Last year brought me a number of transformative opportunities for teaching and learning, as I had the privilege of being invited to engage directly with the ambitious project of revising Panama’s national English curriculum. This work challenges me to balance innovative frameworks with the practical realities of classroom instruction, providing both rewarding insights and unique obstacles to overcome.
In this project, I am serving as technical specialist, leading the development of standards aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) to foster progressive learning outcomes. I am also working and learning from other academic specialists concentrated on the pedagogy of the CEFR, particularly focused on the integration of the action-oriented approach to learning, which prioritizes engaging students in real-world tasks where language use is purposeful and mirrors authentic communication scenarios. Leading the revision of Panama’s national English curriculum has allowed me to bridge innovative pedagogical strategies with practical classroom applications.
Central to this transformation is the integration of the CEFR. For Panama, this required tailoring the CEFR’s principles to reflect the unique cultural, linguistic, and educational realities of the country, ensuring its frameworks addressed local needs while maintaining alignment with international standards.
While communicative language teaching (CLT) has long been a cornerstone of language instruction, Panama’s new curriculum, with its embrace of the action-oriented approach, positions learners as active social agents in real-world communication scenarios. This shift, deeply rooted in CEFR principles, expands on the current practice of education by achieving alignment with international standards while honoring Panama’s distinct cultural and educational context. The action-oriented approach encourages educators to create purposeful, real-world tasks that empower students as active participants in their learning (COE, 2001).
For those new to the approach, it provides a chance to rethink classroom dynamics and instructional strategies. For seasoned practitioners, it validates and refines practices already making an impact. Whether you are just beginning to explore the principles of the action-oriented approach or already a seasoned practitioner, you may find this approach a natural extension of communicative learning. It has the power to elevate and transform classroom tasks, fully engaging and motivating learners while fostering deeper success in language acquisition.
Understanding the CEFR and Its Role in Meaningful Communication
Since its introduction in 2001, the CEFR has been implemented through the communicative language approach (Canale and Swain, 1980), which emphasizes scaffolded practice to help learners complete meaningful language tasks. This method is an effective starting point for language development; however, its full potential is often unrealized when lessons become narrowly focused on topics or specific grammar points.
When communicative teaching achieves its full potential, it offers learners opportunities to engage with language in relevant, meaningful ways—a key goal of the CEFR. Communication, at its core, is action-oriented; people communicate to express ideas, share thoughts, and convey information. Classroom tasks and activities should reflect this reality by fostering real, meaningful, and relevant communication (Piccardo, 2022). The action-oriented approach builds on the communicative approach, pushing educators to focus more deeply on practical application and authentic interaction.
Communicative Language Teaching in Practice
Most language educators are familiar with the carefully scaffolded tasks that organize teaching, from presentation of language to the productive use of language to accomplish a task or complete a project (Ellis, 2003). A variety of activities commonly used in communicative learning create natural gaps in information, encouraging authentic purposes for communication. Some examples appear in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Examples of CLT Activities
Activity
Description
Find Someone Who
Students ask questions to discover who matches a given description
Interviews
Students ask questions to uncover information they do not already know
Mingle and Match
Students exchange information on cards to find a matching partner
Listen and Draw
One student describes something for another to draw, with clarifications exchanged as needed
These tasks are excellent for introducing or practicing language items and can be designed to be meaningful and relevant to students. However, the action-oriented approach requires educators to take these activities a step further by viewing students as social agents rather than passive recipients of structured learning sequences.
Shifting to the Action-Oriented Approach
The action-oriented approach transforms communicative activities by emphasizing authenticity, relevance, and real-world application (Hunter, 2021). It reframes students as active participants who engage in meaningful tasks reflective of the domains they will encounter in everyday life. The CEFR identifies four domains of communication
Personal: Informal interactions, such as describing one’s bedroom or hobbies.
Public: Activities in shared spaces, like buying a bus ticket or asking for directions.
Occupational: Professional communication, including job interviews and workplace collaboration.
Educational: Formal learning settings, such as delivering presentations or participating in academic discussions.
Each domain provides opportunities to design tasks that are relevant to learners. For example, a task in the occupational domain could involve role-playing a job interview, while a public-domain activity might simulate ordering food at a food stand. By focusing on tasks tied to these domains, the action-oriented approach ensures learning is purposeful and engaging.
Figure 2: Examples of Action-Oriented tasks aligned to specific contexts, domains, and communicative needs
Real-World Applications: Designing Lessons with Purpose
Regardless of whether educators are following a textbook or designing lessons organically, the action-oriented approach can enhance learning by centering it around real-world, meaningful communication. Figure 2 shows examples of how this approach can be applied.
Incorporating these types of tasks allows teachers to meet specific standards and objectives while making learning relevant to students’ lives.
CEFR Descriptors: Guiding Progression
A key benefit of the CEFR is its “can-do” descriptors, which help teachers understand what learners are capable of at various levels and identify pathways for development. These descriptors provide a road map for creating tasks that align with students’ current abilities while challenging them to grow. For example:
At A1, learners might identify basic objects or express simple preferences.
By B1, students should be able to handle more complex tasks, like negotiating or expressing detailed opinions.
By leveraging these descriptors, teachers can scaffold lessons to ensure that students build confidence and competence progressively. In Panama, this process has been central to bridging the CEFR’s theoretical frameworks with practical, culturally relevant classroom applications that are action oriented. Tailoring learning experiences to reflect the linguistic diversity and unique educational goals of Panamanian students has helped ensure that lessons resonate deeply while maintaining alignment with global standards. Further, providing sequenced standards at level, aligned to specific domains and scenarios relevant to Panama, ensures opportunities for action-oriented practice, with support scaffolding for teachers. For example:
At the A1 level, learners may learn to express simple preferences by describing the colors of flowers in the schoolyard, which would be a suitable topic for younger students in a rural setting.
In an urban environment, this may involve describing the colors of rooftops visible from the classroom windows.
At the B1 level, students could discuss the impact of tourism on the environment and suggest sustainable ways to promote tourism, a topic relevant to both rural and urban students.
This integration demonstrates how the action-oriented approach can adapt to specific contexts, offering valuable insights for educators worldwide.
Bringing It Together: The Panama Context
In Panama, integrating the action-oriented approach into the national English curriculum was a multifaceted process. It required aligning CEFR principles with the cultural and linguistic diversity of the country while addressing local educational priorities. This involved developing tasks that mirrored real-life scenarios Panamanian students would likely encounter, from describing the vibrant and diverse rainforests and communities across the country to participating in discussions about the importance of Panama as a member of the global community.
Collaboration among educators, technical specialists, and policymakers was key to ensuring that these adaptations met both local and international standards. The result is a curriculum that empowers students as active participants in their learning, equipping them with the skills to thrive in multilingual and multicultural contexts. This experience in Panama underscores the potential of the action-oriented approach to transform not only individual classrooms but also broader educational systems.
By adopting an action-oriented approach, educators can explore the full potential of the CEFR, transforming classrooms into spaces where language learning is practical, purposeful, and deeply engaging. For Panama, this shift not only modernizes the national curriculum but also strengthens the bridge between education and the real world. Through this approach, students become confident communicators and proud representatives of their heritage, equipped to thrive in global and local contexts. Ultimately, action-oriented language teaching ensures that learning transcends the classroom, enabling students to connect, collaborate, and contribute meaningfully in a multilingual world.
References
Canale, M., and Swain, M. (1980). “Theoretical Bases of Communicative Approaches to Second Language Teaching and Testing.” Applied Linguistics, 3, 29–59.
COE. (2001). Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Council of Europe.
Ellis, R. (2003). Task-Based Language Learning and Teaching. Oxford University Press.
Hunter, D. (2021). “Developing an Action-Oriented Pathway in the Classroom.” Webinar. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages/newsroom/-/asset_publisher/rg3sWjrNNmPK/content/webinar-developing-an-action-oriented-pathway-in-the-classroom-?_com_liferay_asset_publisher_web_portlet_AssetPublisherPortlet_INSTANC
Piccardo, E. (2022). “The Action-Oriented Approach: From theory to practice.” Online workshop. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages/newsroom/-/asset_publisher/rg3sWjrNNmPK/content/the-action-oriented-approach-from-theory-to-practice?_com_liferay_asset_publisher_web_portlet_AssetPublisherPortlet_INSTANCE_rg3sWjrNN
Sara Davila is an English language education specialist with over two decades of experience. She collaborates with institutions and organizations worldwide to create engaging and effective learning by supporting curriculum auditing, revision, and reform. She is a passionate advocate for 21st-century learning approaches that explore and integrate technological thinking. Currently, she’s consulting with Quality Leadership University and the US Embassy in Panama to support the revision and implementation of the national English curriculum.
President Trump has signed an executive order (EO) declaring English the official language of the US, effectively rescinding a mandate established by President Clinton that required government entities to provide language assistance to individuals who do not speak English. However, the order grants federal agencies and organizations receiving federal funds the autonomy to decide whether they will continue offering services and documents in languages other than English and makes no mention of funding for language services.
The EO states that it is “long past time that English is declared as the official language of the United States,” and that, “A nationally designated language is at the core of a unified and cohesive society, and the United States is strengthened by a citizenry that can freely exchange ideas in one shared language.”
The move is justified in the order by claims that it will “streamline communication,” “reinforce shared national values, and create a more cohesive and efficient society.” However, the order has been met with widespread opposition including that of TESOL International Association, which claimed in a statement that: “This EO establishes U.S. federal policy guidance that leads to discriminatory practices against multilingual learners of English, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; by rescinding the 2000 EO 13166, which directed federal agencies to improve access for individuals with limited English proficiency, this EO creates barriers to full and equal participation in public services, including education, for the millions of multilingual learners of English living in the United States.
According to its statement, TESOL will respond with the following actions: “partner with peer associations advocating against this divisive policy to support and advance fair and equal access to public services, especially education; work with government agencies to ensure that the progress made over the past two decades, especially the development of each agency’s language access plan under the 2000 EO 13166 [which directed federal agencies to improve access for individuals with limited English proficiency] is not only preserved but continues; petition congressional action that recognizes and values the linguistic and cultural diversity of our nation and supports the tenets of EO 13166 in encouraging improvement and access to government services for multilingual learners of English; submit public comment to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights briefing, Language Access for Individuals with Limited English Proficiency, on the importance of overcoming language barriers for access to government services; and provide education and advocacy resources to our members and the public that serve multilingual learners and their families.”
The EO recognizes that more than 350 languages are spoken in the US, but English “has been the language of our nation” since its founding, so “a policy of encouraging the learning and adoption of our national language will make the United States a shared home and empower new citizens to achieve the American dream.”
The order claims that a national language promotes a sense of national identity, unity and a “pathway for civic engagement.” The order “celebrates multilingual Americans who have learned English and passed it down, while empowering immigrants to achieve the American Dream through a common language.”
Agencies will still be allowed to provide services and documents in other languages.
While many federal agencies and state and local governments have moved to make services more accessible to non-English speakers over the last several decades, congressional Republicans have tried, unsuccessfully, to pass legislation that would make English the national language. However, more than 30 states have already passed legislation adopting English as an official language.
While a senator, Vice President JD Vance introduced the English Language Unity Act, which would have directed the government to perform all official business in English and updated English language testing standards for people seeking citizenship.
The Spanish-language version of the White House website remains down since the inauguration, despite the administration saying it intended to restore the website online more than a month ago.
Here is the full text of the Executive Order:
Designating English as the Official Language of The United States
March 1, 2025
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:
Section 1. Purpose and Policy. From the founding of our Republic, English has been used as our national language. Our Nation’s historic governing documents, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, have all been written in English. It is therefore long past time that English is declared as the official language of the United States. A nationally designated language is at the core of a unified and cohesive society, and the United States is strengthened by a citizenry that can freely exchange ideas in one shared language.
In welcoming new Americans, a policy of encouraging the learning and adoption of our national language will make the United States a shared home and empower new citizens to achieve the American dream. Speaking English not only opens doors economically, but it helps newcomers engage in their communities, participate in national traditions, and give back to our society. This order recognizes and celebrates the long tradition of multilingual American citizens who have learned English and passed it to their children for generations to come.
To promote unity, cultivate a shared American culture for all citizens, ensure consistency in government operations, and create a pathway to civic engagement, it is in America’s best interest for the Federal Government to designate one — and only one — official language. Establishing English as the official language will not only streamline communication but also reinforce shared national values, and create a more cohesive and efficient society.
Accordingly, this order designates English as the official language of the United States.
Sec. 2. Definitions. For purposes of this order: (a) “Agency” has the meaning given to it in section 3502 of title 44, United States Code, except that such term does not include the Executive Office of the President or any components thereof.
(b) “Agency Head” means the highest-ranking official of an agency, such as the Secretary, Administrator, Chairman, or Director, unless otherwise specified in this order.
Sec. 3. Designating an Official Language for the United States. (a) English is the official language of the United States.
(b) Executive Order 13166 of August 11, 2000 (Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency), is hereby revoked; nothing in this order, however, requires or directs any change in the services provided by any agency. Agency heads should make decisions as they deem necessary to fulfill their respective agencies’ mission and efficiently provide Government services to the American people. Agency heads are not required to amend, remove, or otherwise stop production of documents, products, or other services prepared or offered in languages other than English.
(c) The Attorney General shall rescind any policy guidance documents issued pursuant to Executive Order 13166 and provide updated guidance, consistent with applicable law.
Sec. 4. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
Lesson planning is a political act. As previously stated in the Language Magazine article “Content, Language, and Culture Targets” (Medina, 2023), schools in the US, at the core, are designed to promote a monocultural and monolingual perspective of teaching and learning. As educators, the lessons we design and facilitate either support or dismantle educational systems that have historically marginalized certain student communities (Medina and Izquierdo, 2021). Black, Indigenous, students of color (BISoCs), language learners, children with specific academic, behavioral and/or physical health needs, and students belonging to the LGBTQ2S+ community, among others, have been deprioritized in a schooling system that is centered on “Whiteness” and heteronormative ideologies and aligned with privilege resulting from English monolingualism. By leveraging students’ cultural and linguistic gifts via strategically planned lessons aligned to content, language, and culture learning targets, educators can move away from this ideology and ensure students actively engage with grade-level standards in an inclusive educational environment.
Since its release in 2018, the C6 Biliteracy Instructional Framework (C6BIF) has been embraced by schools and districts providing dual language, bilingual, world language, ESL/ENL/ELD/EAL, and English monolingual programming throughout the US and abroad. The framework embraces everything educators bring into the classroom in terms of pedagogical expertise, while also aligning the lesson-planning processes to the latest biliteracy instructional recommendations. Educators and administrators seeking to scale culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogical practices appreciate the clear yet flexible framework, which allows them to put research into action using a critical consciousness lens to dismantle oppressive educational systems. Supported by the ongoing E3: Equity, Evidence, and Efficacy research project, a six-year longitudinal study in partnership with Dr. Elena Izquierdo and Dr. Vanessa Espitia from the University of Texas at El Paso, the C6BIF ensures that these invaluable practices are replicable in every educational setting.
While the Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education: Third Edition (Howard et al., 2018), often referred to as the GP3, promotes culturally and linguistically sustaining biliteracy instructional practices that allow educators to serve diverse student communities better, it does not specifically identify how the research recommendations should be incorporated into an educator’s everyday lesson planning. The C6BIF is written to align with the recommendations in the GP3 and beyond, as well as to engage in the important work of critical consciousness and anti-bias/anti-racism in the pre-K–12 classroom. This article, organized into four sections, explores the strategic integration of current biliteracy recommendations, including translanguaging and cross-linguistic practices, that allow for this critical work to occur through the lesson-planning process:
The Need for Critical Consciousness in Lesson Planning
The C6BIF as a Vehicle for Action
Connecting Learning Experiences to Students’ Lives and Linguistic Repertoires
Activating and valuing students’ schemas
Translanguaging
Cross-linguistic connections
Recommendations
The Need for Critical Consciousness in Lesson Planning
Schooling systems were conceptualized to promote a White, monolingual, heteronormative, patriarchal, and often xenophobic perspective of teaching and learning. Currently, state legislators in the US are working to deny educators the ability to facilitate accurate historical lessons. Targeted pre-K–12 topics include but are not limited to the origins of slavery, the Holocaust, the LGBTQ2S+ community, and American Indian/Alaska Native history, which relate to individuals in populations most marginalized in schools. This, coupled with the increasing number of books banned from school libraries for amplifying real events in history, makes it imperative that educators leverage the lesson-planning process to ensure anti-bias and anti-racism work is at the center of every lesson that is designed.
In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire (2005) states that a pedagogy must be forged with, and not for, those oppressed. The oppressed, the students part of a schooling system that has historically “othered” them, must actively engage in the construction of their learning, and their liberation, which occurs through meaningful participation in the construction of their learning. This is critical consciousness. When lesson planning uses this lens, educators do not seek to be the voice for students. They instead seek to dismantle the systems that mute student voices. To support our evolution as educators, it is important to acknowledge our inherent participation in student oppression due to an alignment with antiquated and potentially biased educational practices. However, as educators, we can offer reparation for the trauma inflicted on our most diverse student communities through how we choose to engage in the lesson-planning process.
Figure 1. The C6BIF Descriptors and Identifiers
The C6BIF as a Vehicle for Action
In conceptualizing a lesson-planning framework specifically via a biliteracy instructional lens, identifying culturally and linguistically sustaining systems that would support critical-consciousness recommendations was imperative. Additionally, C6BIF alignment with the three goals of dual language programming—bilingualism/biliteracy, grade-level academic achievement in two program languages, and an overt focus on sociocultural competence and critical consciousness—was equally important (Arias and Medina, 2020). The intersection of these concepts resulted in the six components of the C6BIF, each designed to house biliteracy instructional systems that would be replicable in every educational setting and would empower students to be co-creators of the instruction and learning that takes place in every classroom.
The C6BIF is not a checklist or a to-do list. Rather, it is a way of thinking about the lessons we plan and identifying how they are or are not creating a pathway for all students to access grade-level standards through a critical-consciousness lens. Whatever professional learning educators have engaged in, it has a home within the C6BIF. Aligned with the content, language, and culture learning targets planned during CREATE, CONNECT is the next step in empowering students to own their full identities and deeper learning. As part of this component, students engage in learning experiences that connect to their lives and linguistic repertoires. Educators are challenged to wholly and authentically value the experiences, knowledge, cultures, and languages students come to school with every day. In this way, educators are simultaneously able to disarm educational systems designed to continue the oppression of BISoCs.
Connecting Learning Experiences to Students’ Lives and Linguistic Repertoires
If we acknowledge that schooling systems were conceptualized to promote a White, monolingual, and monocultural perspective of teaching and learning, then we too must be critically reflective about how we are or are not dismantling oppressive education systems. Our intentions must go beyond the performative. Only in this fashion can we begin the work toward linguistic liberation in every educational setting.
Activating and Valuing Students’ Schema
Often, educators will overtly state that they value all that a student brings into the classroom. However, quickly those conversations turn to the topic of building background. Even as we state that we embrace the cultural and linguistic prowess of the students we serve, we begin to chat about how to “fill the gaps” that students have so they can succeed in our educational system.
According to Marzano (2004), what students already know about the content is one of the strongest indicators of how well they will learn new information. But if teachers and administrators have not engaged in critical self-reflection about the oppressive nature of education and our part in that oppression, it becomes difficult to leverage the strategies that will fully empower students to use their entire cultural and linguistic skill sets.
The idea that all educators should value the schema of the BISoCs that they teach, and truly prioritize background knowledge that is not White, monolingual, heteronormative, patriarchal, and/or xenophobic, is a new concept for some. Valuing students’ lives and experiences regardless of race, language, religion, and so on is an essential building block for learning. But if building background is about filling gaps, and educational systems are grounded in Whiteness, then when we believe that a student lacks a certain understanding of content, what we are really worried about is that BISoCs are not White enough to be successful academically. As educators, we must reframe and reflect on our understanding of activating students’ schema and building background knowledge to ensure we don’t perpetuate systems in schools that further marginalize certain student communities.
Far too often in schools, BISoCs, including emergent multilingual students, are immediately labeled and pigeonholed into certain categories due to a perceived inability to understand a concept or express their learning in English. In fact, from the moment that we enter some teacher preparation or alternative certification programs, the pedagogy that is shared with us may be aligned with the flawed perspective that we must teach students, rather than learn alongside them and from them. We may be taught to see students as having gaps, identifying which children are “high” or “low,” and targeting student language that needs to be fixed, rather than embracing an asset-based perspective of student abilities. Across the country, students are color-coded (red/yellow/green or blue birds/red birds/green birds). This practice of identifying students as low, medium, and high is culturally and linguistically oppressive.
Let’s reframe how we think and speak about the students we serve. Rather than merely categorizing them as low, medium, and high, as educators we should assess student abilities from a culturally and linguistically sustaining perspective. Additionally, a multilingual student should be assessed not just from a content perspective but from a language lens as well.
Below is a tool to help educators dismantle present systems of oppression at work in schools, via the language we mobilize to engage in conversations about students and their learning.
Empathy, we are reminded, is needed as we empower students from communities that are frequently marginalized in schools, but what are we truly saying? Being good people, having empathy, and building background is not enough if we are not challenging the systems that continue to “other” students who are not White-adjacent. When we believe that some students simply do not have “what they need” to be successful in schools, what we are truly saying is that we align with antiquated ideologies that exclude non-White student communities from what happens in a US classroom.
Translanguaging
The topic of translanguaging research and how to, or not to, leverage the work in schools is feverishly being debated. What some educators fail to realize is that all of us translanguage. Whether fabulous and monolingual or fabulous and multilingual, we translanguage daily. Thanks to the research of Drs. Ofelia García, Susana Ibarra Johnson, and Kate Seltzer (2017), we have a deeper and more readily accessible definition of translanguaging and know the vital role it plays in our everyday lives. Translanguaging is the mobilization of specific language features, within one linguistic repertoire, based on the context and need for communication. That is, each of us has one linguistic repertoire. Based on with whom or how we are communicating, we mobilize the linguistic features needed at that moment. Translanguaging reminds us that communication is fluid and proves that one language never begins and others never end. It is only schools that attempt to separate languages. Moreover, translanguaging research clarifies that there is no hierarchy between what we in schools identify as academic and social language. All linguistic features are important and correct depending on the context in which they are used.
The reason translanguaging is important, in terms of serving BISoCs, is that we must continue to work toward linguistic liberation. From the time students who readily speak English enter a US school, they leverage 100% of their language repertoire because that is what we value in schools. That is not the case for culturally and linguistically diverse student communities. Depending on the implementation of translanguaging research in individual states, districts, schools, and/or classrooms, emergent multilinguals are asked to immediately ignore languages that are not English and only use less than 50% of their linguistic repertoires. Dual language programs also linguistically oppress students when they’re told “en español” or “English only,” once again forcing students to use less than 50% of their linguistic repertoires. A translanguaging stance allows educators to do away with that linguistic practice and to empower students to leverage their full linguistic prowess regardless of the educational setting.
If translanguaging requires individuals to move language from their one linguistic repertoire based on context, then the 4+1 language domains (Figure 2) become the vehicle through which such movement occurs. Every student, every human being, learns new content by interacting with information via listening, speaking, reading, and writing. However, emergent multilinguals have an additional language domain that they leverage—metalinguistic awareness. Metalinguistic awareness is the ability of multilinguals to make connections between the different nation languages represented within their one linguistic repertoire. Because in most schooling systems we have rarely empowered students to use their metalinguistic awareness, we have in fact been a part of their linguistic oppression.
Students must own and be encouraged to use listening, speaking, reading, writing, and metalinguistic awareness as part of their daily learning. They must understand that everyone has one linguistic repertoire. Some students have one language represented within their one language bubble, while others have more than one language they can use and call upon. But ultimately, every student will move toward linguistic liberation when they fully understand that their duty is to sustain and expand their one linguistic repertoire.
It is our job as educators to help students identify the context in which they are communicating and strategically choose which part of their linguistic repertoire to utilize, always honoring and elevating the languages of the students we serve. When we do not value or allow translanguaging in classrooms, we are in fact fighting against, and not in the name of, equity and social justice.
Figure 2. The 4+1 Language Domain Icons
Those of us who serve in educational settings must be clear on the difference between translanguaging, metalinguistic awareness, and cross-linguistic connections; as well, we must understand how they are interconnected and how we can best leverage them to serve emergent multilingual students best.
Translanguaging research is the umbrella that supports culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogy. It reminds us that we all mobilize language from our one linguistic repertoire based on context. The 4+1 language domains, and specifically metalinguistic awareness, become the vehicles to move language from within our linguistic repertoire. Cross-linguistic connections are the tools teachers use to plan for and support metalinguistic awareness and thus translanguaging research in the classroom (Figure 2).
It is important to note that metalinguistic awareness is referred to as +1 because it is always leveraged in connection to one or more of the other language domains. Below are some examples of how this might be seen in the classroom:
Listening + Metalinguistic Awareness:
A Spanish-speaking student is in an all-English classroom, and they hear the teacher say the word chocolate. Immediately the student makes the connection between chocolate in Spanish and the word used by the teacher in English.
Speaking + Metalinguistic Awareness:
In a Spanish/English dual language classroom, a student might say in Spanish, José’s pelo es corto. The student is leveraging their full linguistic repertoire and embedding the possessive apostrophe-s into the Spanish statement.
Reading + Metalinguistic Awareness:
In a non-dual secondary mathematics course where all the instruction is offered in English, a newly arrived, non-English-speaking student will identify cognates between their home language and English as they read the information in the textbook.
Writing + Metalinguistic Awareness:
During a state assessment, an emergent bilingual student will write a sentence in English and change the syntax (word order) to align with their home language.
Figure 3. The Translanguaging Umbrella
What might translanguaging look like in a classroom? In addition to students owning and interacting with the 4+1 language icons (Figure 2), students should be able to explain both translanguaging and metalinguistic awareness. Approaching language in the classroom as fluid and without hierarchy empowers students to identify context; the continuum-of-language strategy is one way to be more linguistically sustaining in the classroom.
For example, an interactive chart could be displayed (see Figures 4 and 5) so that students can identify in which contexts words might be used. Chamba in Spanish might appear above the line to the left, and its academic equivalent trabajo would appear above the line to the right. Words like parquear or planching would appear on the line itself to represent combined words. A word like ’sup in English would appear to the left, and its academic equivalent How are you? would appear to the right, whereas Good day to you! might appear even further to the right. Black students are often linguistically oppressed in diverse educational settings. If a Black child shares, “I’m finna go to the store,” we can have them include it in context, while also asking them to mobilize, “I’m getting ready to.” Metalinguistic connections, as part of a lesson’s language-learning target, are one way that educators can lesson plan and leverage students’ full linguistic capabilities. The language continuum chart is an example of this work.
Figure 4. Language Continuum Chart
Figure 5. Language Continuum Chart with Examples
Translanguaging research and activities don’t only support language-learning targets; they also strengthen culture-learning targets. As educators, we can help students better understand how language impacts their learning and their existence in this world. Strategies like the one above empower students to fully own their linguistic prowess and thus their linguistic liberation.
Another activity for educators to consider is having students explain the content they’ve learned, either orally or in writing, to different types of audiences. For example, Explain the lunar cycle and phases of the moon might be the prompt, and teachers might assign different audiences to hear this information. How might you explain this content to your abuela who only speaks Spanish? How might you explain this to your bilingual younger cousin? How might you explain this to your principal who only speaks English? How might you explain this to a famous scientist? Comparing and contrasting the use of language as a class further deepens student understanding of translanguaging in their everyday lives.
All these pieces comprise the current body of research surrounding translanguaging. Our job as educators is to amplify and sustain our students’ languages. Embracing translanguaging research empowers us to continue to help students to expand their linguistic repertoires without destroying the languages of their homes and communities.
Cross-linguistic Connections
If as an educator, I must value all that students bring into the classroom, then I support translanguaging research by empowering students to use their 4+1 language domains. Specifically, I must also leverage the power of metalinguistic awareness via cross-linguistic work that will allow students to mobilize their content learning in more than one language. Strategic and authentic cross-linguistic work with students not only supports the academic goals of dual language classrooms, but it also promotes both sociocultural competence and critical-consciousness work. Planning for cross-linguistic connections is fundamental for educators seeking to dismantle educational systems of oppression that continue to impact certain student communities.
As translanguaging research continues to work its way into classrooms, many teachers are still not sure about how to separate languages while strategically making cross-linguistic connections. (See Figure 3, “The Translanguaging Umbrella.”) Educators want to be linguistically and culturally sustaining; they want to embrace translanguaging research, but many simply need the tools to plan for and implement in the classroom setting.
The following five cross-linguistic tools, sometimes referred to as biliteracy instructional tools, incorporate translanguaging research and provide practical application. Moreover, the tools ensure that the content learned by emergent bilingual students, specifically in dual language bilingual education programs, can be mobilized equally well in both program languages.
Tools for the End of a Unit
The recommended biliteracy tools teachers should use at the end of the unit are Bridge Level 1 and Bridge Level 2 anchor charts. These are artifacts created when educators implement the bridge. The bridge is the artifact that teachers use to make connections between the languages related to the current academic content being learned. The bridge happens at the end of a unit; students, with teacher support, create an artifact, usually an anchor chart, where cross-linguistic connections are made and documented.
It is important to note that Bridge Level 1 and Bridge Level 2 anchor charts are not about reteaching content. They are about documenting whether students can language the content they learned equally well in both program languages. There is also a general misunderstanding that Bridge Level 1 is about translation. It is not. Bridge Level 1 anchor charts are about language transfer.
Bridge Level 1 Anchor Charts
Bridge Level 1 anchor charts are side-by-side color-coded anchor charts that focus on the content and language of the unit. Teachers and students co-create this anchor chart at the end of the unit to ensure that students can language their deep content understanding in both program languages. Bridge Level 1 focuses on transfer.
To begin, students list the important concepts found in the unit in a designated program language in one column on the anchor chart. Teachers scribe in the appropriate color of the current language.
After creating and discussing this list, teachers guide students to switch to the other program language. During this step, students transfer the concepts that they brainstormed in the first step into the accompanying program language. Because the purpose of a Bridge Level 1 anchor chart is transfer, at this point students must also share three or four important facts that support the content concepts they are working to transfer and language in both program languages.
Depending on students’ linguistic repertoires in individual classes, students can guide teachers to add more columns for the additional languages represented in the classroom. Each language should be written in its designated color code.
Bridge Level 2 Anchor Charts
After completing the Bridge Level 1 anchor chart, students engage in a variety of contrastive analyses depending on what they observe. Teachers should strategically plan how to extend the language focus by leveraging the needs of students and helping guide students to create a Bridge Level 2 anchor chart. For educators, as well as teams/departments, Bridge Level 2 anchor charts provide opportunities for more strategic lesson planning and guide what units to select for Bridge Level 1 and 2 work. For example, if educators know that students need work on syntax, teams can identify which content area and unit best facilitate the bridging of this information. Bridge Level 2 anchor charts extend the work that took place in making the Bridge Level 1 anchor chart and focus on linguistic contrastive analysis.
After co-creating the Bridge Level 1 anchor chart, students make observations about the similarities and differences in phonology, morphology, syntax, grammar, or pragmatics that they see. Educators guide students to the chosen language focus.
A new anchor chart is created in this step. The concepts that have been identified as the language focus from the Bridge Level 1 anchor chart are transferred to this new chart to start the examples with the current content.
Then, just like with the Bridge Level 1 anchor chart, students begin to provide examples of the language focus in one program language while the teacher scribes in the appropriate color. Students are now encouraged to draw upon all their content knowledge and provide examples across disciplines. After discussing and providing examples in the one program language, teachers guide students to the next column and begin filling in the information in the remaining program language. Students are encouraged to add any additional information to the column in this language as needed. Again, students might be invited to provide additional columns to represent and value the entire range of linguistic repertoires found in the classroom. The Bridge Level 2 anchor chart becomes a living, breathing chart where items are added throughout the school year. It continues to be displayed throughout the year as part of the environmental print support in the classroom. Some possibilities for Bridge Level 2 anchor charts include initial sounds, cognates, plural, singular, articles, syntax, punctuation, prefixes and suffixes, and regionalisms.
The bridge, which includes Bridge Level 1 and Bridge Level 2 anchor charts, is a tool that educators should utilize at the end of a unit. Four to six Bridge Level 1 and Bridge Level 2 anchor charts should establish cross-linguistic connections across content areas per semester. Bridge Level 2 anchor chart ideas drive which units are selected to bridge throughout the school year. In dual language programs with a two-teacher model, the dual language teachers that facilitate in English, whether monolingual or multilingual, must still engage students in cross-linguistic work. The classroom environment in both classrooms should reflect transfer work. The bridge is only one strategy to ensure that students can language their deep content understanding in both program languages.
Tools for Daily Use
Bridge Level 1 and Level 2 student co-constructed anchor charts document the content and language transfer that has already happened. Thus, as educators, we must leverage the three cross-linguistic tools to ensure that this transfer is happening daily. This is why the language allocation plan, whether 90–10, 80–20, or 50–50, must include grade-level instruction in both program languages in all content areas regularly. Creating linguistically inclusive spaces and strategically planning for cross-linguistic connections not only facilitates the transfer of academic content from one language into all others, it also is an example of how teachers can empower students to become linguistically liberated. Using the metalinguistic-awareness language domain icon (Figure 2) ensures that students own cross-linguistic work and thus embrace translanguaging research.
Bridge/Metalinguistic Moments
To help students value and understand translanguaging, cross-linguistic tools should be reserved for the end of units, but should be strategically planned and implemented daily. Asking students to make cross-linguistic connections is not merely asking them to translate. Engaging students in contrastive analyses of multiple languages across disciplines is so much more than that. When strategically planned and aligned to content targets, daily cross-linguistic tools are a powerful way to ensure transfer of both the content and language across students’ linguistic repertoires. Encouraging students to mobilize all parts of their linguistic repertoire is one way educators can begin dismantling the systems of linguistic oppression found in schools.
Understanding translanguaging research, embracing metalinguistic awareness, and making cross-linguistic connections require us to engage in these activities on a strategic and ongoing basis to be effective. Unless we address the linguistic bias inherently present in US schools, we are bound to continue the linguistic oppression of the emergent multilingual students we are charged to serve.
Recommendations
Every single one of us, as educators in schooling systems that have marginalized BISoCs, must acknowledge that we have linguistically oppressed those we are charged to serve. Doing so enables us to offer reparation via the instruction we now facilitate. I often state that I am a linguistic oppressor in recuperation. It is my hope that others will join me as we strive to do better.
It is important for every educator to fully understand how translanguaging research, metalinguistic awareness, and cross-linguistic connections are integral for student linguistic liberation in the classroom. To deny students the opportunity to embrace their full linguistic repertoires is to further cause linguistic trauma.
In dual language programs, we must leverage translanguaging research as we establish times for target languages while also engaging students in cross-linguistic work. Moreover, we must cease the practice of running two monolingual programs side by side and calling it dual language. The only way that students can works toward bilingualism and biliteracy is via strategic cross-linguistic work. Leadership at the school, district, state, and federal levels must make decisions grounded in translanguaging, metalinguistic awareness, and cross-linguistic connection recommendations.
References
Arias, B., and Medina, J. (2020). “Sociocultural Competence in Action.” Language Magazine. www.languagemagazine.com/2020/10/15/sociocultural-competence-in-action Freire, P. (2005). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Continuum International Publishing Group Inc. García, O., Ibarra Johnson, S., and Seltzer, K. (2017). The Translanguaging Classroom: Leveraging Student Bilingualism for Learning. Caslon Publishing. Howard, E. R., Lindholm-Leary, K. J., Rogers, D., Olague, N., Medina, J., Kennedy, B., Sugarman, J., and Christian, D. (2018). Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education (3rd ed.). Center for Applied Linguistics. Marzano, R. J. (2004). Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement: Research on What Works in Schools. ASCD. Medina, J. (2023). “Content, Language, and Culture Learning Targets.” Language Magazine. www.languagemagazine.com/2023/03/22/content-language-and-culture-learning-targets Medina, J., and Izquierdo, I. (2021). “Equity Commitment in Large-Scale Dual Language Bilingual Education.” Multilingual Educator, March 2021, 6–10.
Dr. José Medina is a researcher who provides dual language support to programs across the US and globally. As a former DL school principal and district leader, he has served at the elementary and secondary school levels. José co-authored the third edition of the Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education.
At the annual general meeting (AGM) of the Board of Trustees of the Instituto Cervantes, Spain’s King Felipe announced that Spanish is “so alive” in America that it can be said, “without fear of exaggeration,” that the global evolution of the language “will depend to a large extent” on the continent.
During his traditional speech at the closing of the event, the king emphasized that the Spanish linguistic community not only includes all Spanish-American countries but also Spanish speakers residing in other countries, referring particularly to the US, where in the year 2050 there will be almost 100 million speakers. With this in mind, King Felipe described as “striking” the decision of the US government to remove the Spanish language as “an instrument of communication” from the White House).
“Surely it will be temporary, because due to demographic and democratic events, it will end up being the second most used language and with political influence,” he argued.
He also made it clear that the teaching of Spanish is “inseparable” from the dissemination of culture, celebrating the fact that last year, the institute held more than 7,800 events around the world. Spain’s president Pedro Sánchez, as well as its ministers of foreign affairs, José Manuel Albares, and culture, Ernest Urtasun, also attended the meeting at the Royal Palace of El Pardo.
The king also celebrated the “sustained” growth of Spanish students around the world, 2% annually, attributing it “not only to demographic growth but to economic and professional incentives.”
Spanish Exam Registrations Grow up to 20%
One of the stats highlighted at the meeting was the 20% increase in registrations for the DELE Diploma of Spanish as a Foreign Language (almost 160,000). There have also been more than one million candidates for the CCSE test of Spanish nationality since its establishment in 2015.
Cervantes’s director, Luis García Montero, highlighted that the institute self-generated 43.5% of its budget of 143 million euros in 2024. The staff has also grown to a total of 1,012 employees, of which 243 work in Spain and 769 in the international network of centers. Looking to 2025, García Montero proposed “one of the most ambitious plans” of the institute in recent years, that of digital transformation. He also referred to the economic situation, noting that although “things have improved in recent years… we cannot rest on our laurels.”
In addition to the16,551 candidates for the test of International Spanish Language Evaluation (SIELE), the institute welcomed 11,833 attendees to its Spanish teacher training courses.
In a meeting with the press prior to the AGM, García Montero said that he regretted the change in position of the US government toward Spanish after the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, stating that “it is not only about defending the prestige of the language but about not humiliating people for being migrants or poor.”
“I find it very derogatory and that it is a dynamic that spreads throughout the world, something very worrying,” added García Montero. He continued by saying that the decision was “sad news” that ties in with Trump’s record in his first term that he hoped would not be repeated “after the support he had had in elections from a large part of the Latin population.”
“I thought that perhaps he would change his attitude and be neutral, also taking into account that the Latino population is now a very significant part of the United States economy, but that has not happened,” he added.
Similarly, he referred to the confrontational situation between the US and Mexican governments, saying, “Mexico and Spain, like all of Latin America, share interests which imagine the future. I am very sorry for the arrogance with which Trump treats not only Spanish speakers but also the Mexican authorities.”
Regarding Cervantes’s position in the US, the director proposed that it will focus some of its efforts on “consolidating the prestige of Spanish” as a language of culture, science, and technology, accompanied by projects to “consolidate” the presence of the institute in the US.
He indicated that he is considering opening an extension and subsequently a possible center in Miami, as well as joining a proposal from the Royal Spanish Academy to hold their next Language Congress, after the one in Arequipa (Peru), in the US.
In his first speech to the European Parliament since taking office, NATO secretary general Mark Rutte warned that if European defense spending doesn’t rise, Europeans might need to “get out their Russian language courses or go to New Zealand,” according to Politico. Rutte also called for raising the alliance’s defense spending target beyond its current benchmark of 2% of each country’s GDP—a goal that only 24 of the bloc’s 32 members currently meet.
He highlighted one of his priorities, to “bring NATO and the EU closer together” to counter an ongoing Russian “destabilization campaign” and address other threats, including those from Iran and China.
Noting that Europe is currently “neither at war nor at peace,” Rutte stressed that increased investment in defense “cannot wait,” adding, “We need to boost the resilience of our societies and critical infrastructure.”
Language learning isn’t just a skill—it’s a gateway to opportunity. In the US, where over 350 languages are spoken, multilingualism is increasingly vital in industries like healthcare, construction, and technology. The Global Seal of Biliteracy is a transformative credential that recognizes bilingual proficiency and equips students with a tangible career advantage. For career and technical education (CTE) students, this international certification goes beyond recognition: it validates their skills and positions them to meet the growing demand for multilingual professionals. Often earned before high school graduation, the Global Seal serves as a student’s first working credential, paving the way for success in a diverse, globalized workforce.
What Is the Global Seal of Biliteracy?
The Global Seal of Biliteracy was created to celebrate and certify bilingual proficiency on an international scale. Its mission is to provide a universally recognized credential that demonstrates language skills in real-world contexts, transcending borders and industries. Open to speakers of any language, it is unique in its accessibility: it’s free to obtain, and its testing standards ensure that students are assessed fairly and consistently no matter how they acquired their language abilities.
As an international certification issued in more than 60 countries, the Global Seal verifies bilingual proficiency for employers and academic institutions alike. Whether a student speaks Spanish, Chinese, Swahili, or any other language, the credential signals their ability to navigate multilingual environments effectively. Its portability means that a CTE student in Texas can carry this recognition to employers or universities across the globe. By bridging the gap between education and industry, it has established itself as a critical tool for students aiming to excel in a competitive, multilingual workforce.
CTE Programs Are a Perfect Match for Workplace Language Credentials
Career and technical education programs equip students with practical, career-focused skills, making them ideal candidates for workplace language credentials. Courtney Van Arsdale, the World Language Department Curriculum Coach for Monmouth County Vocational School District in New Jersey, notes that “The Global Seal of Biliteracy has bridged the gap between language learning and career readiness for our CTE students. It provides them with a credible, portable credential that validates their language proficiency and gives them a competitive edge, whether entering the workforce or continuing their education. It’s a game-changer for students looking to stand out in industries that increasingly value bilingual communication.”
In today’s labor market, bilingual professionals are in high demand across a range of technical and vocational fields. For instance:
Healthcare: Medical interpreters, bilingual nurses, and other healthcare professionals require language skills to effectively communicate with diverse patient populations. In a recent Illinois report, the Illinois state government communicated that consistently more bilingual positions have remained unoccupied than occupied, with a spike in unoccupied positions in 2018.1 Given also the 276% growth of people who identify as multiracial or multiethnic from 2010 to 2020 cited in the US Census,2 the demand for bilingual healthcare professionals is likely to increase. For bilinguals interested in nursing, that demand could equate to 5–20% more pay.3
Construction: Bilingual project managers and tradespeople can better coordinate multilingual teams and engage with clients from diverse backgrounds. Bilingual foremen who can effectively communicate safety protocols and procedures are critical to job safety, reducing the risk of injury and damage to equipment and property. Language barriers and cultural differences are often cited as key factors contributing to higher injury and fatality rates among construction workers.4 “It’s almost a necessity to have bilingual people today in the construction industry,” says Seth Sandler, CEO of Florida-based Superior Skilled Trades, adding that communication about a potential jobsite hazard needs to happen in the moment and a language barrier prevents that quick exchange of information.
Veterinary sciences: In 2021, Colorado State University received a PetSmart Charities grant of $354,450 to embark on a multiyear interdisciplinary study to address linguistic and cultural barriers between veterinary professionals and 52 million Spanish-speaking pet owners.5 The language needs analysis demonstrated a critical need for bilingual veterinarians. Shannon Zeller, CSU Spanish instructor and curriculum developer in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, describes the resulting program: “What makes this program unique is the interdisciplinary collaboration between our departments; we have both veterinary professionals and language-teaching professionals working hand in hand to ensure that the content is valid.” CTE programs are uniquely situated to provide a cross-disciplinary curriculum that integrates workplace content with field-specific language education.
Legal and customer services: Multilingualism is an asset in legal support roles, as well as in customer-facing positions, where cultural sensitivity and clear communication are vital. Legal issues impacting the lives of limited-English-proficient (LEP) individuals include access to legal representation, immigration, voting and labor rights, housing, and discrimination. According to American Bar Association 2020 data, Hispanic attorneys make up only 5% of all US lawyers.6 A survey by Robert Half found that the demand for foreign language skills is among the top trends influencing hiring in the legal field, with 42% of respondents saying that there was an increase in law firms requiring new hires to be bilingual.7
For CTE students, the Global Seal of Biliteracy offers a meaningful way to document and showcase their language abilities and enhance their career prospects. This credential serves as a linguistic passport, allowing students to leverage their bilingualism into tangible opportunities—whether it’s landing a competitive apprenticeship, securing a job, or gaining admission to a specialized training program.
Language for Specific Purposes: The Next Frontier
While being bilingual is valuable, industry-specific language training is crucial to empower students to excel in their respective fields, as it bridges the gap between general language skills and the specialized communication demands of the workplace. This is the critical role that CTE programs can play as they seek to provide meaningful curriculum and an opportunity to document and certify language skills.
Unlike general language instruction, language for specific purposes (LSP) focuses on industry-specific language skills, tailoring curricula to meet the unique demands of fields like healthcare, business, and engineering. For example:
Medical Spanish enables future healthcare workers to take patient histories, explain procedures, and provide compassionate care in Spanish-speaking contexts. Isabel Buckner, a Spanish teacher at Southeast Career Technical Academy in Nevada, which has awarded almost 200 Global Seals to students, shared the importance of preparing students for both nursing and medical assisting, explaining why their program includes a unit on cultural competency as well as the value of learning words in the languages that their patients speak.8
Business Chinese or Japanese prepares students for international trade, negotiation, and collaboration in Asian markets. Dr. Dina Yoshimi, the director of the Hawai’i Language Roadmap Initiative, has been actively working to promote multilingualism and language skills in Hawaii’s workforce since the initiative’s launch in September 2013.9 In collaboration with government and business, the program has now certified students in a variety of career fields with a Global Seal of Biliteracy in 17 different languages including Ilocano, Thai, and Vietnamese to meet the linguistic demands of the diverse Hawaiian population.
How the Global Seal Benefits CTE Students
For CTE students, a verifiable certificate of language proficiency provides a distinct advantage in today’s job market. In a Career Builder survey of hiring managers, 56% said they had caught an applicant in a lie.10 In another survey of 2,000 hiring managers by Hloom, a company that provides templates for cover letters and resumes, claiming foreign language fluency was the second-worst lie an applicant put on their resume.11 As a result, Indeed recommends that employers vet candidates to verify skills and credentials rather than relying solely on a candidate’s claim.12 Giving students the opportunity to graduate with a verifiable and digitally shareable document that clearly identifies and describes their language skills is empowering.
Another way to help students leverage their bilingualism is to empower them with facts that can easily be articulated in an interview. The 2024 National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Job Outlook Survey identified the attributes that today’s hiring managers want in new hires.13 Two-thirds of employers responded that they were seeking candidates with a strong work ethic, written and verbal communication skills, analytical and quantitative skills, flexibility, and adaptability, all of which are soft skills that brain science suggests are byproducts of second language acquisition. CTE programs can coach their students to leverage their bilingualism by making this critical connection.14 Students could say…
“As a bilingual, I’ve developed strong communication, problem-solving, and adaptability skills, which research shows are among the many benefits of language learning.”
“Speaking two languages isn’t just about talking—it means my brain has gained superpowers for adapting and thinking differently.”
“Research shows that bilingual brains are like high-performance engines—faster, sharper, and more adaptable.”
Global Recognition for Local Talent
Documenting a student’s home language underscores the importance of sustaining heritage languages and validating one’s identity. For many students, particularly those from immigrant or multilingual households, the Global Seal is not just a professional milestone but a celebration of their cultural heritage. Awarding this recognition fosters pride and motivation, encouraging students to maintain and develop their linguistic abilities.
Because the Global Seal of Biliteracy can be awarded at any time for qualifying students, it can be issued before graduation in order to be added to college, scholarship, and job applications. Dyan Dominguez, a senior studying business at Nevada’s West Career and Technical Academy, says that her Global Seal helped her to gain the attention of different colleges and increased her chance of receiving scholarship offers.15 Brianna Zanabia, a senior in WCTA’s nursing program, wrote that since obtaining her Global Seal, she has included it in the certifications section of her resume.
She adds, “I was advised by a recruitment coordinator that this certification will further prove that I am fluent in Spanish and [I will] be invited to interview for positions that prefer a Spanish speaker. This will help me during my job search.” From internships in multinational corporations to roles in international NGOs, students with the Global Seal are well-positioned to excel.
Numerous success stories highlight how students have leveraged the Global Seal for academic and career advancement. For instance, a bilingual CTE graduate might use their credential to secure a competitive scholarship, while another might gain an edge in a crowded job market by showcasing their language skills.
While over 100 colleges and universities award the Global Seal of Biliteracy to their own language learners, high school students can benefit from Advanced Placement pathways that award up to 16 hours of college credit, further enabling them to earn a higher-level certificate as they continue their language study.16 Recipients can also highlight their language acumen by adding the Global Seal as an “International Honor” to the CommonApp17 or by sharing their credential with a Digital Language Profile.18
Implementation in CTE Programs
Integrating the Global Seal of Biliteracy into CTE programs requires strategic planning and collaboration. Here are some key steps:
Identify eligible students: CTE instructors can work with counselors and language teachers to identify students who might meet the proficiency criteria for the Global Seal.
Partner with organizations: Schools can collaborate with local businesses, community organizations, and international partners to promote the credential and its benefits.
Train instructors: Providing professional development for CTE teachers ensures they can support students in earning the Global Seal. This might include workshops on language assessment, LSP integration, and credential promotion. This is especially true if students speak languages not taught in the current curriculum.
By embedding the Global Seal into the fabric of CTE programs, educators can create pathways that seamlessly blend language learning with career preparation.
Advocacy and Future Directions
Promoting the Global Seal of Biliteracy within CTE programs requires ongoing advocacy and innovation. Educators, policymakers, and industry leaders can work together to:
Raise awareness: Campaigns targeting CTE leadership, local trades, and businesses can highlight the benefits of hiring those with multilingual credentials.19
Expand access: Ensure that underrepresented students have access to support and testing that leads to a workplace language credential.
Develop new pathways: As industries evolve, there is an opportunity to create LSP curricula tailored to emerging fields, from renewable energy to cybersecurity.
By championing these efforts, stakeholders can amplify the impact of the Global Seal and pave the way for a more inclusive, multilingual workforce.
The integration of the Global Seal of Biliteracy into CTE programs is a pivotal step toward preparing students for the demands of a globalized economy. By measuring and validating bilingual proficiency, the credential not only enhances employability but also celebrates linguistic diversity and cultural heritage. For educators, students, and policymakers, the Global Seal offers a powerful tool to unlock career opportunities and elevate the role of multilingualism in technical education.
As we look to the future, the potential of multilingual credentials in CTE programs is boundless. By embracing initiatives like the Global Seal, we can envision a workforce that combines technical excellence with linguistic versatility, driving innovation and inclusivity across industries. The time to act is now—let’s empower the next generation of CTE students to thrive in a multilingual world.
Linda Egnatz, Global Seal of Biliteracy executive director, is a distinguished advocate for multilingualism and language education. A former ACTFL National Language Teacher of the Year and Spanish teacher, she has held key leadership roles, including president of JNCL-NCLIS. Her work focuses on advancing bilingualism through digitally shareable international language certification. Learn more about the Global Seal of Biliteracy at www.theglobalseal.com.
Under pressure from language-learning advocates, Representative Robert Behning, the chairman of Indiana’s House Education Committee, has introduced an amendment to his own bill to remove the language that would have eliminated the state’s eight-year-old Certificate of Multilingual Proficiency (CoMP) program. This amendment was later passed by Indiana’s House of Representatives. If CoMP had been eliminated, Indiana would have become the only state without a Seal of Biliteracy program.
In January, Behning introduced House Bill 1002 as an attempt to remove outdated educational regulations that supported optional educational programs. The original version of HB 1002 would have eliminated the bipartisan and thriving CoMP program on the grounds that it was not a state-required program.
When the bill was introduced, the Indiana Foreign Language Teachers Association (IFLTA) and the Joint National Committee for Languages/National Council for Languages and International Studies (JNCL-NCLIS) sent letters to the House Education Committee objecting to HB 1002’s proposal to eliminate CoMP. They also launched a grassroots campaign to alert language educators and encourage them to email state Education Committee members.
JNCL-NCLIS’s January 14 letter stated that CoMP’s “certificate is of real value as it enables colleges and universities, as well as employers, to see that students with certificates have acquired an important, in-demand and marketable skill.” IFLTA’s letter declared: “Currently all 50 states and Washington, DC, have a state Seal of Biliteracy, which allows students to prove their proficiency level in both English and another language. If we repeal [CoMP] now, we will be taking a giant step backwards in comparison to the states around us.”
“This powerful advocacy effort in Indiana demonstrates how state and national language-education advocates can work together and positively impact state legislation,” said JNCL-NCLIS executive director Amanda Seewald. “Our seamless collaboration with IFLTA, combined with Megan Worcester’s tireless efforts, even while teaching a full course load, prevented CoMP’s elimination and ensured that Seal of Biliteracy programs will continue to operate in all 50 states.”
Megan Worcester, president of the Indiana Foreign Language Teachers Association, shared, “Major strides have been made in the past few years to encourage more participation in the CoMP, which has doubled in participants since its inception. We are currently working with leaders across multiple fields to continue to prove its value to lawmakers and the general public as we seek its inclusion in the new high school redesign. Thanks to JNCL-NCLIS, INTESOL, Central States Conference, and our hundreds of advocates across the state for helping us ensure that this valuable certificate can continue to let students show that multilingualism is truly an asset.”
JNCL-NCLIS and IFLTA will continue to collaborate to protect Indiana’s dual language immersion grants, which also face potential cuts.
World language enrollments are declining and technology is advancing faster than we can imagine. How can we keep attracting investment in language learning and teaching?
Threats and Opportunities for Language Learning… The End Is Not in Sight In the year that I was born, coincidentally, Douglas Adams introduced the world to a very useful little creature called the Babel fish. This “cyborganism” would live in your ear, feed on your brain waves, and allow you to interpret every language you encountered. The original Babel fish was fictional, but it inspired the name of the first free online translator. Announcing the launch of Altavista’s machine translation interface in 1997, one author clearly imagined replicating the Babel fish’s miraculous effects: “Voila!—you’re multilingual. No more need for flash cards, language labs, or grammar books. Just plug and play the fish” (https://web.archive.org/web/19990427232555/http://www.infotektur.com/demos/babelfish/en.html). Considering that we did not start carrying around devices in our pockets that could access this translator for at least another decade, Altavista’s machine translation was groundbreaking but no threat to the language-learning industry.
Fast-forward to March 2024, however, when a headline in the Atlantic suggested a much more ominous effect of new technology: nothing less than “The End of Foreign Language Education” (www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/03/generative-ai-translation-education/677883). In the article, Matsakis (2024) describes watching herself speak Chinese fluently in a video created with an app called HeyGen, though her actual proficiency was intermediate at best. Driven by generative artificial intelligence, apps like HeyGen operate on a plane of technological existence far more advanced than Altavista’s BabelFish, but Matsakis is duly troubled by the possibilities for mistranslation and also deepfakes. Matsakis goes on to praise the virtues of skilled human interpreters, but what about language learning? Could this technology make it unnecessary? Is the end in sight?
Not in my view. Oh, I have happily explored the power of my preferred AI assistant, Claude (www.anthropic.com/claude), to translate various texts to and from a dozen languages. Claude will even rewrite a passage in the style of a space pirate if you so desire. As Matsakis also argues, though, relying on an automated interpreter will not replace the wide range of knowledge and skills that develop through language learning.
I doubt that anyone who works in the field of foreign language education today feels that the field is entirely stable, but the advances in translation technology are far from the greatest threats to language learning in the US. The story of West Virginia University shutting down its Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics and most of its language courses last year worries me far more, not least because the president who instigated this move seemed so confident that students who still wanted to learn a language could just replace their eliminated instructors with a language-learning app (www.languagemagazine.com/2023/08/15/wvu-announces-plan-to-dissolve-entire-department-of-world-languages-literatures-and-linguistics). The Modern Language Association (MLA) and the American Association of Applied Linguistics (AAAL) have both recognized Dr. Amy Thompson, chair of the now-closed department, for her efforts to prevent the closures, but the administrators and trustees of WVU remained convinced that other fields should take priority in the university’s rescued budget.
Weak Investment and Low Enrollments… Which Comes First? The WVU administration justified their choice to stop investing in language learning by pointing to decreases in enrollment, and unfortunately WVU is far from alone in that trend. The most recent MLA report states that the number of students taking a language course is less than 7% of the total enrolled in colleges and universities, and that enrollments have dropped nearly 30% since their peak in 2009. In US primary and secondary schools, only 20% of children are studying a language other than English. In developed countries across the world other than the US, an average of 88% of 15-year-olds are studying an additional language in school (OECD, 2020), even when that average includes the lower proportions in other English-speaking countries like Australia and New Zealand. Most of those students also begin learning additional languages much younger than our children do in the US.
Clearly, US institutions are not investing in language learning to the same extent as other countries, but should we conclude that low enrollments mean that demand for language learning is low? That language learning is unnecessary? That these programs and the instructors teaching in them are not making valuable contributions to their students’ preparation for the world beyond graduation?
The percentage of students in higher education enrolled in an additional language may sound small, but that 7% encompasses about 1.2 million students, at 2,455 institutions, in nearly 11,000 language programs, studying 258 different languages. The downturn in 2009 that began the recent 30% decline coincided with a drastic drop in government funding for language-related initiatives in higher education. In the twelve years since those cuts, appropriations not only have remained much lower but have barely increased enough to match inflation. In the K–12 domain, there is only one federal grant for starting and growing world language programs, and most elementary and middle school students are not studying a language because it is not offered in their school or even their district. Why is it easier to believe that low numbers mean low interest and low value than to recognize how difficult it is for learners to access stable and effective language-learning opportunities?
Strengthening Language Teachers in Times of Crisis For ten semesters over the last five years, I have taught a course in World Language Program Development and Administration to graduate students who are almost all currently working as language teachers, with experience ranging from a couple of years to multiple decades, in settings that include K–12, higher ed, military and diplomatic service programs, and community schools, in many different US states and several other countries. Each semester, I have asked the same question in the first discussion prompt of the first module: Is the field of language teaching in crisis?
In ten semesters, none of my students has ever said no. They never respond that they think the field is doing just fine. In fact, they say that they “strongly” and “definitely” and “absolutely” believe that the field is in crisis. The assigned readings that precede this discussion do not tell them that there is a crisis. They read America’s Languages: Investing in Language Education for the 21st Century, a 2017 report that only exists because members of Congress tasked the American Academy of Arts and Sciences with investigating ways to increase multilingual capacity in the US. The report begins by stating that “there is an emerging consensus among leaders in business and politics, teachers, scientists, and community members that proficiency in English is not sufficient to meet the nation’s needs in a shrinking world, nor the needs of individual citizens who interact with other peoples and cultures more than at any other time in history” (p. viii). The report goes on to say that communicative competence in languages other than English is “critical to success in business, research, and international relations in the 21st century.”
This “growing consensus” does not seem to extend as far as the programs in which these teacher-learners work. As one of them stated, “I think the biggest challenge… is the lack of prestige and importance given to the field. Foreign languages are not deemed as important as other subjects, especially math and science. I think if society as a whole were to look at foreign language as a tool that can help students succeed in any career field, then I think it would gain some prestige.” Across all of these teacher-learners’ responses, their personal experiences and the strategies that might turn things around vary, but the evidence of a crisis is almost always the same: the lack of support for language learning and language teachers from the many stakeholders who influence their students and their programs.
They believe that gains in prestige would encourage the kind of investment that would allow them to receive sufficient resources, including better curriculum materials and specialized training so that teachers can develop and improve their skills. Perhaps more importantly, their learners would not be surrounded by influences that cut into their motivation and constrain their options to continue their language learning beyond the minimum requirements. As a teacher in Virginia put it this year, “many language programs at a school and district level are continually put on the back burner and treated like the red-headed stepchild of the family unit, which further damages our potential to grow and support our learners.”
The effect on a hard-working teacher who is passionate about languages and language learning but faces disregard can be devastating, especially when they also face extra demands and limited resources relative to other subject areas. A Spanish teacher in California admitted in his response last year that “I often wrestle with the question of how long I intend to stay in the field myself… Considering my passion and true belief in its transformative capabilities, this, at least personally, speaks to how sad it is to see how deeply the crisis runs.”
Building a Vision of Language Proficiency as Career Readiness As of next semester, I have decided to stop asking my graduate students if they think the crisis is real. Changing the discussion prompt will not protect them from the challenges of rapidly changing technology or budgetary decisions that are made far above their heads, but it will stop emphasizing threats when we need to focus on opportunities. They are not the audience that needs to be convinced to invest in language learning in order to build multilingual capacity in the US workforce. Together, though, we can build a vision of the benefits of language learning that may convince other stakeholders to increase support for our efforts and for our learners.
Here is the problem: We are very good at making arguments about the value of language learning that appeal to others who think just like us. For those of us who have devoted our lives and careers to language education, we are well aware of the “transformative capabilities” of language learning. We revel in linguistic complexities, we recall the sense of discovery and freedom that language learning has brought us, and we have been rewarded time and again when we have succeeded in breaking language barriers and bridging cultural divides. We want to believe that our passion is contagious, as long as our energy holds out. If we are very fortunate and convincing, a few of the 7% of students who are studying languages will have the audacity to follow us down the paths we have chosen, into degrees in language, literature, linguistics, or language teaching.
We are also remarkably bad at framing arguments that align with the priorities of people who do not value multilingualism like we do. Language learning ought to enhance our perspective-shifting skills more than that! Our language learners, their parents, teachers in other subject areas, administrators and supervisors, policymakers, and others may appreciate our enthusiasm but nevertheless choose to allocate their limited resources to other priorities. One of our MSU administrators recently stood up in a room full of faculty in humanities fields and announced quite frankly that he believes “the humanities are vulnerable.” He is an economist, he remind ed us, specifically a competition economist, and as such he believes that our fields have to compete with more vocationally specific fields across campus.
We give in to that supposed vulnerability when we frame our arguments for the wrong audience and the wrong arguments for the audience we need to target. The current generation of students moving from high school to higher education is particularly concerned with return on investment. According to Deloitte’s 2024 Higher Education Trends, they want “a compelling value proposition” to justify the expense of earning their degrees. However, they also know that they are inheriting a world of “wicked” problems that make it impossible to predict all the skills they will need in their careers. Problems like political unrest, environmental crises, aging populations, and relentless technological change will require ingenuity, adaptability, interdisciplinary collaboration, and international cooperation.
In this context, career readiness does not simply mean the ability to get a job right after graduating from college (though that is the metric that MSU Career Services uses to compare outcomes for various majors). It also does not mean preparation for a specific, highly predictable job that will remain largely the same for the next 30 years. Predictions about the future of work consistently state that today’s graduates should be prepared for innovations and challenges that we cannot begin to foresee. That preparation should develop versatile, flexible, and self-directed graduates who will be able to operate in a range of contexts and teams and man age their own lifelong learning.
Global and local economies will need graduates entering the labor market who are able to support and promote international collaboration, for business purposes and to solve challenges that span national borders. To get our students there without language learning is possible, but well-designed language programs that emphasize world readiness and intercultural competence can make a very valuable contribution by preparing our graduates to negotiate linguistic and cultural boundaries wherever they encounter them, locally and abroad. The argument that language learning is essential might not hold water, but arguing that there is no benefit for your career prospects if you do study an additional language? That language proficiency will not open doors you want to walk through? Nonsense.
According to the 2019 IPSOS report Making Languages Our Business (www.languageconnectsfoundation.org/programs-initiatives/research/making-languages-our-business), nearly 90% of employers in a broad range of industries, including construction, manufacturing, hospitality, travel, health care, education, and trade, who participated in their survey rely “some” or “a lot” on employees with multilingual skills, and over 50% of those employers expected their need for those skills would go up in the future. All branches of the US Armed Forces and the State Department offer incentive pay for foreign language proficiency that can add $1,200 to $12,000 per year, and they do not require mastery of the target language. Particularly for languages that are on the Strategic Language List, bonuses can begin at Level 1 or 1+ on the Interagency Language Roundtable scale, approximately equivalent to intermediate-mid on the ACTFL scale.
At that level, which is not an unreasonable expectation for high school students participating in a well-structured program, the language user can “satisfy most travel and accommodation needs and a limited range of social demands beyond exchange of skeletal biographic information,” but grammatical accuracy in “basic” features of the language is “evident, although not consistent.” In fact, high school students across the US can earn the Seal of Biliteracy if they demonstrate intermediate-mid or intermediate-high (depending on the state) proficiency in English and an additional language, either their target language or a heritage language that they began learning in their home. Colleges and universities are increasingly likely to award course credits to incoming students who have earned the SoBL, and they may also award credits for lower levels of proficiency that are documented with the same widely recognized assessments.
In addition to that explicit demand and reward for language proficiency, communicative language teaching can develop all eight of the Career-Readiness Competencies established by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) (https://naceweb.org/career-readiness/competencies): communication, critical thinking, equity and inclusion, leadership, professionalism, teamwork, technology, and career and self-development.
Not all programs will cultivate these skills equally well, but task-based and project-based methods inherently involve collaborative activities that require teamwork and critical thinking, widely used standards ask learners to express themselves appropriately in written and spoken modalities, and many language teachers also use a variety of technology, incorporate culturally sustaining pedagogy, and guide learners to self-evaluate as they progress along their language-learning journeys.
Given that many stakeholders believe that STEM fields should be prioritized over language learning, it is particularly intriguing that 95.5% of employers contributing to the NACE 2024 Job Outlook said that communication was the most important of the eight Career-Readiness Competencies, but only 55.2% rated students as very or extremely proficient in communication, almost 25% lower than students’ ratings of themselves. As for technology, over 80% of employers thought that students were very or extremely proficient. If 80% said that their potential employees’ technology skills seemed more than sufficient while nearly half had only passable communication skills, why would we steer students away from courses that would specialize in communication and also often incorporate technology?
Better World-Readiness Outcomes and Stronger World-Readiness Messages These findings certainly can add some weight to your tool kit when you are communicating with learners, parents, and other audiences about the potential benefits of language learning. Teaching a world language effectively offers a whole ring of keys that will open doors to valuable and important opportunities. No matter how important these competencies are to employers, they will not automatically improve career prospects for language learners unless learners are successful in developing and documenting their language proficiency and the other career-readiness competencies that they may have developed in their language courses. The most recent report from the MLA on language-program enrollments includes a series of recommendations based on departments that have had stable or increasing numbers in recent years: “Departments find that they improve their chances of success if they actively seek collaborations internally and externally, revise their programs to attract interest and meet student needs, and celebrate student success with scholarships, awards, and social events” (Lusin et al., 2023, p. 3).
For language programs in K–12, higher education, and other settings that want to improve their messaging about the direct and transferable benefits of language study and also strengthen career-readiness outcomes for their learners, here are a few specific recommendations:
1. Manage your messages to various audiences of stakeholders in your learners’ futures. This recommendation involves reviewing and adding to the vision for language learning as career readiness offered in this article and conveying it to the audiences that need to hear it in your context. These interactions can be incidental, but you can also incorporate your messaging into handouts, newsletters (your own and any published by your school), and social media posts. Invite parents and administrators into your classroom. Incorporate career-readiness content and tasks into your existing curriculum, and consider ways that your learners can generate their own means of conveying these messages to others through posters, videos, presentations, debates, showcases, or pitch sessions. Use the target language as much as possible, but these initiatives can be a valuable use of the 10% that remains when you aim for 90% target language use in the classroom.
2. Promote communicative methods and assess proficiency regularly. Implement, or continue to implement, standardized assessments of proficiency. To reach the learning targets set by the Seal of Biliteracy within a few years, your entire curriculum will need to emphasize meaningful communication in all modalities, rather than memorization of vocabulary and unrealistic accuracy in grammatical forms that learners will rarely encounter. Regular assessment and thoughtful feedback on learners’ performance each time they are assessed will help to normalize assessment, allow earners to experience success, and map their ongoing journey toward greater mastery of the language.
3. Consciously incorporate intercultural competence and global competence objectives. Teaching global competence effectively can be a natural outflow of teaching for intercultural competence along with proficiency, particularly if you follow task-based and content-based frameworks in which the tasks and content align with other subject areas. The OECD (2020) defines global competence as “a multidimensional capacity that encompasses the ability to: • “examine issues of local, global, and cultural significance; • “understand and appreciate the perspectives and worldviews of others; • “engage in open, appropriate, and effective interactions across cultures; and • “take action for collective well-being and sustainable development” (p. 55).
You can discuss the concepts of global competence while maintaining a high proportion of target language use by downloading the versions of the OECD global competence materials in your target language, using a generative AI assistant to create simpler versions of the text or further translations, and even asking the AI assistant to suggest relevant linguistic features and activities.
Use Interdisciplinary Approaches to Connect across the Curriculum Interdisciplinary approaches help to illuminate the applicability of your course content and the skills learned in your classroom to other contexts. Many programs are now doing this by using the Sustainable Development Goals as themes that correspond to content traditionally included in a language curriculum and also highlight connections with other fields. In K–12 and higher ed, approaches based on language for specific purposes involve creating courses and programs that include objectives for language development as well as objectives related to the relevant content, which can align with health care, business, hospitality, construction, or other vocational fields.
Interdisciplinary initiatives, including courses, can also strengthen connections between language learning and internationally oriented projects, research, etc. Gradually seek out collaborations with other units and initiatives that already stand to benefit from language learning and intercultural competence, including education abroad, internships, and research partnerships.
Also, articulate and enhance the benefits of language learning beyond proficiency, including intercultural competence and a variety of soft skills that are valued by employers, as well as digital literacy, marketing skills, etc. Microcredentialing and other strategies that assess and demonstrate the skills that language learners are gaining will help to convey the return on investment in terms that are easily recognized and valued by other stakeholders.
Invest in Language Teacher Development So That They Can Lead These Initiatives The last recommendation is the most important: greater investment in language teacher development, including courses that explicitly address broadly defined skills of leadership and advocacy, will equip them to carry out these initiatives in ways that align with their own values, skills, learners, and existing resources. Language teachers should not expect themselves to implement these initiatives alone, and administrations should not expect teachers they supervise to implement curriculum changes or outreach initiatives without allocating time and resources. Collaborate and adapt others’ materials whenever possible.
Advocating for your program and emphasizing its career-readiness benefits does not have to mean a huge amount of additional work or engaging in politics, in the sense of internal school power struggles or of the US legislative process. Many of the strategies above are steps that the teacher can implement, largely without broader support or collaboration. However, broader support and collaboration will make those steps far more feasible.
An important message for teachers is that change may be necessary, but first you should celebrate what your program is already doing in terms of meaningful and purposeful preparation for the “real world.” You can improve your practices, and you can make your program more visible to others, but in so doing you are entirely justified in holding back and resisting change if it means that you then have bandwidth to pay attention to what is important for the sustainability and growth of your program. All the best to you in these efforts!
Dr. Amanda Lanier is an applied linguist and teacher educator at Michigan State University, where she directs the online graduate programs in foreign language teaching. She studies the intersections of language, culture, and technology, particularly in regard to critical and heritage languages. Find her at https://maflt.cal.msu.edu/amanda-lanier. You can also reach her on LinkedIn or through her website and access the resources that she and her students have created and shared on the MAFLT website (https://maflt.cal.msu.edu) and on their showcase of master’s projects created by teachers, for teachers (https://mafltshowcase.commons.msu.edu).
You know it when you see it” is an axiom that has been applied to rigorous educational experiences. And there is truth to this sentiment. When the classroom is humming along and teachers and students have high expectations for learning, combined with the support to achieve greatness, rigor seems self-evident. It’s obvious that learning will occur when rigor is present and that students’ content and language development will be accelerated.
Yet the issue of rigor is especially problematic when it comes to multilingual learners (MLs). Evidence suggests that teachers lower the rigor threshold for these students, a process some researchers view as a major contributor to the achievement gap between MLs and their general education peers (Reeves, 2006). A study of teachers’ beliefs about curriculum rigor for MLs compared to general education students was troubling (Murphy and Torff, 2019). Participants were presented with activities that varied in critical thinking (CT), such as A science class is studying plant growth. The teacher presents the results of a flawed plant experiment and asks students to determine what’s wrong with it (high CT) and A science class is studying the human circulatory system. The teacher shows a video on the circulatory system and then reviews the new vocabulary it introduced (low CT; p. 94). The findings revealed that teachers generally favor less rigorous, lower critical-thinking activities for MLs, believing these learners are less prepared for high-CT tasks. Interestingly, teacher demographics, such as educational attainment or experience, did not significantly influence these beliefs, highlighting a systemic issue in perceptions of MLs’ capabilities.
Rigor Defined
What does rigor mean? Baylor University defines academic rigor as “creating an environment in which each student is expected to learn at high levels, each student is supported so he or she can learn at high levels, and each student demonstrates learning at high levels” (https://nse.web.baylor.edu/instructor-resources). They note that there are several aspects to academic rigor, including:
Rigorous learning experiences that build students’ knowledge and skills. These learning experiences should be aligned with grade-level content expectations and include instructional support for students to experience success.
Rigorous assignments that require students to think deeply rather than just superficially memorize information. These assignments develop students’ critical and creative thinking rather than focus only on recall of information.
Rigorous learning environments that invite students into learning and help students see value in what they are learning. These environments should ensure that students develop a sense of belonging, while being safe places for students to take risks.
Rigorous learning opportunities that push students to learn beyond what is described in the standards and curriculum. These opportunities provide students with the chance to see connections between what they are learning and the world outside their classroom and to recognize that they overcome challenges, developing their efficacy.
Designing Rigorous Learning
But what are the ways in which teachers can plan for rigorous learning experiences? The lack of a clear or consistent answer to this question has thwarted well-meaning educators from ensuring that high expectations are realized in every lesson, in every class, and every day. Charged by the promise of rigorous learning environments but challenged by the lack of definition, we identified an initial complement of factors that were observable aspects of rigor in the classroom. We theorized that these factors might help teachers design the learning environment and experiences. We posted these initially defined factors on various social media sites and asked the metaverse to comment. We narrowed and refined the indicators, eventually sharing them with over 400 educators who commented on the specifics and the language used to describe specific aspects of rigor. We organized the top 25 indicators into the following categories, which comprise the RIGOR Walk model:
R: Relationships
I: Instruction
G: Goals
O: Organization
R: Relevance
As an example of the ways in which educators can talk about rigor, we offer the following video of a dual language middle school classroom for your observation:
Using the RIGOR indicators, consider the goals that this teacher has for students. Note the ways in which relevance is established. Attend to the academic language and vocabulary. Focus on the scaffolds that are implemented. Also note the peer interactions.
Rigor and Multilingual Learners
Although these indicators apply to all students, we’ll focus on some of the indicators that specifically and purposefully address the learning needs of MLs. Rigorous learning requires that educators attend to students’ identities, lived experiences, prior knowledge, and interests. In addition, rigorous learning demands that educators make lessons culturally relevant and inclusive. This should be a given in any class but is profoundly important in classrooms in which MLs are supported to grow and develop.
Further, it should be obvious that teachers know students’ names and how to pronounce them. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. One study showed that 52% of students say that their teachers do not know their names (Quaglia, 2014). It should also be obvious that teachers need to move around the room and be in reasonable proximity to all students. Interestingly, there is evidence that teachers tend to avoid closer contact with students who are not achieving well and that changing that can have a positive impact on student behavior and learning (Los Angeles County Office of Education, 2000).
What may be less obvious are the ways in which scaffolds are used to ensure rigor. Our indicator suggests that scaffolds be used strategically and that they ensure productive success. In other words, teachers should avoid over-scaffolding to the point that cognitive challenges are reduced while, at the same time, realizing that scaffolds ensure that students experience productive success. There should be a Goldilocks tension in every classroom between too much and too little scaffolding. We should work to fade the scaffolds as soon as possible and then reenact them when new learning is introduced to students.
The aspect of productive success is important. Students need to experience many successes each and every day. Although it is true that we can learn from failure and mistakes, it’s not very fun; failure does not activate the reward pathway in the brain. This part of our brain is key to motivation, which is fed by success rather than failure. Rigor requires that educators ensure that students experience productive success and then increase the complexity and difficulty of the experience.
The ratio of failure to success also influences students’ willingness to engage in academic risk-taking (Clifford et al., 1990), which is another aspect of rigor. Based on their experiences with success and failure, students become motivated (or not) to take academic risks, which require that they understand that they might be wrong. Consider, for instance, the two types of activities that were presented to teachers in the study by Murphy and Torff (2019). The critical thinking required to analyze a flawed science experiment to identify methodological errors requires far more academic risk-taking than the more passive experience of watching a science video. The former requires that students speculate using reasoning and argumentation. The latter requires compliant behavior and a modicum of attention. To foster academic risk-taking, teachers should:
provide regular opportunities for students to relearn, revise, and redo assignments or assessments
recognize effort and not only correctness
celebrate mistakes as temporary and not reflective of the student, but rather the situation
teach students to ask questions of themselves, their peers, and the teacher
Importantly, academic risk-taking grows when there are strong teacher–student relationships. If students worry that they will be embarrassed, humiliated, or shamed when they make a mistake, or that their relationship with the teachers (and perhaps peers) is contingent on getting right answers, academic risk-taking will be reduced. When students feel safe, valued, and respected, their willingness to take an academic risk, put themselves out there, and share their thinking (perhaps with errors in word choice, grammar, or pronunciation) grows and directly impacts their overall learning.
Conclusion
Rigor is not for some students; it’s for all students. When teachers design meaningful learning experiences, aligned with content and ELD standards, and ensure that student learning is scaffolded, rigor becomes palpable and obvious in the classroom. We found that these 25 indicators are good for reflection and useful in planning. They can guide instructional decisions and actions that ensure all students learn at high levels.
References
Clifford, M. M., Chou, F. C., Mao, K., Lan, W. Y., and Kou, S. (1990). “Academic Risk Taking, Development, and External Constraint.” Journal of Experimental Education, 59(1), 45–64.
Los Angeles County Office of Education. (2000). Teacher Expectations and Student Achievement.
Murphy, A. F., and Torff, B. (2019). “Teachers’ Beliefs about Rigor of Curriculum for English Language Learners.” Educational Forum, 83(1), 90–101.
Quaglia, R. (2014). Student Voice: The Instrument of Change. Corwin.
Reeves, J. (2006). “Secondary Teacher Attitudes towards Including English-Language Learners in Mainstream Classrooms.” Journal of Educational Research, 99(3), 131–143.
Douglas Fisher is professor and chair of educational leadership at San Diego State University and a leader at Health Sciences High and Middle College. Previously, Doug was an early intervention teacher and elementary school educator. He is a credentialed teacher and leader in California. In 2022, he was inducted into the Reading Hall of Fame by the Literacy Research Association. He has published widely on literacy, quality instruction, and assessment, as well as books such as Welcome to Teaching, PLC+, Teaching Students to Drive their Learning, and Student Assessment: Better Evidence, Better Decisions, Better Learning.
Nancy Frey is professor of educational leadership at San Diego State University and a leader at Health Sciences High and Middle College.
Previously, Nancy was a teacher, academic coach, and central office resource coordinator in Florida. She is a credentialed special educator, reading specialist, and administrator in California. She is a member of the International Literacy Association’s Literacy Research Panel and has published widely, including books such as Welcome to Teaching, PLC+, Teaching Students to Drive their Learning, and Student Assessment: Better Evidence, Better Decisions, Better Learning.
James Marshall is a professor of educational leadership at San Diego State University where he also leads the Doctorate in Educational Leadership program. A credentialed teacher, he began his career as an informal science educator at the San Diego Zoo. Jim’s passion centers on the design of learning programs that yield predictable results. He has published broadly on needs assessment, learning initiative design, implementation, and evaluation. His published books include Right From the Start: The Essential Guide to Implementing School Initiatives and Fixing Education Initiatives in Crisis: 24 Go-To Strategies.
Literacy is foundational—not only for academic success but as a fundamental skill for navigating life. Yet literacy rates in the US paint a troubling picture: about 21% of adults are illiterate, and 54% read below a sixth-grade level, with 45 million Americans considered functionally illiterate. This urgent reality calls for evidence-based literacy practices, like explicit foundational skills and vocabulary instruction, developing background-knowledge comprehension strategies, and effective spoken language teaching for multilingual learners (MLs).
It Starts with Language
Yes, our brains are wired for language. From birth, exposure to language, combined with caregivers’ intentional interactions—like repeating words, allowing practice through babbling, and providing affirming and corrective feedback—builds a foundation for language development. While our brains are wired for language, learning requires explicit instruction (Arrendondo and Cárdenas-Hagan, 2021).
Without explicit teaching, we won’t be able to learn to speak. Sometimes it’s confusing when we hear that learning to speak is natural. It seems like instruction is not required. It is. We have to be taught the language we are meant to learn.
For educators, this means that simply exposing students to a new language isn’t enough. This is true for monolinguals. And this is true for multilingual learners. Language acquisition demands effective, intentional teaching. Sequential bilinguals, those who learn a second language five or more years after their first, benefit from mapping their new language onto existing knowledge of their first.
Many monolingual and bilingual advocates have long held beliefs that a first language must be fully mastered before one learns a second. Contrary to this belief, research now shows that bilingual learners can simultaneously develop speaking, reading, and writing skills in two languages (Bialystok, 2011).
Even infants as young as six months old can distinguish between languages, demonstrating the brain’s remarkable capacity for multilingualism (Kuhl, 2011). This supports the case for early and concurrent instruction in multiple languages through programs like dual immersion, where language acquisition is intentional and explicit.
Oral Language Is the Foundation
Oral language must be actively taught, practiced, and used daily. Immersion in a language environment alone is insufficient. Structured opportunities for speaking build the foundation for oral comprehension. Understanding language—how to speak it, how to use it, what words mean, how to put those words into an order that makes sense—is essential to both decoding and reading comprehension. Learners must have time to connect sounds and spellings to words and meanings. These spoken-language practices have a direct, positive impact on reading instruction.
Explicitly teaching oral language and text-based skills within the same lesson is critical. For example, a lesson might include time for speaking practice, either practicing new sentence structures or about academic content, followed by introducing text that connects to those spoken words. Knowing what the cognitive task is—sentence structures, vocabulary, or overall content—will help keep the lesson and affirming feedback focused. This integration ensures that students strengthen both their oracy and decoding skills simultaneously, building a robust foundation for literacy.
Mapping Language onto Text
Our spoken language has a written counterpart: text. Through explicit teaching, learners can connect sounds to letters and see how spoken words materialize on the page. This spoken-language mapping to text applies to any language with an orthography and is fundamental for all learners (Ehri, 2005; Scarborough, 2001).
We can learn about text and how it maps to spoken language while also learning to speak the language. Think about a baby: we can expose babies to books long before they know how to read. We don’t have to wait until they speak the language before we start teaching them about text mapping. No matter when it starts, teaching about text mapping has to be explicit.
Learning about sounds and letters and how they make up words can’t be skipped. This part, sometimes called foundational skills, which include decoding, is an essential part of learning to read. However, these are a set of finite skills that, once learned, don’t have to be belabored. It’s like learning the skill of addition in mathematics. Once you learn the concept and the rules, you can apply that skill to any numbers that you wish to add. The same is true for decoding. Once you understand the rules, you can apply the skills to any word.
More importantly, the more practice one has with reading, the faster and easier it becomes. In fact, our brains will store words in our long-term memories once we become familiar with them, so that they are read automatically (Ehri, 2005). However, whenever we encounter an unfamiliar word, we can rely on our decoding skills to help us read it.
Think of a medical text and names of medicines. There are likely words that are unfamiliar that even as adults we will have to “sound out.” The skill of decoding stays with us even as we become more and more fluent in our reading. Without this skill, it would be nearly impossible for us to comprehend or read the words on the page.
Comprehension, of Course
Language comprehension requires understanding meanings of words and sentences, registers, and the nuances within languages. This happens during spoken exchanges and can be mapped when reading. Here’s the thing: comprehension of spoken language is essential to comprehension of written language. And we have to remember that we can’t comprehend anything we can’t decode. We have to be able to decode before we can comprehend the words in written form. Therefore, we can’t have one without the other. We need effective instruction that is explicit in teaching how to decode, comprehend, and use language for various purposes (Hammond, 2015; Goldenberg, 2008).
Reading comprehension, the ability to derive meaning from text, is the goal of effective literacy instruction. To comprehend, learners must first decode, but decoding alone isn’t enough.
Successfully developing reading comprehension involves helping students understand nuances, register, and meaning within both spoken and written language.
Comprehension isn’t just an academic skill—it’s the heart of communication. It enables us to connect with others, share ideas, and build relationships. Teaching students to use language effectively and to decode and comprehend text equips them with the tools for lifelong learning and engagement.
Structured Literacy and Multilingualism: A Pathway to Educational Success
Structured literacy and multilingualism are not just compatible; they are powerful allies in fostering academic success and lifelong learning. Together, they unlock the full potential of learners, enabling them to navigate and excel in a world increasingly defined by linguistic and cultural diversity. Grounded in evidence-based practices, structured literacy provides a robust foundation for reading, writing, and comprehension, while multilingualism enriches cognitive flexibility, cultural awareness, and academic achievement. These approaches, when intertwined, create a transformative pathway for students to thrive in a multilingual society.
Structured Literacy as a Foundation for Multilingualism
Scarborough’s Reading Rope (2001) vividly illustrates the interconnected components of literacy: oral language, decoding, and comprehension. These elements form a sturdy braid that supports reading proficiency. Structured literacy, with its focus on word recognition, comprehension, and explicit instruction, provides the essential threads for this rope. But what makes structured literacy truly transformative is its adaptability—because of its grounding in the domains of language, it works across languages, making it a critical tool for MLs.
MLs often draw on their first language as a cognitive scaffold to learn additional languages. This process, known as cross-linguistic transfer, allows students to apply what they know about phonemes, syntax, and vocabulary in one language to others (Bialystok, 2011). Structured literacy supports this transfer by providing clear, explicit instruction in foundational skills and language comprehension, enabling learners to map sounds to text and to learn academic vocabulary and complex sentence structures that support them in building fluency in multiple languages simultaneously.
Consider a classroom where a student is learning both Spanish and English. Structured literacy ensures that the student learns to decode words like gato and cat using similar phonics rules. This approach not only strengthens their reading abilities in both languages but also reinforces their confidence and motivation, key drivers of academic success.
In addition, the focus on comprehension in structured literacy, how words and sentences work, ensures that students will be able not only to decode words but to experience the meaning of the text via comprehension. The reading rope doesn’t just give us insight into reading but also into language learning. The same components in the word recognition and comprehension strands are applicable to both written text and spoken language.
Multilingualism Enhances Cognitive and Academic Growth
Bilingualism is more than just an asset; it is a cognitive superpower. Research shows that bilingual individuals often exhibit enhanced executive functioning, problem-solving skills, and mental flexibility (Kuhl, 2011). These benefits are particularly pronounced in educational settings, where multilingual students use their diverse linguistic backgrounds to approach problems from multiple perspectives.
MLs also bring a wealth of cultural knowledge and experiences to the classroom, enriching the learning environment for all students. Dual immersion programs, which integrate instruction in two languages, exemplify how leveraging multilingualism fosters inclusivity, equity, and excellence.
These programs demonstrate that students can achieve proficiency both in their home languages and in a second language without sacrificing academic achievement. In fact, studies show that students in dual immersion programs often outperform their monolingual peers in both languages.
Structured literacy enhances these benefits by providing a systematic approach to developing language skills. When educators explicitly teach the rules and structures of language, students gain the tools to decode, comprehend, and engage with text across languages.
This dual focus on structured literacy and multilingualism prepares students not only for academic success but also for active participation in a globalized society.
A New Era of Multilingual Education
The US stands at a pivotal moment in education. With over 40 states adopting science-of-reading legislation, there is a growing commitment to evidence-based practices that support all learners, including the 11% of students identified as MLs nationally (Swain and Long, 2023). This legislative shift represents a unique opportunity to embrace a multilingual vision for the US, one that values linguistic diversity as a strength rather than perceiving it as a barrier.
Structured literacy and multilingualism are central to this vision. Programs like dual immersion demonstrate the potential to create multilingual societies where all students have access to high-quality education. These programs show that it is not only possible but advantageous to teach students to read, write, and think in multiple languages simultaneously. Neuroscience supports this approach, revealing that the human brain is wired for multilingualism, capable of distinguishing between and learning multiple languages from an early age (Kuhl, 2011).
The Role of Structured Literacy in a Multilingual Society
To fully realize the promise of multilingual education, structured literacy must be a cornerstone of instructional practice for language and literacy development. This means providing explicit, systematic instruction in both foundational reading skills and language comprehension while leveraging the linguistic assets students bring to the classroom. It also means recognizing that decoding, comprehension, and oral language development are not separate processes but interconnected components of literacy that transcend language boundaries.
For educators, this requires a shift in mindset and practice. Educators must move away from outdated notions that students need to master one language before learning another. Instead, we must embrace a simultaneous approach, where students develop skills both in their heritage languages and in the language of instruction. Structured literacy provides the framework for this approach, ensuring that all students, regardless of their linguistic backgrounds, have the tools they need to succeed.
A Vision for Multilingualism in the US
The US has the potential to become a world leader in multilingual education. By aligning structured literacy practices with programs that promote bilingualism and biliteracy, we can create an education system that values and builds on the strengths of all learners. Dual immersion programs, paired with science-of-reading principles, can serve as models for this transformation, demonstrating how to nurture linguistic diversity while achieving high academic standards.
Imagine a future where every child in America has the opportunity to become bilingual or even multilingual, where literacy instruction is evidence-based and inclusive, and where linguistic diversity is celebrated as a national strength. This is not just an aspirational vision—it is an achievable reality. By investing in structured literacy and multilingual education, we can prepare students to thrive in a world where communication, collaboration, and cultural understanding are more important than ever.
References
Arrendondo, M., and Cárdenas Hagan, E. (2021). “Advancing Literacy for Bilingual and Multilingual Students: The role of structured literacy.” Journal of Literacy Research.
Bialystok, E. (2011). “Reshaping the Mind: The benefits of bilingualism.” Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65(4), 229–235.
Cárdenas Hagan, E. (2020). Literacy Foundations for English Learners: A Comprehensive Guide to Evidence-Based Instruction. Brookes Publishing.
Ehri, L. C. (2005). “Learning to Read Words: Theory, findings, and issues.” Scientific Studies of Reading.
Goldenberg, C. (2008). “Teaching English Language Learners: What the research does—and does not—say.” American Educator.
Goldenberg, C., and Coleman, R. (2010). Promoting Academic Achievement among English Learners: A Guide to the Research. Corwin.
Hammond, Z. (2015). Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students. Corwin.
Kuhl, P. K. (2011). “Early Language Learning and the Social Brain.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(Supplement 3), 13516–13521.
Long, M. H. (1996). “The Role of the Linguistic Environment in Second Language Acquisition.” Handbook of Second Language Acquisition.
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). (2020). “Adult Literacy in the United States.” US Department of Education.
Rogers, J., and Gutiérrez, M. (2023). “Explicit Instruction and the Science of Reading for Multilingual Learners.” International Journal of Multilingual Education.
Scarborough, H. S. (2001). “Connecting Early Language and Literacy to Later Reading (Dis)Abilities: Evidence, theory, and practice.” Handbook of Early Literacy Research, Vol. 1.
Swain, M., and Lapkin, S. (1995). “Problems in Output and the Cognitive Processes They Generate: A step towards second language learning.” Applied Linguistics.
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