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Using Oral History to Share the Truth

Using Oral History with Students
In the present sociopolitical climate of polarization caused by assaults on the truth, the role of education becomes evident. The significance of historical truth is clarified when we observe the recent resurgence of historical denial and fabrication. However, this is not new—many episodes in history have been obscured for centuries. This is particularly true of BIPOC history, a fact we consider as Black History Month 2023 approaches. The exclusion of Black history from the mainstream, especially from history books, is evidence of systemic racism because it makes Black people invisible and creates the impression that we did not contribute to certain episodes in history. An awareness of this suggests that we, as educators, have a role to play in correcting some of these injustices, if our role is to teach the truth and respect for the truth.

But how is this related to language teaching? I believe that one answer is found in the relationship between oral history and culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP). Oral history is a form of spoken personal narrative in which an individual is interviewed about how their lived experience has intersected with historical events affecting their family, community, workplace, city, country, or other environment.

In the language classroom, oral history can offer valuable opportunities for students to practice the four skill areas. This can be accomplished through activities in which individuals or small groups of students record their own interviews with members of their families or communities and transcribe the interviews. Students can then deliver oral presentations to the class and play excerpts of their interviews. They can submit written reports in which they analyze and summarize their interviews. The four skill areas are naturally integrated in this approach.

It requires listening for detail when transcribing, and sometimes understanding authentic spoken English in a variety of accents; speaking to ask questions for real communication and reporting on their interviews to the whole class; writing their transcriptions, summarizing, and identifying main ideas; and reading assigned texts for background knowledge before the interview, as well as reviewing and correcting transcriptions afterward.
Some of the additional pedagogical advantages of using oral history with English learners (ELs) and other language students are:
Empowerment
If students interview family members, they see their families’ stories as a valuable element of the curriculum. This dignifies the students, the stories, and the family members.
Students can see members of their families or communities as participants in and observers of history.
Students can begin to see themselves as historians.
Students can feel that they are in control of the communication during the interviews.
When students present their reports to the class, they become teachers for a short time. As such, they are experts on the interviews and the people whom they have interviewed. They see that they can teach and learn from each other.

Less communicative pressure on the student
When students conduct oral history interviews, they mainly need to be concerned with asking the questions rather than providing responses.

Student-centeredness
Although they are guided by the teacher, students can select a subject and then plan, organize, and conduct their interviews.

Oral history supports CSP, which “seeks to perpetuate and foster—to sustain—linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of schooling for positive social transformation” (Alim and Paris, 2017).

One reason for the importance of CSP at this period in the development of the US—and the world—is the demographic changes in an increasingly diverse country and ever more globalized world (Paris and Alim, 2014). CSP addresses the persistence of Eurocentric hegemony, which does not reflect present demographic realities and perpetuates racism and other injustices.
Oral history can play a very effective role in challenging some educational and social injustices by elevating the cultures and histories of marginalized communities—such as those of many EL students in the US—whose experiences would not otherwise be included in the curriculum. Oral history provides multiple perspectives on history and opportunities for traditionally excluded histories to be included in education at all levels. Such is the case of the history of Black victims of the Nazis. This is an area of history that has remained obscure. The experience of an Afro-Caribbean civilian whose capture and imprisonment in the Nazi concentration camp system is an example of a story that only came to light through oral history.

An Afro-Caribbean in the Nazi Era
In 1940, an Afro-Caribbean civilian sailor was a crewmember on a merchant ship sailing through the Mediterranean. When the ship reached the waters between Tunisia and Sicily, it struck a floating mine and sank. The Italian Navy rescued the crew, at which point Lionel Romney, the Afro-Caribbean sailor, became a political prisoner in Italy. For the next four years, he was held captive and was transferred through a series of internment camps in Italy, until 1944, when he was transferred to the notorious Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. He remained a prisoner there for almost a year, until the camp was liberated by the US Army at the end of the war, in May 1945.

While at Mauthausen, he was subjected to near starvation and other forms of inhumane treatment. He described how he and other prisoners were humiliated, abused, tortured, and brutalized by the SS.2 One of their objectives was to keep the prisoners in a constant state of fear, intimidation, and physical weakness through starvation and hard labor. Mauthausen was the only camp in the entire concentration camp system that was specifically designated to work its prisoners to death.

Lionel Romney was imprisoned not only by the walls around the camp—lined with high-voltage electric wire—but also by his constant fears. He was always wondering if he would be the next one to die. He routinely witnessed atrocities that traumatized him so deeply that he was virtually silent about the experience for over four decades.

He finally spoke about it during a series of oral history interviews recorded by his daughter, the author of this article. This oral history is the basis of a book, An Afro-Caribbean in the Nazi Era: From Papiamentu to German (Romney-Schaab, 2020), about his experience in the war and my experience visiting Mauthausen, which is now a museum.

Lionel Romney (1912–2004) was from the Dutch side of the Caribbean island of St. Maarten. Although English was his native language, he went to Dutch-medium schools as a child and grew up hearing different languages. He learned Papiamentu3 and Spanish while living in Aruba, Curaçao, and Venezuela in the 1930s. During the war, he learned German and Italian.
As language teachers, it might be interesting for us to note that perhaps the main reason for Lionel Romney’s survival of the concentration camp was that he was multilingual. He spoke English, Dutch, German, Papiamentu, Spanish, and Italian. Prisoners with language skills were often allowed to live longer than others because they could serve as interpreters. The subtitle of my book, From Papiamentu to German, is meant to pay tribute to the role of languages in his survival. The population at Mauthausen was very diverse, with prisoners from every European country and every continent, so my father was able to communicate with many people.

The Power and Value of Oral History
The story of my father’s wartime experience can be instructive in several ways. It is an example of the power of oral history to broaden our perspectives and challenge long-held (mis)perceptions created by incomplete and/or inaccurate narratives. My visit to Mauthausen and my research into the history of that particular concentration camp, as well as the Nazi era in general, are the direct result of the oral history that I recorded with my father. African diaspora peoples have not been in control of our own narrative because it has been appropriated by others through enslavement, colonialism, and other forms of hegemony. However, oral history helps us take control of our own narrative.

Oral history can provide access to history that is not available elsewhere. Because it has the power to elevate traditionally marginalized voices, oral history can have a decolonizing effect on history. Oral history humanizes history by giving a voice to eyewitnesses to historical events. It personalizes history by describing it from the perspective of an eyewitness and putting a human face on it.

Oral history democratizes history because it dignifies the lives of everyday people by giving their stories an audience, and it gives us access to untold and under-told episodes in history. Oral history brings life to history and brings history to life. This is the essence of the relationship between oral history and culturally sustaining pedagogies.

How oral history in English language education, and education in general, supports culturally sustaining pedagogy
CSP cultivates cultural pluralism (Caldera, 2021).
Oral history provides multiple perspectives on history that would probably not have emerged without it. It can provide opportunities for diverse voices to be elevated to the level of visibility and inclusion in the historical canon.

CSP honors students’ home cultures and languages.
Oral history interviews can be conducted in English or the student’s home language. Oral history interviews conducted on subjects pertaining to the history of the student’s heritage community honor the student’s home culture and language by embracing and incorporating them into the curriculum. Oral history is also compatible with, and complementary to, the multigenerational households in which many immigrant EL students live. It can honor and dignify the lived experiences of elder family members.

CSP is anti-colonial and counterhegemonic.
Oral history gives voice to the previously and traditionally voiceless. It counters history traditionally written by the victor as the only valid history. It dignifies orality by providing an audience of listeners to those whose preferred mode of communication may be oral rather than written.

CSP is anti-racist.
Oral history challenges the supremacy of a single interpretation of historical events and roles, which can devalue students’ heritage and history.

I wanted my father’s wartime story to be an example of how everyone has participated in or been a witness to historical events, and how history is shared by everyone, not only famous people. And as an example of the extraordinary experience of an ordinary man, I hope it inspires others to pursue oral histories with their families and encourages teachers to use oral history with their students. “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.”
Maya Angelou, “On the Pulse of Morning”

Notes
BIPOC is Black, Indigenous, and People of Color
The SS, Schutzstaffel, was an elite military corps that guarded the Nazi concentration camps. It was responsible for many of the atrocities committed in the camps.
Papiamentu is a Spanish- and Portuguese-based creole that originated and is spoken in the Southern Caribbean, on the islands of Aruba, Curaçao, and Bonaire.

References
Alim, H. S., and Paris, D. (Eds). (2017). Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World. Teachers College Press.
Caldera, A. (2021). “What the Term ‘Culturally Sustaining Practices’ Means for Education in Today’s Classrooms.” IDRA Newsletter. www.idra.org/resource-center/what-the-term-culturally-sustaining-practices-means-for-education-in-todays-classrooms
Paris, D., and Alim, H.S. (2014). “What Are We Seeking to Sustain through Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy? A loving critique forward.” Harvard Educational Review, 84(1).
Romney-Schaab, M. L. (2020). An Afro-Caribbean in the Nazi Era: From Papiamentu to German. Independently published.

Mary Romney-Schaab taught ESL to adults in the US and Spain for over 40 years. She has an EdM in instructional media and an MA in TESOL, both from Columbia University. She is interested in how TESOL intersects with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

Young Readers Struggle in Different Ways


Many children struggle to learn to read, and studies have shown that students from a lower socioeconomic status (SES) background are more likely to have difficulty than those from a higher SES background.

MIT neuroscientists have now discovered that the types of difficulties that lower-SES students have with reading, and the underlying brain signatures, are, on average, different from those of higher-SES students who struggle with reading.

In a new study published in the journal Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, which included brain scans of more than 150 children as they performed tasks related to reading, researchers found that when students from higher-SES backgrounds struggled with reading, it could usually be explained by differences in their ability to piece sounds together into words, a skill known as phonological processing.

However, when students from lower-SES backgrounds struggled, it was best explained by differences in their ability to rapidly name words or letters, a task associated with orthographic processing, or visual interpretation of words and letters. This pattern was further confirmed by brain activation during phonological and orthographic processing.

These differences suggest that different types of interventions may be needed for different groups of children, the researchers say. The study also highlights the importance of including a wide range of SES levels in studies of reading or other types of academic learning.

Romeo is now an assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology at the University of Maryland. John Gabrieli, the Grover Hermann Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT, is the senior author of the paper.

Components of Reading

For many years, researchers have known that children’s scores on standardized assessments of reading are correlated with socioeconomic factors such as school spending per student or the number of children at the school who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.

Studies of children who struggle with reading, mostly done in higher-SES environments, have shown that the aspect of reading they struggle with most is phonological awareness: the understanding of how sounds combine to make a word and how sounds can be split up and swapped in or out to make new words.

“That’s a key component of reading, and difficulty with phonological processing is often one of the hallmarks of dyslexia or other reading disorders,” Romeo says.

In the new study, the MIT team wanted to explore how SES might affect phonological processing as well as another key aspect of reading, orthographic processing. This relates more to the visual components of reading, including the ability to identify letters and read words.

To do the study, the researchers recruited first- and second-grade students from the Boston area, making an effort to include a range of SES levels. For the purposes of this study, SES was assessed by parents’ total years of formal education, which is commonly used as a measure of the family’s SES. The researchers first gave each child a series of standardized tests designed to measure either phonological processing or orthographic processing. Then, they performed fMRI scans of each child while they carried out additional phonological or orthographic tasks.

The initial series of tests allowed the researchers to determine each child’s abilities for both types of processing, and the brain scans allowed them to measure brain activity in parts of the brain linked with each type of processing.

The results showed that at the higher end of the SES spectrum, differences in phonological processing ability accounted for most of the differences between good readers and struggling readers. This is consistent with the findings of previous studies of reading difficulty. In those children, the researchers also found greater differences in activity in the parts of the brain responsible for phonological processing.

However, the outcomes were different when the researchers analyzed the lower end of the SES spectrum. There, the researchers found that variance in orthographic processing ability accounted for most of the differences between good readers and struggling readers. MRI scans of these children revealed greater differences in brain activity in parts of the brain that are involved in orthographic processing.

For many years, researchers have known that children’s scores on standardized assessments of reading are correlated with socioeconomic factors such as school spending per student or the number of children at the school who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.

Studies of children who struggle with reading, mostly done in higher-SES environments, have shown that the aspect of reading they struggle with most is phonological awareness: the understanding of how sounds combine to make a word and how sounds can be split up and swapped in or out to make new words.

“That’s a key component of reading, and difficulty with phonological processing is often one of the hallmarks of dyslexia or other reading disorders,” Romeo says.

In the new study, the MIT team wanted to explore how SES might affect phonological processing as well as another key aspect of reading, orthographic processing. This relates more to the visual components of reading, including the ability to identify letters and read words.

To do the study, the researchers recruited first- and second-grade students from the Boston area, making an effort to include a range of SES levels. For the purposes of this study, SES was assessed by parents’ total years of formal education, which is commonly used as a measure of the family’s SES. The researchers first gave each child a series of standardized tests designed to measure either phonological processing or orthographic processing. Then, they performed fMRI scans of each child while they carried out additional phonological or orthographic tasks.

The initial series of tests allowed the researchers to determine each child’s abilities for both types of processing, and the brain scans allowed them to measure brain activity in parts of the brain linked with each type of processing.

The results showed that at the higher end of the SES spectrum, differences in phonological processing ability accounted for most of the differences between good readers and struggling readers. This is consistent with the findings of previous studies of reading difficulty. In those children, the researchers also found greater differences in activity in the parts of the brain responsible for phonological processing.

However, the outcomes were different when the researchers analyzed the lower end of the SES spectrum. There, the researchers found that variance in orthographic processing ability accounted for most of the differences between good readers and struggling readers. MRI scans of these children revealed greater differences in brain activity in parts of the brain that are involved in orthographic processing.

Optimizing Interventions

There are many possible reasons why a lower-SES background might lead to difficulties in orthographic processing, the researchers say. It might be less exposure to books at home, or limited access to libraries and other resources that promote literacy. For children from this background who struggle with reading, different types of interventions might benefit them more than the ones typically used for children who have difficulty with phonological processing.

In a 2017 study, Gabrieli, Romeo, and others found that a summer reading intervention that focused on helping students develop the sensory and cognitive processing necessary for reading was more beneficial for students from lower-SES backgrounds than children from higher-SES backgrounds. Those findings also support the idea that tailored interventions may be necessary for individual students, they say.

“There are two major reasons we understand that cause children to struggle as they learn to read in these early grades. One of them is learning differences, most prominently dyslexia, and the other one is socioeconomic disadvantage,” Gabrieli says. “In my mind, schools have to help all these kinds of kids become the best readers they can, so recognizing the source or sources of reading difficulty ought to inform practices and policies that are sensitive to these differences and optimize supportive interventions.”

Gabrieli and Romeo are now working with researchers at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education to evaluate language and reading interventions that could better prepare preschool children from lower SES backgrounds to learn to read. In her new lab at the University of Maryland, Romeo also plans to further delve into how different aspects of low SES contribute to different areas of language and literacy development.

“No matter why a child is struggling with reading, they need the education and the attention to support them. Studies that try to tease out the underlying factors can help us in tailoring educational interventions to what a child needs,” she says.
Anne Trafton, MIT

Word of the Year: Gaslighting… Honestly!

In this age of misinformation—of “fake news,” conspiracy theories, Twitter trolls, and deepfakes—gaslighting has emerged as a word for our time. 
A driver of disorientation and mistrust, gaslighting is “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage.” 2022 saw a 1,740% increase in lookups for gaslighting, with high interest throughout the year.
Its origins are colorful: the term comes from the title of a 1938 play and the movie based on that play, the plot of which involves a man attempting to make his wife believe that she is going insane. His mysterious activities in the attic cause the house’s gas lights to dim, but he insists to his wife that the lights are not dimming and that she can’t trust her own perceptions.
When gaslighting was first used in the mid-20th century, it referred to a kind of deception like that shown in the movie. We define this use as:
“psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one’s emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator”
But in recent years, we have seen the meaning of gaslighting refer also to something simpler and broader: “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone, especially for a personal advantage.” In this use, the word is at home with other terms relating to modern forms of deception and manipulation, such as fake news, deepfake, and artificial intelligence. 
The idea of a deliberate conspiracy to mislead has made gaslighting useful in describing lies that are part of a larger plan. Unlike lying, which tends to be between individuals, and fraud, which tends to involve organizations, gaslighting applies in both personal and political contexts. It’s at home in formal and technical writing as well as in colloquial use and is increasingly found in specific phrases like “medical gaslighting.”
English has plenty of ways to say “lie,” from neutral terms like falsehood and untruth to the straightforward deceitfulness, from the formally euphemistic prevarication and dissemble to the innocuous-sounding fib. And the Cold War brought us the espionage-tinged disinformation. 
In recent years, with the vast increase in channels and technologies used to mislead, gaslighting has become the favored word for the perception of deception. This is why (trust us!) it has earned its place as our Word of the Year. 

Michigan Bans Non-English Books from State Prisons

In June, National Public Radio reported that Michigan prisons were banning prisoners from accessing certain books and dictionaries in languages other than English.

Michigan prison officials claimed that the state’s ban on prisoners’ access to seven Spanish and Swahili books and dictionaries was for security reasons, however prisoners’ rights and language policy advocates were swift to condemn the move as a harmful and improper measure.

“Viewing books wrongly as dangerous or harmful to safety and security has a long and detrimental history as a means to prohibit access to literature and limit free expression for incarcerated people,” said PEN America’s research and advocacy manager, Anthony Johnson. “This is particularly troublesome in the current situation of limiting access to a book as fundamental as a dictionary.”

Language Magazine reached out to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office for a statement on the officials’ decision to ban the books, but the office did not respond immediately.

According to the report from NPR, prison officials in Michigan believe that allowing prisoners to access books in a foreign language could provoke violence and pose a security threat to the institution. NPR notes that when inmates request certain titles, officials would ban any non-English books that did not have an available translation into English that they could vet. A total of seven books were banned.

Prison officials justified the move by noting that if prisoners learn a “very obscure” language, they might be able to communicate freely with one another without any surveillance — that is, if prisoners learn a foreign language, the officials fear that they could plan assaults on other prisoners or discuss the possibility of bringing in contraband without the officials having any idea. None of the banned books were in particularly obscure languages, however, as they both have tens of millions of speakers across the world.

Under the 1989 Supreme Court case, Thornburgh v. Abbott, prisons have been allowed to ban inmates from accessing pretty much any book that officials deem a reasonable threat to prison security.

“In mandating “English-only” as a prerequisite for books of any kind, Michigan’s Correctional Facilities counter-productively places severe restrictions on access to literature for incarcerated people,” Johnson added. “To punish a broad segment of the prison population is short-sighted, in addition to trampling on prisoners’ fundamental rights.”

Andrew Warner

Can Teaching English Like Spanish Close the Achievement Gap?

If you have even a passing knowledge of Spanish, you know the ns in montaña are different. You can see it. But English isn’t like that. The as in car and care and race look the same, but sound different. But what if we fix that? Several schools in the US are trying a new approach to teaching reading that directly addresses the biggest challenge of learning to read English— English itself.

Many a third-grade English teacher will have a mug on their desk that reads “I before E except after C, unless it’s my feisty neighbor Keith who lifts weights. Weird.” That last word sums it up nicely. English, as a language, is truly weird. The impact is devastating.

English stands alone as the hardest major language to learn to read. The relationship between letters and sounds is just too inconsistent. There are too many exceptions. Every rule can be broken and is broken, often, by the most common words.

This is science. Languages have innate characteristics, and graphed on any scale, English stands alone. Dr. David Share, one of the most cited authors in the science of reading and cross-linguistic research, calls it an “outlier” orthography. It’s so different, and in such wide use, that it wildly distorts the very understanding of how the other 95% of humanity learns to read. English’s complexity drags scholars into an all-out war over how to teach it. It’s an important war, but overall progress against the real enemy is at a stalemate: literacy scores in the US in the last 30 years have not improved. In 2019, before the pandemic and despite all the advances we have made, they declined.

This is a uniquely English problem.

Not a single empirical study has found that English is learned faster and more easily than any other alphabetic language. We spend far more to teach it, with worse results. For English readers in first grade, studies consistently show pseudo-word reading error rates of 40–80%. Corresponding studies in Finnish, Turkish, Italian, Greek, German, Dutch, and Portuguese samples show error rates below 25%.

In the classroom, the conclusion couldn’t be more obvious. A student that spends equal time learning to read English and Spanish will universally achieve faster oral reading proficiency in Spanish. Emma Garcia, a former dual language teacher from Virginia, sums it up: “I had countless hours of instruction and guidance on how to teach my kids to read in English. I had just about none in Spanish, but all of my students could sound out words more easily and accurately in Spanish. It came naturally to them. It’s really easy to teach. It is just a much easier language.”

Even more telling: if you take an L1 English speaker (whose first language is English) and introduce them to L2 Hebrew, L2 reading accuracy will be higher in first grade than L1 reading accuracy in English in fourth grade. To state it simply, an average American kid in a dual language program is more likely to read the foreign language out loud with better accuracy in a single year of instruction than they can English, their native language, after four years of schooling.

This is all the more remarkable because dual language studies control for socioeconomics. The systemic challenges of low-income communities don’t impact the findings above, since the same exact student is learning both their L1 and L2 language.

It is easy to understand that languages like Spanish are easier to learn. But what about languages without alphabets? What about Mandarin Chinese?

English is not alone in having a complex relationship between the written and spoken word. Chinese and the related orthographies of Asia are graphic. Chinese characters are used to represent a word or part of a word. If a student doesn’t know a particular character, they can’t read that word aloud. There is no phonetic information the reader can draw on. They are stuck.

In 1958, this problem was fixed. Zhou Youguang invented Pinyin, a romanized alphabet for “spelling” Chinese words. This has completely transformed how billions of students, native and foreign, have learned Chinese. Pinyin includes six simple vowels, 29 compound vowels, 23 consonants, and the four tones. It’s a comprehensive, alternate way to write words so they can be sounded out and taught to every single language learner, kid or adult. It is structured, systematic, regular, and, as a result, extremely powerful. Armed with this arsenal, a student can attack and successfully sound out every word they see.

Why does this matter? In Spanish (which is regular) or in Chinese languages (which have Pinyin as a support), the language, with a bit of practice blending, enables every single word to be decoded. If a word is already known by the student, the decoded word will match it. If the word is not in their vocabulary, the student can be confident in their pronunciation of the new word and perhaps learn the meaning from the context.

Contrast this to English. Virtually any passage of English will include numerous nondecodable words. Knowing simple letter sounds does not suffice. “The dog was not afraid” would be sounded out “T-h-eh d-ah-g w-ah-ss n-ah-t ae-f-r-aeih-d.” When students attempt to decode in English, the sounds can’t be easily mapped to the correct word, even if this word is known to them aurally. If the word is not in their vocabulary, the likelihood of correct pronunciation on first attempt by the novice reader is minuscule. This is the heart of what makes English so hard to teach and so hard to learn.

The success of Pinyin and these ideas on writing systems sparked similar approaches across the world, including for English. One of the most important efforts here was the Initial Teaching Alphabet (i.t.a.). Similar to Pinyin, the i.t.a. created a simplified, regular teaching alphabet and used this alphabet to write words so that they were easy to read. It accepted the difficulty of English spelling and met the challenge. And the results were extremely promising.

Under timed tests, students were reading 336% more words with the i.t.a. With a few years of study, students were reading books three grade levels higher than the non-i.t.a. control groups. The system was so successful it was deployed for 70,000 students across the US.

Whether looking at the rates of progress for kids learning Spanish, examining the mechanisms used to learn Chinese, or resurfacing early English experiments with alternate orthography, a critical maxim of language learning becomes clear—how a language is written is the primary factor to how easily we can learn to read it.

But the i.t.a. ultimately failed. There was a problem. It didn’t transfer.

Kids who learned to read with the i.t.a. could read in that system extremely well, but when it came to transition back to “regular” reading, the results didn’t stick. The i.t.a. was too different from standard English. The approach of using a simplified, regular alphabet was correct, but the particular implementation failed because it didn’t prepare students for success with English as it is currently written.

While the creators of the i.t.a. consciously avoided labeling it as respelling, the idea that words were respelled was a key challenge the approach failed to overcome. It was not the first to stumble on this rocky ground. Luminaries throughout the centuries have, rather unsuccessfully, fought for change. Benjamin Franklin, Theodore Roosevelt, Brigham Young, Mark Twain, and Andrew Carnegie all championed various forms of spelling reform in their time. Carnegie went as far as to say that standardizing and simplifying English would lead to world peace, donating a portion of his fortune to the cause.

Ultimately, when pressed, English readers have chosen to keep things as they are. Among all the systemic challenges that face our country, none seems more obvious than this. The English-reading world, dominated by those with the education and resources to master such a challenging language, has chosen to preserve etymology and the status quo at the direct expense of making the language easier to learn.

The failure of the i.t.a. and spelling reform both add evidence to support another maxim of language learning— spelling is set in stone. This is not to say it cannot change. Stones erode over time. Great storms cause entire cliff faces to detach (as happened when Pinyin was introduced). But, typically, change is slow. Very, very slow. And the sort of wholesale spelling change needed to make English regular failed in times far less contentious than the one we live in. It isn’t happening.

While grand change is off the table, a more modest intervention can prove just as effective, and thankfully, history provides a highly relevant case study. Centuries ago, the languages of the Middle East encountered the same exact challenge.

English and Hebrew have very little in common linguistically. They evolved on divergent paths. They are not even read in the same direction. And yet one trait co-evolved in both—letters in both languages evolved to support various sounds. Reading the newspaper in Israel today, one would come across a letter that, as written, is phonetically ambiguous to a novice reader.

If the same word appeared in a text for children, however, it would be “coded.” Hebrew, when presented in religious texts or for language learners, uses diacritical marks above and below the letters to indicate specific sounds in specific words. These marks are learned quickly and easily applied, as any colleague who has had a Bar or Bat Mitzvah will attest.

Like Pinyin in Chinese languages, these markings provide novice readers a simple, consistent way to sound out unfamiliar words. They reinforce correct pronunciation, a critical feature when transcribing a religious text (and quite important for any speaker of a language). As with Pinyin, this supplemental orthography enables independent reading. Words within the reader’s vocabulary are understood. Words outside the reader’s vocabulary are at least confidently, accurately pronounced, and may be learned through context.

Where the i.t.a. transformed spellings to improve reading speed, languages like Hebrew augment spelling with visual cues for pronunciation. This enables rapid onset of oral reading fluency, without the drawbacks inherent to respelling. Students come to learn the base orthography of the word and then, when presented with the same word without the diacritic support, effortlessly recall the word. It is no longer unfamiliar and can be read on sight. As this sight-reading ability is achieved, the scaffolding is removed. Every single reader of Hebrew has learned to read this way.

It is critical proof for a third, and final, maxim of learning a language—words learned to be read on sight with scaffolding don’t need scaffolding to be read on sight.

Taken together, these three maxims point toward a compelling, simple solution for dramatically improving the ability to teach reading in English. Since the rate of learning of the language is a direct function of the complexity of the orthography, and since spelling as a whole can’t change, a diacritic system is needed. Such a system allows students to learn to read in English as fast and accurately as they can in simpler languages. And, following the Hebrew example, that progress would be transferable to reading without the supports. In practice, that’s exactly what the early data is showing.

In 2021, several schools across the US broke new ground to adopt a literacy program that had been developed with these challenges in mind. The program, called TIPS, uses diacritical marks to help beginning readers sound out words. Crucially, their technology includes these TIPS in the material only for the first few instances of the word in a particular book, after which the TIPS are removed and the student reads the word on sight. Teachers also receive access to digital teaching tools, lesson plans, and a library of content that includes the diacritics.

The results of the intervention were astonishing. At one school, a group of third graders gained a full year of reading skill in ten weeks, five times more progress than they had made in prior periods. At another, a group of special needs students increased word-reading skills by 58% over the same time frame, despite years of alternate interventions with limited gains. At another, the school improved overall reading scores by six percentile ranks vs. a comparison group without the intervention that declined by one point. Yet another achieved over 300% faster progress than the normal expectation for ELL students. At this school, every single student in the intervention group was categorized in the high-risk zone for DIBELS, and within ten weeks not a single student was in this category.

While the work above has yet to be published and does not yet include randomized controls, it lines up with the most obvious conclusion of the science of reading—a language that is easy to read will be easier to learn.

Zachary Silverzweig is a mission-driven entrepreneur, a technology leader, and the innovator behind TinyIvy, which develops literacy tools for schools based on the TIPS system.

He holds master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Columbia University and lives in New York with his wife and two children.

Last Call to Cut Child Poverty

Now that the dust is settling after midterm election results that surprised many pundits—who had probably not taken into account the sophistication of the US electorate in its understanding that current inflationary pressures and the corresponding drop in the standard of living would not be alleviated by tax and public spending cuts—it’s time to assess what can be achieved in a divided Congress.

Congressional opinions on the role of the federal government in education vary widely, so it’s unlikely that any significant increases in education funding will be approved over the next two years; however, post-pandemic recovery funds should help most states to retain funding levels and implement teacher pay raises in line with inflation. There may also be an opportunity to reinstate the Child Tax Credit, which research suggests will have a more significant positive effect on educational outcomes than any other investment.

Last year, the American Rescue Plan’s expanded Child Tax Credit resulted in the child poverty rate dropping by nearly half to its lowest level ever, as discussed in our October 2022 edition. A few months later, the credit lapsed thanks to the objections of Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, and in January 2022, nearly four million more children were in poverty than a month earlier in December 2021.

Hopefully, a group of Democratic lawmakers may have found a way to restore the credit before they lose control of the House of Representatives to a new Republican majority. They are proposing to support the extension of corporate tax breaks enacted by President Trump in return for Republican support for the expanded Child Tax Credit. This seems like a worthwhile trade, but the tax credit must be available to all families, unlike existing proposals from Manchin and the GOP.

Key to the success of the legislation was that, for the first time, it enabled the poorest families—including those who pay no federal income tax—to receive the credit, which made it much more effective in reducing child poverty.

A group of Republican senators have proposed their own credit, which would leave out the poorest Americans. Mitt Romney’s Family Security Act 2.0 would expand the Child Tax Credit but would offset the cost by cutting important tax benefits for low- and moderate-income families, particularly single-parent families. And, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, it would leave one in four children—16.4 million—worse off than they are under current law, including about a quarter of the very poorest children. It would also raise taxes for the average Black household and for two-thirds of single-parent households that file taxes using “head of household” status, who are disproportionately women.

If Congress is unable to reach agreement on this issue, states themselves can take it on. According to a recent report from the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, in almost all states, a refundable state Child Tax Credit of just $2,000 or less—with a 20% credit boost for young children under six—would achieve a 25% reduction (or more) in the state child poverty rate. The report estimates that this would collectively cost states 2.6% of total nationwide state and local revenue under a more universal Child Tax Credit or 1.7% of total state and local revenue under a more targeted approach.

While there is still some momentum, we cannot afford to miss this opportunity to reduce child poverty, the biggest barrier to successful educational outcomes. Let your representatives at all levels of government know how important it is to finally tackle this injustice.

Open Doors Report

The Open Doors 2022 Report on International Educational Exchange, released last month by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the Institute of International Education (IIE), found that 948,519 international students from more than 200 places of origin studied at US higher education institutions during the 2021/2022 academic year, a 4% increase compared to the previous academic year. The report shows that new international student enrollments returned to prepandemic levels with an increase of 80% following the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

About 40,000 international students studied English for 467,368 student-weeks at 330 intensive English programs during calendar year 2021. This is only about a third of the peak year of 2015, but early data suggest that 2022 will see considerably more growth.

According to the US Department of Commerce, international students contributed $32 billion to the US economy in 2021. “We are thrilled to see international student numbers on the rise, and to see the United States maintain its global leadership as the top destination of choice for international students,” said Lee Satterfield, assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs.

International students enrolled for the first time at a US college or university increased by 80% year over year, a return to prepandemic levels. New international students continued to study in every US state and territory, and nearly all US states (44 out of 50) experienced an increase greater than 50% in new international student enrollments.

“The incredible rebound we have seen in international student mobility demonstrates the United States’ and its higher education institutions’ unwavering commitment to welcoming students from around the world,” said IIE CEO Allan E. Goodman. “The Open Doors 2022 report emphasizes that, despite the complexity and uncertainty that accompany pandemics, international educational exchanges continue. Investment in international exchange remains the best way for educational institutions and countries to connect people and ideas around the world.”

In addition to enrolled international students, more than 184,000 students pursued Optional Practical Training (OPT), a program allowing individuals to gain practical work experiences after academic study.

China and India represent the majority (52%) of all international students in the US. China remained the top-sending country in 2021/22, with 290,086 students on US campuses (-9% year over year). India, the second top-sending country, sent 199,182 international students in 2021/22, an increase of 19% year over year.

Twelve of the top 25 places of origin increased the number of international students enrolled in the US by double digits in the 2021/22 academic year. In addition, other places of origin, including Canada, Mexico, and Nigeria, returned to prepandemic international student numbers. Notably, Nigeria saw its largest increase (+12% year over year) in international students studying in the US since the 1980s.

Indications Point to the Return of Study Abroad for US Students

US institutions reported a 523% increase in students going abroad in summer 2021, with 58% of all US students in 2020/21 choosing to study abroad in the summer. These early indications show that demand for international study remains high, and more students will return to study abroad programs in the coming years. According to IIE’s “Spring 2022 Snapshot,” 83% of institutions noted an increase in study abroad numbers for 2022/2023 compared to the previous year.

Data collected during the 2020/2021 academic year shows US study abroad halted amid the pandemic, with the total number of US students studying abroad for academic credit declining by 91% to 14,549 students. Furthermore, over 400 US institutions reported an additional 32,990 US students participating in online global learning opportunities in the same year.

“As study abroad re-emerges for American students, the Biden administration is expanding the tools available to students to provide greater affordability and accessibility for all students to ensure it reflects the rich diversity of the United States,” Satterfield said. “Study abroad is of strategic importance, as we prepare American students to compete in an increasingly interconnected world.”

Continued International Student Growth for Fall 2022

The “Fall 2022 International Student Enrollment Snapshot” findings show a sustained positive trajectory for international student mobility in the US, with higher education institutions reporting a 9% increase in total international students in fall 2022—growth across all academic levels and OPT. The number of new international students enrolled at US institutions increased (7%), building on the 80% rebound in new enrollments during the 2021/22 academic year (Open Doors, 2022). Nearly all institutions (99%) reported a return to in-person or hybrid study. Eighty-seven percent reported financial support for international student recruitment the same as or higher than the previous year’s. Over 630 US higher education institutions participated in the “Fall 2022 International Student Enrollment Snapshot.”
To learn more about Open Doors, visit opendoorsdata.org.

Spanish Grows to 500 million Native Speakers

According to the newly-released Cervantes Institute’s 2022 yearbook Spanish in the World, the number of native Spanish speakers has risen to nearly 500 million (496.5 million—up about three million from last year) and if non-native speakers are added, the figure is 595 million—up by four million from 2021.
At last month’s launch of the reports, Cervantes director Luis García Montero, said the new yearbook offered “optimistic data that commit us to work, but not to complacency,” and that its “interesting conclusions and contributions for the future” help us to “become aware of the importance of our language.”
The 440-page report (downloadable at https://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/anuario/anuario_22/default.htm) provides numerous graphs outlining the demographics of Spanish in the world as well as in-depth reports on the state of Spanish in a selection of global areas, an analysis of the relationship between language and artificial intelligence (AI), which outlines the advantages that AI can bring to language teaching and assessment (collaborative learning, intelligent tutoring, automatic assessment, bullying prevention, etc.), as well as risks, such as addiction, disinformation, bias, invasion of privacy and manipulation.
The report is divided into the following sections:


I.    SPANISH IN THE WORLD
The first section of the book, “Spanish: a living language. Informe 2022”, contains updated data on demographics, teaching and learning as a foreign language, the internet and social networks, economic influence, cultural activity, use in international organizations, scientific dissemination, etc.

The main data are:
More than 496 million people have Spanish as their mother tongue (three million more than in 2021), 6.3% of the world’s population.
Potential users (native Spanish speakers plus limited proficiency users and foreign language learners) exceed 595 million (four million more than last year), which represents 7.5% of the world’s population.
Spanish is the second mother tongue in the world in terms of number of speakers, after Mandarin Chinese.
It is the fourth language in terms of global speakers (native proficiency + limited proficiency + learners), after English, Mandarin Chinese and Hindi.
The number of Spanish speakers will continue to grow over the next five decades, although its relative weight will gradually decrease between now and the end of the century.
In 2060, the United States will be the second largest Spanish-speaking country in the world, after Mexico. 27.5% of Americans will be of Hispanic origin.
Almost 24 million people (23,748,298) study Spanish as a foreign language. COVID-19 has led to a slight decrease in the number of learners, with the language tourism sector particularly hard hit, but the number of learners on self-directed learning websites is on the rise.
The US continues to be the country with the highest number of Spanish learners, three times the number of learners of all other languages combined.

Economic and commercial influence of Spanish
Spanish speakers have a combined purchasing power of 9% of the world’s GDP.
If the Hispanic community in the United States were an independent country, its economy would be the seventh largest in the world, ahead of Spain and France.
In the group of countries where Spanish is the official or majority language, 6.2% of the world’s GDP is generated.
It is the second most important language in the language tourism sector.
Spanish as an instrument of international communication
Spanish is the third most used language in the United Nations and the fourth in the European Union.
Almost 40% of Spanish students are in countries where English is an official or co-official language.
The study of Spanish is particularly intense in the two main English-speaking countries: the United States and the United Kingdom.
Spanish is the most widely used language in American and Latin American integration organizations.

Scientific dissemination in Spanish
After English, Spanish is the language in which the most scientific texts are published.
4.4% of scientific production originates in a Spanish-speaking country.
Almost 70 % of scientific documents in the Spanish-speaking world are published in Spain.
72% of scientific production in Spanish is divided between three main subject areas: social sciences (44%), medical sciences (15%) and arts and humanities (13%).

The Spanish language on the web
7.9% of Internet users communicate in Spanish, which is the third most used language on the Internet after English and Chinese.
More than 70 % of the population of Spanish-speaking countries has access to the Internet.
Only one Spanish-speaking country, Mexico, is among the top ten countries with the highest number of internet users.
On most digital platforms, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Wikipedia, etc., Spanish is the second most used language.
US Hispanics prefer to consume and create digital content in Spanish rather than English.
In the United States, LinkedIn users are increasingly using Spanish as a professional asset outside the Spanish-speaking world.
Although the Spanish-speaking community is growing, the rate of growth has slowed, partly due to the excess deaths (more than 1.5 million) as a result of the pandemic.
The expansionary cycle for Spanish will end in the middle of the century: we must not “rely solely on demographics”, he said, but “generate valuable, quality content that is of interest to the non-Spanish-speaking world”.

II.    LANGUAGE AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The second section of the 2022 yearbook analyses the growing relationship between language and artificial intelligence (AI), and its importance in the fields of language teaching and evaluation, translation, and cultural dissemination.
It begins with a chapter by the Cervantes director entitled “Cautious reflections on artificial intelligence,” in which he introduces the subject of ethics in AI: he points out the profound change brought about by the digital transformation and the care with which we human beings, who are responsible for the functioning of machines, must act in order to take advantage of the great possibilities of technologies applied to linguistics, without forgetting the dangers of language manipulation.
García Montero advises that “we must take advantage of progress,” but be careful to ensure that it does not lead to inequalities, biases, and social gaps that “undermine the varieties of Spanish,” or “compromise democratic values.”
Other articles in this section are: “ The importance of ethics, and the social and cultural perspective, in the Spanish of machines”, by Idoia Salazar García; “From learning to teaching. Educando con inteligencia artificial”, by Miguel Rebollo Pedruelo; “ How machines speak Spanish: Achievements, challenges and opportunities for artificial intelligence applied to language”, by Elena González-Blanco García, Salvador Ros Muñoz and Víctor Fresno Fernández (UNED); “ The technology of language: artificial intelligence focused on language”, by German Rigau i Claramunt; and “The landing of artificial intelligence in machine translation: the revolution that is already here”, by Juan Alberto Alonso Martín.

III.    INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS IN SPANISH 
The third section of the book looks at the state of Spanish in five different geographical areas: Switzerland (with a note on Liechtenstein), the Balkans (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia), the United Arab Emirates, Kenya and Madagascar.
The book closes with an article on the implementation of Spanish language (Ladino) tests to obtain Spanish nationality for Sephardim, and updated information on the presence of the Instituto Cervantes in the world.

The Key to Reducing Teacher Burnout


Teachers play an incredibly important role: educating the young people who will one day shape our world. Yet 90% of educators say burnout is a serious problem.1 Even more alarmingly, 55% are seriously considering leaving the profession sooner than they had planned.2 With massive teacher shortages already hurting classrooms and districts nationwide, finding and prioritizing methods for teacher support are imperative for school success.

Facing adversity is nothing new to teachers, who have weathered unforeseen challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Pair overhauling the traditional classroom structure with existing problems like insufficient funds, demanding parents, and hostile communities, and it becomes clear that our education system cannot afford to take an apathetic position.
Reading and math scores continue declining,3 and teachers stand on the front lines, tasked with not only halting but reversing the decline. To proactively prevent further teacher burnout and demonstrate respect and appreciation for our nation’s teachers, we must give teachers ample support through a proven solution: professional development.

The Current State of Professional Development

Good professional development opportunities offer teachers a chance to hone their skills to best meet their students’ needs. Yet districts struggle to implement professional development due to insufficient budget and resources. If a school district does implement professional development, it needs to be effective and efficient. Otherwise, it risks frustrating teachers who are already busy.

Recent reports also highlight a disconnect between what teachers want to gain from their professional development opportunities and what districts and administrators have opted to prioritize.4 Teachers have requested more relevant, interactive, and sustainable professional development, such as workshops and professional learning communities. They want resources that allow them to manage their learning based on their needs and those relevant to their classrooms. Allowing them to assess their own areas for growth and supporting them through administrative initiatives is what is going to resonate with them the most.

Taking a thoughtful, detailed approach to the professional development opportunities teachers want will help them feel supported and valued.

The Benefits of Professional Development

Meaningful professional development is a powerful tool for decreasing teacher turnover, improving classroom instruction, and bolstering student learning.

Research suggests that key contributors to teachers leaving the field include a lack of teacher preparation, mentoring, and support.5 Offering learning opportunities encourages teachers to take active roles in their career growth and invest in their own professional development.

Professional development allows both new and experienced teachers to expand and elevate their skills and work toward subject mastery. Workshops and peer groups encourage teachers to engage with and learn from each other, creating outlets for teachers to lean on one another for support and advice.

The benefits of professional development don’t end with teachers. Through teaching and mentoring, great teachers help to create great students. In fact, the US Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences found that student achievement improves by as much as 21 percentile points as a result of teachers’ participation in well-designed professional development programs.6 From these programs, teachers gain new skills and practices that help them in supporting students within the classroom.
So, how do leaders plan and implement effective professional development?

How Districts and Administrators Can Implement Professional Development

Approach professional development as an ongoing endeavor. Instead of booking a few days at the beginning of each school year for teacher workshops, prioritize tools that build professional development throughout the entire year. Ensure that professional development is relevant to what’s happening in the classroom and focuses on useful instructional strategies and practices.

Few students can stay focused during a dry, dull lecture. Educational leaders expect teachers to deliver content in a way that engages students and invites them to participate in their own learning.

Professional development should practice what it preaches—the message teachers hear regularly about differentiation and engagement. In other words, it too must be collaborative and hands-on. Ongoing development should create spaces for teachers to collaborate, ask questions, and learn from each other. Embracing this approach frees districts to shift away from the “mandatory attendance” mindset and instead create a community of lifelong learners engaging with each other to better themselves and those in their classrooms.

Finally, create accountability for teachers and districts both. Successful professional development programs are topped by teacher-driven follow-up sessions. During these sessions, teachers are able to share their experiences with professional development and provide feedback to district leaders. These sessions serve as accountability for teachers and districts, encouraging them to adjust programs as needed to be of use to teachers.

Good, forward-thinking leaders want their teachers to feel happy, healthy, and fulfilled. Providing them with opportunities to develop individually and professionally is an important strategy for preventing future burnout and walking the walk of demonstrating their value to our communities and children.

Links

www.nea.org/about-nea/media-center/press-releases/nea-survey-massive-staff-shortages-schools-leading-educator
www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/survey-alarming-number-educators-may-soon-leave-profession
www.nytimes.com/2022/10/24/us/math-reading-scores-pandemic.html
www.edweek.org/leadership/report-job-embedded-professional-development-often-found-lacking/2014/12
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED558138.pdf
https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/regions/southwest/pdf/rel_2007033_sum.pdf

Lisa O’Masta is the president of Learning A-Z, an educational technology company that’s delivering digital learning resources to thousands of teachers and students across the world.
As an innovative change agent and leader in the K–20 education market, Lisa brings over 20 years of leadership experience in product management, marketing, product development, team development, P&L management, customer experience, and operational excellence to dynamic organizations seeking to change and grow.

Congress passes Native American Language Resource Center Act

On December 22, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Native American Language Resource Center Act. The bipartisan legislation, authored by U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, will bolster Native American language schools and programs with coordinated, experienced support. The bill now heads to the president’s desk to be signed into law.

“As we have seen in Hawai‘i, Native speaker-led language programs have proven that culturally based instruction is key to revitalizing and maintaining indigenous knowledge and traditions,” said Senator Schatz.“The Native American Language Resource Center will build on this grassroots momentum to support Native American language schools and programs by providing them with the resources they need to continue to thrive.”

The Native American Languages Resource Center will comprise a consortium of institutions housed at multiple locations throughout the country, reflecting the geographic diversity of Native American languages, cultures, and communities. It will support Native language students at all levels of learning, act as a central nexus for Native American language schools and programs across the nation, and provide additional resources to enhance distance learning capacity.

The bill is supported by the National Congress of American Indians, National Indian Education Association, National Coalition of Native American Language Schools and Programs, Joint National Committee for Languages – National Council for Languages and International Studies, and the Hawaiian Language Renormalization Committee.

In addition to the Native American Language Resource Center Act, Schatz’s Durbin Feeling Native American Languages Act is also set to become law. The bipartisan bill named after Durbin Feeling, a renowned Cherokee linguist and Vietnam veteran who passed away on August 19, 2020, will review and make recommendations to improve federal agencies’ coordination in support of Native American languages. It would also authorize a federal survey of Native language use and programmatic needs every five years.

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