level band. Regarding strategies to address learning loss, GAO found, with one exception, no differences between teachers of high- and low-poverty students.
Estimated Likelihood That Teachers with High-Poverty Students Had More Students Who Regularly Lacked an Appropriate Workspace
Teachers in a virtual environment with high-poverty students compared to all other teachers in their grade-level band, 2020–21 school year GAO also estimates that teachers in a virtual environment with a high percentage of English learners (at least 20%) were more likely than their peers to have students who regularly faced a variety of significant obstacles. These teachers were more likely to have students who regularly struggled with understanding lessons, completing assignments, having an appropriate workspace, accessing school meals, and getting adult assistance. Regarding strategies to address learning loss, teachers with a high percentage of English learners reported (1) small-group work in person and (2) one-on-one check-ins between teachers and students mitigated learning loss for at least half of their students.
Several strategies helped the youngest students make some academic progress despite obstacles presented by the pandemic learning environment. Specifically, K–2 teachers reported that their students had difficulty getting support, lacked appropriate workspaces, and lacked tools for learning virtually. K–2 teachers found that movement breaks, small-group work in person, and tutoring during the school day helped at least half of their students.
Students in kindergarten through second grade could be at increased risk of compounded negative effects of disrupted learning over time. GAO’s prior work has raised concerns about educational disparities for students from high-poverty schools and for English learners. The 2020–21 school year offered useful insights that may help schools, educators, and parents in the future.
The CARES Act includes a provision for GAO to report on its ongoing COVID-19 monitoring and oversight efforts. This second report in a series of three examines obstacles to learning and strategies to mitigate learning loss for high-poverty students, English learners, and students in grades K–2.
West Virginia University has announced it will move to eliminate nearly three dozen degree programs, including the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Linguistics and to discontinue the seven programs it offers and related instructional activity. The university will move to dissolve the departments and all programs and faculty including tenured and non-tenured faculty. The president of the University, E.Gordon Gee stated that foreign-language classes will be replaced with online apps or remote classes in a public statement that reads, “Recognizing that some students will still want access to foreign language instruction, the University is exploring alternative methods of delivery such as a partnership with an online language app or online partnership with a fellow Big 12 university.”
Additionally, the University is reviewing plans to eliminate the language requirement for all majors.
The university offered the excuse of “low and declining” student interest in the language programs, which include Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish along with Foreign Literature in Translation, Latin American Studies, Linguistics, TESOL, and Slavic and Eastern European Studies.
WVU faculty has spoken out, with Jonah Katz writing in an open letter, “The reason given for this egregious violation of ethical and professional norms is that the university faces a dire budget crisis, and the administration has no choice but to cut academic programs in order to close their structural budget deficit. But the administration’s own financial data, gathered at great cost with external consultants and publicly posted here, clearly indicate that the department as a whole (p. 7) has generated operating profits of more than $800,000 in each of the last three years, even without counting our grant income, which is substantial (our NSF project is just one of several large external grants that faculty in our department have been awarded in the past several years). This is not a financial decision: it is an ideological one, as our president’s public comments make clear.”
Paula Krebs, executive director of the Modern Language Association also wrote an open letter to Gee, stating, “A full liberal arts education includes providing students with the tools that enable them to interact both with their neighbors in West Virginia and with the rest of the world. Science, technology, and business courses and majors are not enough for WVU to offer if it wants to produce fully informed and thinking citizens for West Virginia.” The letter goes on to say, “All students’ job prospects and lives are enriched by language study, writing instruction, and the research and analytical skills taught in beginning and advanced literature and culture courses. Access to these courses is especially important in public higher education, which is often the only route to a degree for many state residents. The humanities should not be reserved for students who can afford private higher education.”
The American Association of University Professors, the leading faculty group in the U.S., has called for instructors to have a “decisive role” in determining which programs are discontinued, noting these decisions should be based on educational considerations.
ACTFL also spoke out on Twitter, stating: “ACTFL supports world language professionals at WVU & urges Gordon Gee & WVU leadership to re-think the short-sighted, proposed elimination of world languages at the state’s flagship university. It’s bad for teachers, it’s bad for students, it’s bad for WV.”
“While we view these preliminary recommendations for reductions and discontinuations as necessary, we are keenly aware of the people they will affect,” President E. Gordon Gee said in a statement Friday. “We do not take that lightly. These faculty are our colleagues, our neighbors and our friends. These decisions are difficult to make.”
Margarita Calderón, Leticia M. Trower, and Lisa Tartaglia explore the need for content-based literacy instruction beyond elementary school
Literacy is the key to success, and multilingual learners deserve access to the opportunities and support they need to become confident readers. This is why equitable literacy instruction is imperative. Real literacy is anchored in middle and high school as students rummage through history, biology, algebra, chemistry, geometry, business, literature, career training courses, and other subjects. This means that multilingual learners’ (MLs’) best chance to become strong readers and writers lies in the hands of their core content teachers. “Students can’t develop content knowledge if they can’t read the material in history and civics classes” (Pimentel, 2023).
While instructional standards for content areas outside of ELA may not include instruction on how to read and write, each content area has its own language that students need to learn to be successful in meeting content-area standards. This includes word-level knowledge such as subject-area jargon, knowledge of the types of phrases and sentences that are often used in that content area, and knowledge of the types of texts that are common when communicating about that content area. Students who can access, analyze, and create the language of a given content area will be more successful in that content classroom—as well as in college courses on that content area and in careers related to that content area.
The Reality Facing Core Content Teachers Today
There are not enough ESL teachers to team up with all core content teachers in a school.
More emergent bilingual students are arriving in secondary schools, and more will be in every classroom soon.
Content teachers want to know how to help the MLs, but in many cases their college preparation or professional development programs have not adequately addressed this topic.
Some MLs bring to school literacies that older generations may not be as fluent in (e.g., world experiences, technology skills, different ways of doing math, world literature, conservation).
Finally, as we hear from the content teachers in the schools we work with: “All students need reading skills these days!”
To compound a little more, literacy today is multidimensional. Our students need to be able to access, analyze, navigate, and create messages from a wide variety of genres, text types, text structures, and media. This includes text as well as websites, videos, social media, and more. Project-based learning and STEM/STEAM have become trends, and these have huge implications for teachers with MLs. These types of learning experiences integrate language, literacy, content, and social–emotional competencies, since students are expected to work together as they inquire, experiment, discuss, debate, test, conclude, and make recommendations. All of this requires students to be able to read, write, and speak the language of the core content area—but it also provides opportunities to build in support for MLs that will empower them to do so.
But I’m Not a Reading Teacher!
Literacy instruction in secondary is not a one-person job: we can’t leave it all up to the ELA or ESL teacher. Rather, literacy must be a whole-school approach. Furthermore, every content area has unique literacy needs.
Scientific writing is different than rhetorical analysis, and math word problems are different than art critiques. It is the job of each content teacher to ensure that all students are able to speak, read, and write proficiently about their content area.
What Can I Do Now?
Here are a few things content teachers can start doing now that will help students develop their reading and writing skills in a safe and comfortable context for ELs/MLs and striving readers to take chances.
These easy steps can be implemented without taking time away from teaching the content:
Select vocabulary from texts that students read in your class, and preteach that vocabulary before students read. Preteaching a few words is a scaffold that helps students enter the text with confidence and a higher degree of comprehension. EXAMPLE: Students in a history class are learning about the events leading up to a war. Before they read about these events, their teacher, Ms. Upchurch, looks through the text to identify key vocabulary words. She preteaches these words and tells students to watch for them as they read.
Teach students how to identify common features of texts used in your content area. When students know how to read graphs and charts and pay attention to cutaways, they will have a better understanding of the text, and this will provide them with a better understanding of the content. EXAMPLE: Before students read, Ms. Upchurch points out features of the text, such as a timeline, a map, and a T-chart. She shows students how these features help the reader understand the text.
Show students the various types of text structure used in your content area, and teach vocabulary associated with each type of structure. This will help students comprehend content passages and successfully write about the topic. See Figure 1 for five types of text structure. EXAMPLE: Ms. Upchurch highlights vocabulary in the text that shows cause/effect (such as because, due to, as a result, since, and so that), and teaches it alongside the key content vocabulary from the unit.
Give students a graphic with text structures. Pair passages with graphic organizers that fit the text structure. This will help students organize the information learned in the passages. EXAMPLE: Since Ms. Upchurch’s students are reading a cause/effect text, she pairs the text with a cause-and-effect diagram like the one below. As an additional scaffold, some students receive a partially completed diagram.
Provide strategies for students to read and comprehend content texts. Explicitly teach students how to read with a partner and use comprehension strategies to aid in comprehension. Do paired reading for ten minutes at least once a week. EXAMPLE: Ms. Upchurch teaches her students to stop at the end of each paragraph and orally summarize with their partners what they’ve read. This will help them understand the content she is teaching today and improve their reading comprehension whenever they read a challenging text in the future.
Make sure discourse/oral language is part of every lesson and that students are held accountable for using the academic vocabulary you have taught. Provide opportunities for students to summarize and process with a partner as frequently as possible. This will improve students’ writing as well as help them understand the content. EXAMPLE: After they read a section of text, Ms. Upchurch leads students in a discussion about the events leading up to the war before she asks them to write about it. During the class discussion, her students know they are expected to use the cause/effect vocabulary that is posted on the board, as well as the key content vocabulary from the unit.
Backward design: Look at the end goal and determine what students need to be able to do to complete the final product or meet the standard. This ensures that ELs/MLs will have all the resources they need for the final product. EXAMPLE: Since Ms. Upchurch wants her students to write an essay explaining the events that led up to a war, she starts by considering what an A+ essay would look like. She analyzes that model essay for vocabulary and sentence patterns that students will need to write an excellent essay and builds those into her lessons leading up to the assignment. She considers the content knowledge students will need to be successful and chooses instructional strategies to help students understand those concepts.
What about Foundations of Reading for Newcomers?
When it comes to foundational literacy skills, content teachers might leverage the expertise of ESL and/or reading teachers to help meet their newcomers’ needs. Addressing all domains of language (speaking, listening, reading, and writing) accelerates language and content knowledge. For new arrivals, dually identified emergent bilinguals striving to decode, or some MLs who have been trying for two or more years to move beyond intermediate proficiency to exit from English learner (EL) status, phonemic and phonological awareness is also necessary—albeit in small doses, ideally connected to what they read in their content classes.ESL/EL or reading teachers who team with a content teacher can have students practice using words in the context of what they’re about to read in geometry, history, biology, engineering, or any other subject. They can point out:
Phonology—speech sounds
Morphology—word parts
Syntax—sentence structures
Sound–symbol association—relationship between sounds and letters
Syllables—word parts that contain a vowel phoneme
Orthography—spelling
Semantics—the meaning of words, multiple meanings, subtleties
Students can also use poetry for rhyming and practicing stressed syllables for pronunciation. Two to three weeks with a well-developed phonics–vocabulary–reading–writing program for newcomers will equip them with the language and literacy skills they need to participate in instruction with their peers.
Lessons on Reading Comprehension for MLs from 29 Schools
While some teacher preparation programs for middle and high school teachers offer literacy courses, most colleges and universities focus on the content areas their graduates will teach.
It is therefore no surprise that most content teachers are not reading experts! What this means is that today’s content teachers may need more support, more knowledge, and more instructional strategies to meet the literacy needs of their students.
After working with middle and high schools in Virginia, North Carolina, and Texas for two to five years, we found that the following professional development sequence has helped core content teachers become efficacious and skilled in integrating vocabulary, discourse, reading comprehension, and writing skills into their active subject-matter delivery. Social–emotional learning (SEL) competencies undergird each component and are used for creating a safe context for everyone to talk, regardless of English proficiency levels. Moreover, teachers emphasize that MLs and other students in the classrooms appreciate more peer discourse and attribute their significant growth to academic language practice with peers.
Professional Development Sequence
Phase 1—How to select words to preteach from texts, videos, and presentations. How to preteach five words at the beginning of class in ten minutes. How to structure peer interaction and more opportunities to talk. Which interaction competencies can be taught along with vocabulary practice. Observing and coaching teachers as they implement the new instructional strategies.
Phase 2—Teaching subcomponents of reading (text features, text structures, deconstructing and constructing sentence structures). Engaging students in effective and time-efficient partner reading by alternating sentences and verbally summarizing after each paragraph with their partners. Observing and coaching teachers as they implement the new instructional strategies.
Phase 3—Teaching “after reading” strategies to anchor English (or whatever language is being used), reading comprehension, discourse, and knowledge from that text. Observing and coaching teachers as they implement the new instructional strategies.
Phase 4—Teaching how to draft, edit, revise, final edit, and write powerful conclusions and titles in diverse modalities. Observing and coaching teachers as they implement the new instructional strategies.
Phase 5—Final overview of language, literacy, and content integration.
In two five-year studies, the language, literacy, social norms of interaction, and content components of this PD sequence were empirically tested and compared with other types of content instruction in paired schools (Calderón, 2007; Calderón et al., 2023), yielding significant results. They continue to be implemented, enhanced, and scaled up.
Why Is It Working for Teachers and Students?
Collegial learning, supported by central and school administration, entails rethinking and restructuring professional development for everyone in the school. In successful multilingual schools, all teachers attend the same workshops, read the same ML-related books, practice to make the strategies their own, and participate in coaching after each workshop. Each semester of a year focuses on one theme only (semester one—academic language and discourse; semester two—adding reading; semester three—adding writing). This gives time for teachers to practice the new strategies before being observed and coached. If we want successful students, we need to nurture successful teachers!
In between workshops, teacher teams work collaboratively to review, share creative demonstrations, prepare lessons, and discuss student progress.
We have learned as much as the teachers from these long-term relationships. It is important to give teachers strategies and tools that they can implement, experiment with, and make their own.
We were in awe recently as to how kindergarten teachers as well as Advanced Placement high school teachers were teaching partner writing strategies, partner reading, academic language, and academic discourse. We see how middle and high school students quickly and accurately summarize math/geometry concepts in a way that amazes them and their teachers. We see whole schools improving student outcomes and teacher efficacy, fomenting teacher and student imagination and creativity. Learning and implementing new instructional strategies that target language and literacy is well worth the effort for content teachers.
As one middle school math teacher recently told us, “My whole class is beaming! My students want to share their math fluency with this writing strategy with the whole class.
And having my students write about math functions helped me understand what they understand. Thank you!”
References Calderón, M. E. and Tartaglia, L. M., with Montenegro, H. (2023). Cultivating Competence in English Learners: Integrating Social-Emotional Learning with Language and Literacy. Solution Tree. Calderón, M. E. (2007). Teaching Reading to English Language Learners, Grades 6–12: A Framework for Improving Achievement in the Content Areas. Corwin Press. Pimentel, S. (2023). “How Reading Can Help Fix Declines in History and Civics Scores.” Education Week, 42 (33): 20.
Margarita Calderón, PhD, professor emerita, Johns Hopkins University, conducts comprehensive professional development and coaching for all educators in a school/district. Two empirical studies focused on integrating vocabulary, interaction, reading comprehension, writing, and core content in 6–12 classrooms; other research on dual language program development. [email protected]
Leticia M. Trower (she/her) is director of professional learning at Margarita Calderón & Associates and a doctoral candidate in the Diversity and Equity in Education program at the University of Illinois. Her research interests include professional development in K–12 schools and the relationship between teachers’ language, beliefs, and practices. [email protected]
Lisa Tartaglia is a high school assistant principal in Northern Virginia. She has been a classroom teacher, reading specialist, and literacy coach. She was recently accepted into a doctoral program in educational leadership at Old Dominion University and will begin in August. [email protected]
Alina moved to the US from Irpin, Ukraine, when she was eleven years old. The Russian invasion resulted in Alina witnessing the destruction of her city and the death of family members. She arrived in the US with her mother and younger brother, and they now live with distant relatives. At enrollment, we learn that Alina has never been exposed to English and has missed about six months of school.
Take a moment to consider Alina and the type of language assistance program that you believe would be the most effective. During the past few decades, I have been providing policy analysis, strategic planning, and professional development for educators who work with pre-K–university-aged multilingual learners (MLs) at the local, state, and national levels across the US. I have asked thousands of policy makers and educators to respond to scenarios like this one. Most respond with something like, “Alina doesn’t speak English, has missed a lot of school, and experienced a high degree of adversity.” Each of these responses has generally led to more dialogue about what Alina is missing and the depth of trauma she has experienced. Additionally, many educators have expressed feelings of helplessness and hopelessness in supporting MLs like Alina to succeed. Have you found yourself feeling this way? Most of us respond with a resounding “yes.”
The Urgency for Strengths-Based Policies and Practices From a policy and practice perspective, research demonstrates the urgency for us to move swiftly away from having a deficit-based stance to fully embracing a strengths-based one (Seligman, 2006; Gonzalez et al., 2005; Dweck et al., 2014; Maslow, 1999). While we shouldn’t ignore the circumstances of multilingual learners and their families, including the adversities that an epic number have experienced or are experiencing, we should pay as much if not more attention to the vast strengths and assets that they possess inherently or as a result of facing adversity, and the assets that we possess, too.
For years, the fields of psychology and social work looked at what was wrong to treat “the problem.” However, research on using this approach found that it did not have the lasting effects that were needed. The same has been true in education. When we applied remedies to what we perceive is wrong and needs to be corrected (e.g., they don’t speak English, they have not had prior schooling, their parents are too busy to help), we have not had positive results. In the 1990s, pioneer psychologist Abraham Maslow pointed to the importance of moving our lens to the strengths, capacities, and qualities of human potential. This was followed with large bodies of research in the fields of psychotherapy and positive psychology (Seligman et al., 2006), psychology (Dweck et al., 2014; Dweck, 2006), positive youth development (Floyd and McKenna, 2003; Lerner et al., 2005), and educational research in diversity and equity (Biswas-Dienera et al., 2011; González et al., 2006; Steele, 2010), which resoundingly demonstrated the positives of using a strengths-based approach.
One of the most exciting and even inspiring aspects of being a state or local policy maker, district superintendent, school principal, teacher, specialist, counselor, or other stakeholder is seeing multilingual learners as capable and competent and their families as our partners. Renowned researcher and scholar Carol Dweck (2006) shows us the positives that can be realized when we focus on our students’, schools’, and communities’ strengths and support our students in seeing these in themselves and others. The same findings have been demonstrated about the importance of building from strengths to create strong, sustained, co-powered partnerships with families on behalf of their children’s success in school and in their lives (Epstein et al., 2019; Robles de Mélendez and Beck, 2019; Gonzalez et al., 2005). We must move from seeing children and families as broken pieces of glass to seeing them as the beautiful mosaic that is uniquely theirs, and we must capitalize on this view to build language assistance models that work (Zacarian, 2023).
Bringing Out the Best in the Laws and Regulations Many historic actions have been taken to improve the outcomes of multilingual learners. The iconic 1964 photo of President Johnson kneeling on the steps of a rural cabin in Kentucky depicts the war on poverty that led to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to overcome years of educational inequities. It also led to many court cases on behalf of the nation’s MLs, including Keyes v. School District No. 1, Denver, Serna v. Portales, Aspira v. Board of Education of the City of New York, and the two most seminal of all, Lau v. Nichols and Castañeda v. Pickard. It is impossible to imagine the bravery and courage of the families who agreed to bring legal suits against their school systems and battle for their children’s rights at the local, state, and national levels. For example, Castañeda v. Pickard claimed that multilingual learners were being segregated and isolated from their peers. While Roy Castañeda and the families who brought the suit lost the court case at the local level, they appealed all the way to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. That court ruled in favor of Castañeda and ordered that all language assistance programs nationwide be based on sound research, properly resourced, and proven to work. Regardless of where we work, we stand on the shoulders of heroic families like the Castañedas and others to ensure that our language assistance programs work.
Fifty years after the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and Lau v. Nichols, the US Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights sent a letter to every state education agency and every school and district in the nation reinforcing the laws and regulations. Why did they send that letter in January 2015? Investigations by these two departments found that many districts across our nation were not following the regulations governing: the identification and education of multilingual learners, and parents’ rights to have equal and meaningful access to the same school information as all parents do and to receive information about their child’s language assistance programming.
In December of the same year, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) reinforced the nation’s long-standing commitment to equal opportunity for all students. It stipulated that all multilingual learners: have meaningful access to grade-level content and state education agencies monitor local schools and districts to make sure this occurs; progress in learning English; engage in programming that includes English proficiency benchmarks to ensure that they are progressing in learning English, and steps must be taken if they aren’t; be monitored for a period of two years after demonstrating the capacity to do ordinary work in English and receive remedies when needed.
It also requires each school to report the number and percentage of former MLs meeting academic standards for a period of four years. One approach for attending to the regulations is to pore over the regulations and seek ways to comply with them. A second and much more effective approach is to view the regulations through the lens of how we can draw from MLs’ and their families’ strengths to support their being empowered as partners with us.
Seek Ways to Support Strengths-Based Partnerships with Students and Families A great example of a partnership that is mutually beneficial and empowering is the K–5 Manthala George, Jr. Global Studies School in Brockton, Massachusetts. Graduates from its dual language programs attend parent meetings of potential enrollees to share the benefits of the language assistance program. Imagine being empowered as a graduate of this program and engaging in these important activities! A second example is the Douglas County School District in Colorado. Multilingual parents attend workshops to learn about their children’s schools. They are also empowered to lead workshops. Some parents/guardians have taken these opportunities further and become advocates for strengthening the district’s policies to better ensure the success of all students.
The laws and regulations governing the education of MLs should really be a stepping-off point for creating strengths-based practices with students and families (as opposed to for them). Here are some questions to guide us in the type of strengths-based and co-powered partnerships that help in obtaining more successful results. (While there are additional questions that are important to include, remember that the starting point should always be to take a strengths-based stance.)
What steps have we taken to ensure that we are learning about the interests and special qualities of each ML and their parents/guardians and infusing these in all we do? For example, think of the empowering activities that the George Global Studies School does to demonstrate the multilingual and leadership competencies of its graduates by engaging them in recruiting future parents.
What activities are we engaging in to empower parents/guardians in their children’s education and draw from their strengths and assets? What documents, forms, and protocols are we using to demonstrate that what we do to learn about MLs’ and their families interests and special qualities are integrated in the language assistance programming we are providing? What might we do to strengthen what we are doing? What professional readings or school/district documents should be included? What type of professional growth activities do we need to support our efforts?
Together, as policy makers and district-, school-, and state-level educators, we can overcome inequities by shifting our patterns of thinking and operating to the many assets and competencies that MLs, their families, and we possess to build language assistance programming that works.
References Biswas-Dienera, R., Kashdan, R.B. & Gurpal, M. (2011). A dynamic approach to psychological strength development and intervention. Journal of Positive Psychology. 6(2)., 106-118. González, N., Moll, L.C., Amanti, C. (Eds.). (2005). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in household, communities, and classrooms. Lawrence Erlbaum. Dweck, C., Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2014). Academic tenacity: Mindsets and skills that promote long-term learning. https://ed.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/manual/dweck-walton-cohen-2014.pdf. Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Ballantine Books. Epstein, J. L., Greenfeld, M. D., Hutchins, D. J., Williams, K. J., & Sanders, M. G. (2019). School, family, and community partnerships: Your handbook for action (4th ed.). Corwin. Floyd, D.T., & McKenna, I., (2003). National youth organizations in the United States: Contributions to civil society. In D. Wertlieb, F. Jacobs, & R.M. Lerner (Eds.), Promoting positive youth and family development: Community systems, citizenship, an civil society; Vol. 3. Handbook of applied development science: Promoting positive child, adolescent, and family development through research, policies, and programs. (p. 11-26). Thousand Oaks: Sage. Lerner, R.M., Almerigi, J.B., Theokas, C. & Lerner, J.V. (2005). Positive youth development: A view of the issues. Journal of Early Adolescence, 25(1), 10-16. Maslow, A. H. (1999). Toward a psychology of being (3rd ed.). John Wiley & Sons. Robles de Mélendez, W., & Beck, V. (2019). Teaching young children in multicultural classrooms: Issues, concepts, and strategies (5th ed.). Cengage Learning. Seligman, M.E.P., Rashid, T., & Parks, A.C. (2006). Positive psychotherapy. American Psychologist. 61(8)., 774-788. Steele, C., (2010). Whistling Vivaldi and other clues to how stereotypes affect us. NY: W.W. Norton. Zacarian, Debbie. (2023). Transforming Schools for Multilingual Learners: a comprehensive guide for educators (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA. Corwin Press.
Debbie Zacarian brings 3+ decades of combined experience as a university faculty, educational service agency leader, and district administrator. With scholarship in strengths-based leadership, instructional, and family-school practices with multicultural, multilingual populations, her most recent book includes Transforming Schools for Multilingual Learners, a comprehensive guide for educators (2nd ed.).
A California Bill currently in the legislature, aims to fill a gap in state education recognition ensuring a state seal of biliteracy – proof that a language learner can speak, write and read in two languages or more.
For English learners, this certification is inconsistent and only available at some schools. According to some advocates and district county officials, there aren’t enough options to show students are proficient in English.
Assembly Bill 370, known as the Biliteracy Advancement Act is tailored to “…creates fairer standards for the criteria required to obtain the State Seal of Biliteracy (SSB), specifically pertaining to English language learners.” according to Assembly Member Dawn Addis’ online statement.
The State Seal of Biliteracy was adopted by California in 2012 and currently High school graduates can receive the gold seal on their high school diploma or transcript if they demonstrate proficiency in English and another language.
In 2021-22, the most recent year in which data was recorded, the seal was awarded to 57,582 in more than 22 different languages. These included American Sign Language and Arabic, to Urdu and Vietnamese.
Currently, there are several ways in which a native English speaker can prove their biliteracy and bilingualism in a second or additional language in order to receive the State Seal. These include:
Obtaining a score of 3 or higher on an Advanced Placement exam or a score of 4 or more on the International Baccalaureate (IB) exam.
By taking four years of classes in the language with a GPA of 3.0 or higher and demonstrating oral proficiency in the language by passing a district test with a score of proficient or higher.
By passing the SAT II world language exam with a score of 600 or higher.
By contrast, learners of English only have one avenue in which to do this, by completing all English language arts classes required for graduation with a GPA of 2.0 or higher, and they must meet or exceed the English language arts section of California’s standardized test in 11th grade.
Additionally, English learners must also show overall English proficiency on the English Language Proficiency Assessment of California.
The bill would remove the requirement for students who are English learners in high school to meet overall proficiency on the English Language Proficiency Assessment for California , and instead only require the highest score on the oral language portion of the test.
Above all, the bill aims to create equal opportunities.
California was the first state to adopt a seal of biliteracy and since then,almost all other states have followed suit.
Martha Hernandez, executive director of non-profit organization Californians Together said “What we’re asking of world language students in terms of demonstrating proficiency should be equal to what we’re asking of English learners,” – adding “English learners had to demonstrate proficiency in a variety of ways that were not required of our world language students. We feel that this bill is just more equitable for all students in California.”
The bill has been met with a positive reception.
Nicole Knight, executive director of English language learner and multilingual achievement at Oakland Unified School District explained
“Under current legislation, a high school student has literally a one-shot chance, one day in 11th grade to demonstrate proficiency. Meanwhile, there is a portfolio of ways that a student can demonstrate proficiency in a world language,”.
Knight added that the current requirements for the seal of biliteracy put English learning students at a disadvantage, therefore giving advantage to students who began school as native English speakers.
“We know who this benefits. All we have to do is to look at the rates at Piedmont High School, where the majority of students are English-only and high socio-economic status and have all the conditions to pass the SBAC [Smarter Balanced Assessment of California] and take AP World Language. And yet the majority of our students in Oakland who live and grow up in multilingual households are not honored for the tremendous linguistic assets they bring,” Knight said.
“You may find some superficial changes in terms of science books where you see more Black kids or Native American kids in the chapters, but there is not a real effort to change the narrative.”
– Prentice Baptiste, professor of teacher education, New Mexico State University
For years, colleges of education have been grappling with how to position issues of race, equity, and social justice within the larger programmatic and institutional framework of teacher education. Despite widespread attempts to attract a more diverse pool of teacher candidates and to expose candidates to a more multicultural experience, at the institutional level many of these initiatives remain at the discretion of individual professors, are tokenized, or are incohesive. In practice this means that issues of systemic racism, educational inequity, and cultural diversity are lumped together in one foundation course, viewed as a specialty or add-on to core teaching practices, and/or positioned as something that only teacher educators and teacher candidates of color need to be proficient in. As a result, many teacher education programs remain “centered in Whiteness.”1 Given that over 50% of the US student population is now students of color, this is not acceptable.
By contrast, our study of teacher education programs at four minority-serving institutions (MSIs) illustrates new institutional methods and models for preparing teachers that embed diversity and equity as core components of quality teacher preparation. These strategies include:
integrating culturally relevant pedagogy across the teacher education curriculum;
providing opportunities for teacher candidates to engage in guided practice in diverse school settings from the outset of their degree programs; and
increasing opportunities for meaningful engagement with local communities, including parent engagement, community service, and action research.
While we are not suggesting that MSIs are the only institutions that are adopting these kinds of practices, we did find that by their very nature as minority-serving institutions, MSIs are primed to reimagine teacher education, effectively uncentering Whiteness and changing the narrative. We argue that MSIs have been at the forefront of creating teacher education programs where complex and critical issues of race and cultural diversity are foundational across all coursework, theory, and practice, creating a more compelling and cohesive experience for candidates who strive for social justice. In this article, we provide an overview of some of the ways that MSIs are accomplishing this wor
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy in Action
As previously noted, many teacher education programs lump all issues having to do with students of color into one single course, typically called Multicultural Education or School and Society. One major criticism of these courses is that they teach candidates to respect or celebrate diversity, but they fail to provide candidates with a more critical analysis of systemic racism and educational inequity based on issues of socio-economic class, gender, language, and other differences among students. Moreover, the history and experiences of all students of color and underserved groups are too complex to condense into a single course. These courses tend to suffer from a Black/White dichotomy that minimizes the experiences of other racial groups and fails to take an intersectional approach to understanding diversity and social justice. The teacher education programs we studied were intentional in integrating culturally relevant pedagogy across the curriculum. Stone Child College (SCC), a Tribal college in Montana, for example, modeled its entire curriculum around the Chippewa Cree culture, aligning the phases of the program with the four seasons depicted on the Cree medicine wheel. Teacher educators at SCC also sought to provide a wholistic, relevant experience for candidates by creating culturally inviting community spaces where all candidates feel welcome, such as weekly drum ceremonies; honoring and preserving Tribal languages; and engaging Tribal elders in the education program.
Homegrown: Teacher Residencies and University–School Partnerships
Another way that MSIs have sought to provide candidates with a more authentic and cohesive experience working with diverse groups of students has been to create teacher residencies and university–school partnerships. This model allows candidates to spend their entire day at a local K–12 school, alternating between taking their courses and engaging in clinical practice at the same site. The BLOCKS program at New Mexico State University is an excellent example of this model, as faculty are willing to teach their content and methods courses on the school site, working in close collaboration with classroom teachers. The result is that candidates can learn about a topic or method in the morning, practice it in the afternoon, and reflect on it later that day.
In contrast to traditional models of student teaching—where candidates typically don’t enter the classroom until they have finished all their coursework—the residency model allows them to exponentially expand the amount of time they spend practicing their craft. As one professor in the program noted: “You see that they are practicing what they are learning in theory. They’re applying it well.” It is important to note, however, that what makes programs such as BLOCKS successful is not simply a change in venue or the timing of school-based practice. Such programs require major structural changes, which readdress issues of authority, time, power, and perspective. Specifically, professors, teacher supervisors, and mentor teachers must work more closely together and must respect the relative knowledge that each brings to the table.
Where Wisdom Sits: Teacher Preparation and Community Engagement
One of the defining features of MSIs is that they tend to be predominantly community-based and community-centered. This means that many of their students are drawn from the local community and plan to stay in that community upon graduation. It also means that larger issues of community justice, sustainability, and empowerment become part of the mission of MSIs. Many MSI teacher education programs—such as those at Jackson State University (HBCU) and California State University, Fresno (HSI and AANAPISI)—thus require candidates to volunteer at community sites and events, including library book drives, health fairs, homeless shelters, and food banks. Other programs include candidates in direct parent engagement, such as serving as translators for parents who don’t speak English and doing home visits to migrant families who work long hours and live in rural areas. At New Mexico State University, candidates engaged in collaborative action research with local families on literacy learning, used their findings to develop new teaching units, and planned joint family engagement activities for parents and children, such as a read-aloud with discussion. These projects helped candidates to recognize the wealth of knowledge in local communities that students bring with them to the classroom and to approach teaching from an asset-based perspective.
Call to Action
These examples are just a small sampling of the innovative practices we found in MSI teacher education programs. Our research provides data that leads us to a call to action in which we emphasize the importance of integrating culturally relevant pedagogy across the curriculum, expanding opportunities for candidates to practice teaching in diverse school settings, recruiting former K–12 teachers to the faculty, promoting cohort models, fostering community engagement, communicating messages of success and belonging to teacher candidates from diverse backgrounds, and lastly considering the importance of love. Many of the candidates we interviewed for our research—the majority of whom were people of color from low-income and first-generation backgrounds—shared with us how their prior experiences in the classroom influenced their decision to join the profession.
Those candidates who found school to be alienating and dismissive were eager to bring inclusion and change to the next generation. Likewise, those candidates who could recall a mentor or role model in the classroom, someone who encouraged them to be resilient and to believe in their ability to succeed academically, wanted to give back to the next generation. Nurturing a love of teaching, teachers’ love of students, and students’ love of teachers is an essential component of teacher education at MSIs and foundational to good teaching and effective learning for all students. From MSIs we can learn the promising practices that can teach us what a love of teaching looks like when racial equity is front and center in the way we prepare future generations of educators.
Alice Ginsberg serves as senior research specialist at the Samuel D. Proctor Institute for Leadership, Equity, and Justice.
Marybeth Gasman is the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Endowed Chair and a distinguished university professor at Rutgers University.
Andrés Castro Samayoa is an associate professor in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College.
Alice Ginsberg, Marybeth Gasman, and Andrés Castro Samayoa are the authors of For the Love of Teaching: How Minority-Serving Institutions are Diversifying and Transforming the Profession (Teachers College Press, 2023).
This article was originally published as Changing the Narrative in August 2023 Print Edition.
Last month, the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) released the latest version of the SEVIS by the Numbers report, which provides us with the latest official statistics on international students in the U.S.
The report uses Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) data from calendar year 2021 and calendar year 2022. The total number of SEVIS records for active F-1 and M-1 students was 1,362,157 in calendar year 2022—up 10.1% from calendar year 2021 and the most since 2019. Other highlights and notable trends from the report include the following:
All four regions in the U.S. saw an increase in international student records from 2021 to 2022 with respective increases ranging from 8-11%. California continued to host more international students than any other state.
The number of students from China and India made Asia the most popular continent of origin. Comparable to the drop from calendar year 2020 to 2021, China sent fewer students in 2022 compared to 2021, while India sent more students.
The number of international students enrolled at kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) schools increased 7.8% from 2021 to 2022 (+3,887).
There were 117,301 pre- and post-completion optional practical training (OPT) students with both an employment authorization document (EAD) and who reported working for an employer in calendar year 2022, compared to 115,651 in calendar year 2021—a 1.4% increase.
There were 276,723 active exchange visitors in the United States in 2022 compared to 240,479 active exchange visitors in 2021— up 15%.
International Students at K-12 Schools There were 53,517 international student records for K-12 education during calendar year 2022. China sent 25.3% of all K-12 students in 2022, followed by South Korea (8.2%), Mexico (7.6%), Spain (6%), and Vietnam (5.5%). Over 20% of all k-12 students came from Spanish-speaking countries including Mexico and Spain.
Between the calendar year 2021 and calendar year 2022 reporting period, the total number of F-1 and M-1 international student records increased by 125,409 (+10.1%).
Higher Education Most F-1 and M-1 students come to the U.S. to take part in the higher education system. In 2022, roughly 90% of all F-1 and M-1 students were enrolled in an SEVP-certified associate, bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral program. Specifically, international students in the U.S. pursued 1,226,231 degrees in higher education, which is an increase from calendar year 2021 (+83,879). It is important to note that one student might partake in more than one level of education in a given calendar year, so they may be counted in multiple educational levels.
Associate Degrees There were 71,445 F-1 students who sought an associate degree in calendar year 2022, which accounted for nearly 6% of higher education degrees pursued by the international student population. The number of students enrolled in associate degree programs increased by nearly 3% between calendar year 2021 and 2022.
Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees There were 957,603 F-1 students who sought either a bachelor’s (450,408) or master’s (507,195) degree in calendar year 2022, which accounted for 78% of higher education degrees sought by the international student population. The percentage of students pursuing bachelor’s degrees increased by 1.6% (6,968) and the percentage of students pursuing master’s degrees increased by 15.7% (68,805) between calendar year 2021 and 2022.
Doctoral Degrees There were 197,183 F-1 students who sought a doctoral degree in calendar year 2022, which accounted for 16.1% of higher education degrees sought by international students, up from 15.4% in 2021. The number of students enrolled in doctoral programs increased 3.2% (6,156) between calendar year 2021 and calendar year 2022.
Primary Majors International students can pursue more than one major during their program of study in the U.S. This section focuses on students’ primary majors, which are the foremost majors listed on their SEVIS record and correspond to most of their coursework in the U.S.
The top 5 most popular higher education majors for international students in calendar year 2022 were (student count):
Computer Science (91,083)
Second Language Learning (89,266)
Business Administration and Management, General (81, 797)
Computer and Information Sciences, General (63,955)
Electrical and Electronics Engineering (37,809)
**“Second Language Learning” indicates a major in a language other than English, such as (but not limited to) Spanish language and/or literature, Japanese language and/or literature, etc. The percentage of students majoring in languages is significantly higher than historical averages and represents a major success for language departments. For more information on how international student trends have changed over time, explore the SEVIS Data Mapping Tool on Study in the States.
Plans to introduce bilingual road signs throughoutNew Zealand have inflamed political tensions and heightened arguments over racial politics in the country’s election race.
Last week, a public consultation was opened on plans to create bilingual road signs in English and te reo Māori, the indigenous language of Aotearoa – New Zealand.
Transport agency Waka Kotahi expressed that the signs were “an opportunity for te reo Māori to be seen in our communities and support language learning and revitalisation,” and that “making te reo Māori a part of our everyday lives promotes cultural understanding and social cohesion.”
Despite bilingual road signs being the norm in the UK, many parts of Europe and Asia, the plans to introduce te reo Māori signs were hit with vehement opposition from the central-right National party.
Spokesperson Simeon Brown suggested the plans would be confusing, ““We all speak English, and they should be in English.”
David Seymour, leader of the libertarian right Act party and prospective National coalition partner, said that “the point of road signs is to communicate information in a language drivers understand, not to virtue signal, not to socially engineer”.
Kiritapu Allan, Minister for Justice, said the comments were an insult to New Zealanders’ intelligence, at a time when Indigenous rights are at the forefront of many political discussions and efforts to revitalize te reo Māori are stronger than ever.
She said “Seems like they think New Zealand isn’t smart enough,” – “The rest of the world has embraced bilingualism and multilingualism – which is reflected in their road signs. This is a real insult to New Zealanders and our IQ.”, later commenting that the statements were angled to win votes via reactionary race politics.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins added “I’m not entirely sure where they’re going with that unless it’s an outright dog whistle,”.
During colonization of New Zealand, there were active efforts to wipe out all use of Indigenous language and some children experienced violence for speaking te reo Māori at school.
More recently – and in line with the UN decade of Indigenous languages, the country has made large-scale efforts to reclaim and revitalize the language, while educating the population on the importance of Indigenous language and culture.
The number of New Zealanders who can speak basic Māori words and phrases has been steadily increasing and went from 24% in 2018 to 30% in 2021 – according to Statistics New Zealand. The 2018 census recorded that 4% of New Zealanders were fluent speakers of Māori, up from 3.7% in 2013.
Te Pati Māori [Māori party] co-leader Debbie Ngarewa Packer told RNZ the backlash against the road sign plans was an “ignorant alarmist way to be politicking”.
“Twenty percent of our population is Māori. If we see a large party basically trying to ignore 20% of this population, then can we expect them to do that to the rest of our multiculture, diversity and languages that we see coming forward in Aotearoa?”
In Malaysia, the government is looking into introducing Tamil language as an additional subject in secondary schools across the country.
According to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, talks are already in progress with Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek. The move is said to be in line with the Constitution, ensuring cultural and language rights to all citizens.
In his keynote address during the International Tamil Research Conference in Universiti Malaya, Ibrahim said “It has been our national education policy all along that the Malay language is the main medium of instruction. However, we must promote the use of the English language so that proficiency among students can be assured.”
“At the same time, we must also allow and encourage students, in this case Tamil students, to continue to master the language in secondary schools,” he added.
Despite plans to move forward, concerns have been raised over funding and a potential shortage of teachers – yet the Prime Minister has addressed these points.
“When there are fewer students, it’s difficult to employ teachers. However, I will alert Fadhlina and make the necessary adjustments.”
RM1mil has also recently been allocated for the International Tamil Research Conference. He commented “In this age, mastery of languages is important. The old mindset of some Malaysians would be against efforts to promote other languages in secondary schools.”
“They tend to ignore the fact that the mastery of a third or fourth language is important.”
Malay is the official language of Malaysia and the majority mother tongue of the Malay ethnic group. Han Chinese people and Tamil people are two of many smaller ethnic groups in the country.
Malaysian Tamil is a variant of the Tamil language, spoken across Southern Asia. In Malaysia, speakers constitute approximately 15% of the population at 2 million. Tamil is counted as one of the languages of education, along with Malay, Mandarin and English however it is inconsistently taught in secondary schools.
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