Last month, Congress passed the final Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 Omnibus Appropriations Bill, which included a nearly $3 billion increase in education spending.
Most of the extra funding will go toward Title I, which saw a $1 billion increase, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which received an additional $448 million. The bill earmarks $111 million within School Safety National Activities for Mental Health Services Professional Demonstration Grants and School- Based Mental Health Services Grants, an increase of $95 million over the FY 2021 enacted level, which should help school boards directly increase the number of mental health and child development experts in schools. Already California schools have started a campaign to recruit hundreds of mental health professionals with signing bonuses of $25,000.
Language education and international studies programs receiving increases include Title VI of HEA and Fulbright-Hays, with a combined increase of $3.5 million. No less than $500,000 in the provided amount for Title VI is set to be used for establishing a Native American Languages Resource Center to be administered by the Office of Indian Education in the Department of Education. Additionally, Title III English language acquisition received a $34 million increase and Title II-A teacher effectiveness received a $27 million increase.
Appropriations for the World Language Advancement and Readiness Grants Program were renewed at $15 million for its second year, following a successful inaugural year in FY21. Alissa Rutkowski, manager of communications, policy, and operations at JNCL-NCLIS, the foremost lobbying group for language education, was encouraged by the budget:
“Although many of these programs saw only incremental increases as compared to the larger numbers originally put forward by the House this fall, we are energized by the increases and initial support and will continue our work to secure additional funding and create new sustainable pathways for equitable language and international education programs.”
Social and emotional learning (SEL) can deepen education. In order for students to be academically, socially, and behaviorally successful in school and beyond, they need to develop skills in the five core social and emotional competencies: cooperation, assertiveness, responsibility, empathy, and self-control (C.A.R.E.S.). When students learn in classrooms that support not only their academic learning but also their social and emotional learning, they thrive. They learn more, and that learning lasts, their motivation and achievement grow, they are more connected to their communities, and they stand up for themselves and for each other. However, when schools and educators feel pressure to increase students’ academic performance, they frequently respond by trying to focus all their time and energy on academic learning, making sure that every possible moment is spent on academic pursuits. While it might seem logical that more time on learning would lead to higher test scores and improved achievement, that’s actually not what has the greatest effect on student performance. Student progress is often measured by IQ and achievement test scores, which are less predictive of future success than metrics that include SEL skills, such as educational attainment (Levin 2012). It’s when academic, social, and emotional learning (A+SEL) connect that students experience greater success in school and beyond (Duckworth and Schoon 2010).
Connecting Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning
Why does spending time explicitly teaching and practicing skills related to the five C.A.R.E.S. core SEL competencies have such a remarkable effect on academic performance? Because those competencies don’t only build social and emotional skills–they are also connected to crucial cognitive skills and abilities that are directly related to high academic performance in school and success later in life. For example, when students build assertiveness skills like seeking help and persisting through challenges, they are able to grow their self-awareness and self-confidence so they can handle challenging situations (Aronson, 2002). Developing responsibility skills like holding themselves accountable and making prudent decisions means that students are more likely to commit to studying, completing homework, and fulfilling their academic obligations (Zins & Elias, 2006). Self-control skills like managing overwhelming feelings, controlling impulses, and showing perseverance supports students in handling stress, focusing on important tasks, and attaining goals—all skills that support strong academic performance (Duckworth & Seligman, 2005; Elliot & Dweck, 2005). In addition, research tells us building these skills through SEL programs activates the prefrontal cortex and positively affects executive function skills–the cognitive processes that allow us to plan, focus, remember, and balance multiple tasks (Greenberg, 2006).
The effects of implementing an SEL curriculum are seen not only at the individual level of student skill development, but also at the teacher, classroom, and school levels as relationships, expectations, and communities are strengthened. Students and teachers alike recognize the impact of this instruction. One teacher who uses Fly Five: The Social and Emotional Curriculum developed by Center for Responsive Schools shared, “I’ve had students ask for this. They’ll come up to me and say, ‘When are we doing SEL?’ They crave it. I go by their lead.” Another teacher using the curriculum added “These kids are really leaning into [SEL] because they’ve been looking for it. [Fly Five] empowers them to say the things that they have been trying to say.” It is the combination of explicit skill-building in the context of strong learning environments that creates the conditions for both short-term and long-term positive effects for students (Catalano et al., 2002; Schaps et al., 2004).
Teaching SEL
Explicit instruction in social and emotional skills may be the most impactful thing teachers can do in their classrooms. It’s clear that cultivating SEL skills is vital for success in and out of the classroom (Jones & Doolittle, 2017). To effectively leverage the opportunities of social and emotional learning for all students, teachers need two vital resources.
First, they need access to a developmentally appropriate, research-based curriculum that is both aligned to explicit standards and robust enough to act as a fifth core curriculum. While SEL curricula in one form or another have existed for some time, until recently they often fell far short of the time explicit SEL instruction deserves in the classroom. In fact, in a recent nationwide survey, four out of five teachers indicated that more classroom support for SEL instruction was necessary for effective instruction (NCSEAD 2019).
Second, teachers need support in cultivating and maintaining their own social and emotional competence and well-being. In a recent Gallup poll on occupational stress, teachers and nurses tied for the highest reported levels of daily stress (Schonert-Reichl, 2017)—and that was before the COVID-19 pandemic (Levinson et al., 2020). Teacher stress and emotional regulation are important for a range of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that teachers’ SEL competencies are linked to students’ SEL outcomes.
According to Jones and Bouffard (2012), teachers who have strong social-emotional competence themselves are better able to build strong relationships with students, manage their classrooms successfully, and teach SEL skills effectively. Educators who intentionally develop their own social and emotional competence can better assess their own strengths and areas for growth and go on to effectively influence student learning (Patti et al., 2015).
The opportunity for professional development specifically in SEL increases teachers’ awareness of their own social and emotional competence and their confidence as instructional leaders of SEL. Learning more about SEL also empowers them to plan, set, and hold expectations for instruction that develops SEL skills. Adults who have developed their own SEL competence can set the expectation for adult behavior and modeling of social-emotional competence. Research shows that strong social and emotional competence in adults is directly related to impactful SEL skill development in students (Jones & Doolittle, 2017).
Effective Implementation
With compelling evidence like these studies, it’s no wonder that so many schools and districts are eager to implement a SEL curriculum as quickly as possible. To ensure effective implementation, however, it’s important to consider what makes an SEL curriculum beneficial. According to a 2011 meta-analysis of SEL curriculums, the most promising programs are the ones that follow “SAFE practices” (Durlak et al., 2011, 408). SAFE is an acronym that stands for sequenced, active, focused, and explicit. You can determine if an SEL curriculum follows SAFE practices by considering the following questions:
“Does the program use a connected and coordinated set of activities to achieve their objectives relative to skill development?”
“Does the program use active forms of learning to help youth learn new skills?”
“Does the program have at least one component devoted to developing personal or social skills?”
“Does the program target specific SEL skills rather than targeting skills or positive development in general terms?” (Durlak et al., 2011, 410)
In addition to being SAFE, recent studies show that SEL interventions have the highest rates of success when five factors are in place before instruction occurs (Jones at al., 2018, 2):
SEL instruction should take place in positive, supportive contexts. Students must feel a sense of safety and belonging in order to feel comfortable taking risks, sharing and connecting with others, and making and learning from mistakes.
SEL programs should focus on adult social-emotional competence as well as student competence. Adults must have a solid understanding of the five SEL competencies in order to effectively teach the associated skills. In order to model the skills themselves, it’s also important for adults to be aware of their own social and emotional competence.
Students’ home and community environments should be involved so students are supported in and out of the classroom. When all areas of a student’s life are actively engaged, learning is more active and all-encompassing.
SEL programs should focus on developmentally appropriate behaviors and skills. For students to make the most of their learning, the targeted behaviors and skills must be ones that they are ready and able to learn.
Reasonable short- and long-term goals should be set for student growth. Using a research-based developmental understanding helps to set appropriate goals for students in the short-term and long-term.
An Intentional SEL Curriculum
A good example is our Fly Five curriculum which was intentionally designed to incorporate the findings from these robust studies to create a comprehensive, K-8 SEL program. Every aspect of the program is coordinated with students’ developmental needs, aligned with cutting-edge research, and flexible to specific school contexts.
Meaningful Learning
Fly Five meets students where they are developmentally, allowing instruction to engage learners in cognitive and affective thinking, effectively challenging and supporting students in their growth. When teachers are empowered to use their knowledge of students to sequence instruction and progressively build upon student knowledge, learning is more meaningful and long-lasting. To do this effectively, educators need to assess students for their readiness to demonstrate a skill. That’s why each lesson is designed to provide formative data about student readiness with certain skills so educators can tailor instruction to meet specific student needs. One component of the curriculum is a student journal that contains reflection exercises, reading passages, vocabulary connections, and hands-on activities that align with each lesson. The reading passages and writing prompts in the student journals are leveled, with grade-appropriate Lexile ranges provided for reading passages. This information allows educators to more easily support students in accessing appropriate text and provides the opportunity for students to practice social-emotional skills while reinforcing literacy skills. One educator shared, “It’s pretty incredible watching my students grow using the language from Fly Five and expanding on their vocabulary and sharing with us.” Social and emotional skills are best learned and demonstrated in environments where there is a significant degree of certainty, and it is safe to learn from mistakes. Fly Five uses age-appropriate interactive learning structures to provide a framework to support student connection and interaction.
The Mindful Student
Fly Five incorporates embedded instruction in emotion management. Learning to recognize and regulate one’s emotions through the powerful practice of mindfulness are lifelong skills used more and more commonly in schools and beyond. Corporations as varied as Google and Target have encouraged mindfulness practice for their employees (Schaufenbuel 2015), and the US Marines instituted 15 minutes of daily mindfulness for their soldiers (Penman 2012). Whether in classrooms or in the workplace, mindfulness lowers anxiety and stress, improves focus, and increases effectiveness in work (Bronfenbrenner Center 2017; Breen 2016; Emerson et al. 2017). The Mindful Student® curriculum, part of Fly Five’s program, includes 20 grade-specific, age-appropriate mindfulness lessons, aligning with a C.A.R.E.S. competency and grade level skill. The activities range from hands-on activities to quiet reflections. Conveniently available on easy-to-use card decks,
Setting the Standard for SEL
Social-emotional skills, like all skills, are best learned through regular, explicit instruction accompanied by time to practice and reflect on learning. Teachers are able to focus on providing that instruction, practice, and reflection when they have access to a well-developed, intentionally-designed SEL curriculum. One teacher explained, “[Students] have started to internalize the skills as they learn them. I’m looking forward to when they synthesize them all together.”
Students don’t stop practicing social and emotional skills when the school day ends. A fifth grade student shared, “I was at my basketball game and the other team was screaming ‘overrated’ while I was playing. But I knew I had self-control from what I learned with Fly Five, and I knew that it was going to be okay. Because of that, I won the championship.” Supporting SEL at home builds trust and respect between school and home while supporting students in regularly demonstrating social and emotional skills.
The School-to-Home Connection toolkit provides a structure for families to develop SEL skills together. Building a strong bridge between school and home reinforces the importance of SEL and provides a shared language for a child’s entire educational community to speak. The toolkit encourages SEL practice in all contexts of a child’s life and gives parents the skills they need, even if they are unfamiliar with SEL, to help their child’s SEL skills grow (McClelland et al., 2017).
A comprehensive, research-based SEL curriculum, combined with professional development tools, daily formative assessments, developmentally appropriate skills, standards-based instruction, and the flexibility to adjust to school contexts, will ensure students soar after they leave your classroom.
Jazmine Franklin is chief program officer of Fly Five at Center for Responsive Schools. She first joined the Center for Responsive Schools as a consultant and program developer—playing a vital role in the development of Responsive Classroom programs. Prior to her time at CRS, she spent six years as a second-grade teacher in Chicago Public Schools, and two years in Guilford County Schools, North Carolina. Jazmine is currently enrolled as a doctoral candidate in educational psychology at Walden University.
Lexia Learning, a company specializing in structured literacy, recently convened a roundtable on a subject that has been given considerable attention in Language Magazine over recent years, “Unifying Language Acquisition with Literacy Instruction for Language-Minority Students.” Organized by José A. Viana, former assistant deputy secretary and director of the Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA), the event brought together some of the nation’s, indeed the world’s, top experts and practitioners in literacy education (see list below) and its application to multilingual learners with the intention of clarifying the application of research-based approaches to literacy education for ALL learners.
Viana’s brainchild sparked considerable and heated discussion, while providing a solid basis on which policy recommendations will likely be formulated, so Language Magazine is planning a series of articles to cover this initiative in depth and spur the conversation.
To start the ball rolling, several of the panelists are sharing their takeaways. So much was covered during the roundtable that comments will appear below and online at www.languagemagazine.com/langlit4all.
Linnea Ehri:
I was taken by surprise when the moderator posted a slide portraying my theory about phases of development in learning to read and asked me to explain this theory. I was glad that educators desiring to improve reading instruction for ELLs were interested in this work. The theory is based on research findings that reveal essential processes enabling beginners to acquire skill in reading words. The theory applies to all children learning to read in an alphabetic writing system. The essential processes include learning letter shapes and names, the major grapheme–phoneme relations of the writing system, and applying this knowledge to decode new words and to spell words. Acquiring this knowledge and these skills enables children to store the spellings of individual words bonded to their pronunciations and meanings in memory so that they can recognize the words automatically when they see them as they read text. This allows them to focus on comprehending the text while the words are recognized without conscious attention or effort. The goal of systematic phonics instruction is to teach these skills explicitly and help children acquire proficiency in reading words.
Linnea C. Ehri is distinguished professor emerita of educational psychology at the CUNY Graduate Center. She has received research awards from the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the National Reading Conference, and the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading (SSSR). She has held elected offices in these organizations, including as president of SSSR. She is a fellow of AERA and the American Psychological Association, Division 15, and a member of the Reading Hall of Fame. From 1998 to 2000 she served on the National Reading Panel, commissioned by the US Congress to report on research-based methods of teaching reading effectively to elementary students. Ehri’s research and teaching are focused on reading acquisition processes—the course of development in learning to read words by decoding and from memory by sight; preparing children to learn to read by teaching letters and phonemic awareness; vocabulary learning; learning to spell; reading instruction, particularly systematic phonics instruction; the impact of literacy on language processes; and the causes, prevention, and remediation of reading difficulties. She has published more than 130 research papers in books and scholarly journals, edited two books, and served on editorial boards of eleven scientific journals.
Ester de Jong:
We must recognize the centrality of literacy in school and life in the 21st century and the importance of students being engaged. As some of the focus of science of reading (SoR) is on phonics/phonemic awareness/spelling as it is being interpreted by educators and publishers, it is important to remind ourselves that the purpose of becoming literate is to learn and communicate—it’s not simply a matter of discrete skill building. Given the diversity of student experiences when they enter school, no one-size-fits-all approach will work, and we need to provide educators with key questions and principles that can help them make the right decisions for the students they are teaching. For English language learners/emergent bilinguals (ELLs/EBs), we need to pay explicit attention to the intersection of multilingualism and the SoR (i.e., reading research) and not assume that ELLs/EBs have been included in the research. If we skip this inquiry, we may generalize for policy and practice where this is not (yet) warranted. To say it in a different way: when citing research findings, it is important to confirm “population validity”—was the research explicitly inclusive of students who speak a language other than English at home and who are still in the process of learning English as an additional language? What were the findings for this particular subgroup of students? Note that this is not the same group as “struggling readers,” “students with dyslexia,” “students with disabilities,” “students from low-SES backgrounds,” or even general “culturally and linguistically diverse students.”
A major theme of the roundtable was the important role that oracy development plays for multilingual learners as part of developing reading and writing skills; listening, speaking, reading, and writing must be integrated for meaningful communication and learning. Dual language (bilingual education) approaches need to be centered much more in this work as an effective approach to reading and writing for multilingual learners. The research is clear on its positive impact on language, literacy, and content learning. In English-medium settings, the SoR research needs to pay much more attention to the role that knowing, speaking, and using a language other than English play in learning how to read and write in English. While some of the proposed practices may not harm ELLs/EBs, they may also fail to accelerate leaning for these students, a crucial task for educators given the double task these students have of language learning and content learning in an additional language.
Neuroscience has shown differences between bilingual and monolingual brains—what implications does this have for reading and writing development for bilingual learners? Where are the similarities and where are the differences? Given that bilinguals already have negotiated multiple languages prior to coming to school, it would make sense that our approach to literacy development would indeed have to be different.
We need to remember that not all ELLs/EBs are in the early grades—what needs to happen for older students, for students who come to school with significantly interrupted and limited schooling experiences?
Ester de Jong is the director of the School of Teaching and Learning and professor in ESOL/bilingual education at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. Prior to coming to the University of Florida, she worked with Spanish–English and Brazilian–Portuguese bilingual programs as the assistant director for bilingual education and ESL programs in Massachusetts. Her research focuses on equity and integration in the context of dual language education and preparing teachers to work with bilingual learners in K–12 schools. Her book, Foundations of Multilingualism in Education: From Policy to Practice, published by Caslon Publishing, considers a principled approach to school, program, and classroom decision-making for multilingual learners. Dr. de Jong was president of TESOL International Association (2017–2018).
Kari Kurto:
As the national science of reading project director for The Reading League (TRL), I believe it is important to always remember our mission, “to advance the awareness, understanding, and use of evidence-aligned reading instruction.” We believe all children deserve to learn to read and all teachers can learn to teach them. The Lexia Learning roundtable discussion in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, illustrated the efficacy of collaborative conversations among experts from different disciplines who share this common goal of advancing literacy outcomes for all students.
Each attendee was provided a copy of The Science of Reading: A Defining Guide, which proved to be a helpful anchor for conversation throughout the day. In particular, Dr. Raúl Escarpio referenced the final sentence of the guide’s equity statement, which reads, “Our children are worth the labor of pressing through the unknown, holding challenging conversations with high expectations, and even falling forward while building expertise” (The Reading League, 2022). Discussing this idea of falling forward together embodied the positive intent of all participants and strengthened the willingness to have open and honest conversations while also listening to understand.
Experts from the multilingual learner (MLL) field discussed the critical role of embracing students’ home languages and cultures as assets. They offered examples of students who learned to decode automatically, yet struggled to comprehend the text due to their limited vocabulary or background knowledge. Experts from the reading field agreed on the necessity of strong language comprehension skills, discussed the integral role of building accurate foundational reading skills to proficiency, and clarified that this is often not being done in classrooms that use practices that are not aligned to the science of reading. The roundtable discussion provided a space to have frank conversations regarding these common practices, yet also helped to fortify an understanding of critical elements of instruction for MLLs that must be named and included in the literacy conversation more often. The Reading League and partner organizations are committed to continued conversations with experts from the MLL field who are bravely willing to fall forward with us to guide the field, clear confusion, and consequently provide a runway for successful literacy outcomes for all students. Citation: The Reading League (2022). The Science of Reading: A Defining Guide. www.thereadingleague.org/what-is-the-science-of-reading
Kari Kurto is the National Science of Reading Project director at The Reading League. She was a literacy specialist at the Rhode Island Department of Education where she worked mostly on implementing the Rhode Island Right to Read Act that provides teacher training in the Science of Reading and Structured Literacy. She is an educator and Orton-Gillingham practitioner who has worked at Rawson Saunders School in Austin, TX and Middlebridge School in Narragansett, RI, and she is also a member of the Science of Reading: A Defining Movement coalition among other professional organizations. Prior to her work in literacy, Kurto was an independent casting director with over nine years of experience.
Joel Gómez:
The Lexia-sponsored roundtable discussion offered a great opportunity for experts with different areas of expertise to discuss for a day the intersection of literacy, equity, language acquisition, language development, and multilingual learners. A large part of the morning focused on a spirited discussion on the need for equitable, asset-based instructional approaches for multilingual learners. The afternoon session provided an opportunity to discuss issues related to literacy and English language instruction.
One of primary outcomes of the discussions was the case made for the importance of teaching the fundamentals of reading as an important step toward learning how to read. It was emphasized that instruction on the grapheme-to-phoneme relationship was an important element of these fundamentals.
However, a counterpoint to this approach was provided by some of the roundtable participants, who shared memories on how they learned to read as children. Some of the participants stated that they learned to read before attending school by listening to books being read and then looking at books. One participant said that he learned how to read by listening to oral tapes synced to pages on the book. Another participant shared that he learned to read in Spanish without being taught how to read in Spanish by making a connection with his knowledge about reading in English.
Overall, a major takeaway from the roundtable discussion was that even though the invited group of participants agreed on equitable and asset-based instruction for multilingual learners, the discussion on teaching them literacy skills was still primarily predicated on literacy instruction for English monolingual students. All of the participants agreed that teaching literacy fundamentals is important. However, the point was made during several parts of the day that while literacy fundamentals are important, literacy instruction for multilingual students must be approached from a multilingual approach and not from an English monolingual student approach.
Admittedly, there is a paucity of studies on teaching literacy skills to multilingual learners. However, there is evidence that shows that successful literacy approaches for multilingual learners are more effective when based on multilingual literacy approaches rather than on monolingual approaches. The works of Hornberger and Winlund provide support for a socio-ecological and multimodal framework for developing biliteracy among multilinguals (Hornberger, 2004, 1990; Winlund, 2020). A study by Sparrow, Schepers, and Escamilla shows that developing strong oracy and literacy skills in two languages concurrently provides a strong building block for developing literacy skills among multilingual students (Sparrow, Schepers, and Escamilla, 2021).
More generally, the National Academies of Science report How People Learn II concludes that “Effective instruction depends on understanding the complex interplay among learners’ prior knowledge, experiences, motivations, interests, and language and cognitive skills; educators’ own experiences and cultural influences; and the cultural, social, cognitive, and emotional characteristics of the learning environment” (p. 160).
It further states that “Learning in school may be facilitated if the out-of-school cultural practices of students are viewed as resources, tools, or assets” (p. 140). The report describes how connecting students to their community funds of knowledge and creating “a third space” between students and teachers are two examples of asset-based approaches to instruction. The number of multilingual students in US public schools continues to grow, and as such, researchers, policy makers, teacher preparation programs, and school-based educators must support equitable and asset-based literacy and schooling practices for multilingual students from a multilingual perspective.
References Hornberger, N. H. (2004). “The Continua of Biliteracy and the Bilingual Educator: Educational Linguistics in Practice.” https://repository.upenn.edu/gse_pubs/9 Hornberger, N. H. (1990). “Creating Successful Learning Contexts for Biliteracy.” WPEL, 6(1), https://repository.upenn.edu/wpel/vol6/iss1/1. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2018). How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/24783 Winlund, A. (2020). “Emergent Literacy Instruction: ‘Continua of biliteracy’ among newly immigrated adolescents.” Language and Education, 34(3), 249–266, https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2019.1701006.
Joel Gómez is the president and CEO of the Center for Applied Linguistics. He joined CAL from George Washington University (GW), where he held a joint appointment as a faculty member and chair of the Department of Education Leadership and where he also served as associate dean for research for the Graduate School of Education and Human Development. Dr. Gómez’s areas of expertise include bilingual and bicultural education, higher education, national online information centers, and federal funding of education research and development. He has also worked at the international level as an evaluator and technical assistance provider in countries such as India, Pakistan, Macedonia, and Dominican Republic, among others.
Raúl Escarpio:
As a facilitator, my role was to guide the conversation, but more often than not, I found myself mesmerized by the depth and breadth of the important issues being raised. I kept on using the word layman to describe myself when the panel discussed multilingual readers and literacy, hoping to bridge their knowledge and experience with my work in special education. By the end of the day, I understood that multilingual learners and students with special needs share more commonalities in learning to read and being successful than is initially perceived. This important conversation must continue!
Raúl Escarpio currently serves at the district level as a leader and subject-matter expert in behavior. He is a collaborative, highly motivated, and accomplished education leader with over 20 years of experience working with students and leaders from preschool through the college level. His main focus is rethinking educational practices to ensure the success of students of all ability levels and engaging leaders in transformational conversations that allow for the development of student-driven initiatives and models to ensure the success of all students.
Avant Assessment, the developer of online language proficiency tests in more than 40 languages, and Linguacious, an independent children’s book publisher based in Iowa whose books have been translated into over 20 languages, have partnered to help ensure that Ukrainian refugee children have access to good-quality children’s literature in their native language while away from their home country. The two companies have come together, bound by their love of cultures, languages, literacy, and childhood, to donate 1,500 copies of award-winning children’s author Victor D. O. Santos’s book Dylan’s Birthday Present / Подарунок Ділану на день народження. The books will be distributed in early May to Ukrainian refugee children and public libraries located in areas of Poland with a large number of Ukrainian refugees.
A Shared Love and Appreciation for Cultures, Languages, Literacy, and Childhood
In early March of 2022, Linguacious started noticing a very significant and sudden increase in sales of the Ukrainian edition of Book 1 (Dylan’s Birthday Present) of its award-winning Little Polyglot Adventures children’s book series. The publishing house’s CEO, Victor D. O. Santos, realized that the uptick in sales was caused by the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine and the sudden increased demand for children’s books in Ukrainian. Santos, who is married to a Ukrainian national and raises two half-Ukrainian children, decided that he could help. That same day, Santos, who is also the director of assessment and research for Avant Assessment, approached Avant CEO David Bong to suggest a joint partnership. He proposed to donate 1,500 copies of the book directly to affected Ukrainian children. Bong and Avant Assessment immediately loved the idea and the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of these children.
Avant and Linguacious contacted some of the major players in Poland who are trying to distribute children’s books in Ukrainian to refugee children currently in Poland, two of which are the Polish Book Institute and the Universal Reading Foundation.
These Polish organizations work mainly by accepting monetary donations to purchase children’s books from Ukrainian publishing houses. Subsequently, the books are distributed to Ukrainian children, mostly in Poland. When they heard from Linguacious and Avant that 1,500 books could be donated with no need to tap into additional funds and that the books could reach them in less than two weeks, the Polish Book Institute and the Universal Reading Foundation welcomed the donation with open arms. Through a program called Give a Book to Ukrainian Children, the Polish Book Institute focuses on donating the books to public libraries in Poland located in areas with high numbers of Ukrainian refugees. In turn, the Universal Reading Foundation focuses more on getting the books straight into the hands of Ukrainian refugee children in orphanages, refugee centers, and other locations.
“We are deeply saddened and distraught to see what is happening in Ukraine and hope that this modest contribution will bring a smile to as many Ukrainian children as possible,” said David Bong, Avant Assessment’s CEO.
The conflict over whether or not India should have Hindi as its national language has once again ignited after the Union Home Minister of India, Amit Shah recently said that people belonging to different states must speak Hindi and that Hindi should be accepted as an alternative to English.
He added that, “India is a country of different languages and every language has its own importance but it is very important to have a language which should become the identity of India in the world. If one language can unite the country today, it is the widely-spoken Hindi language.”
Following this, tweets between Bollywood actor Ajay Devgn and Kannada actor Sudeep Kiccha about Hindi being/not being a national language further sparked the conflict on varu
Although Hindi is spoken by 46% of the Indian population, it is mainly spoken in the major northern states, while other states, like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, and West Bengal, rarely use Hindi as an official language.
India is also the birthplace of over 100 languages with 22 of them being recognized as official languages. In such a scenario, making just one language a national language is difficult.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin responded to the Home Minister by saying, “Union Home Minister Amit Shah asking to use Hindi instead of English is an act endangering the unity of India. The BJP leadership continues to work to undermine India’s diversity. Does Minister Amit Shah think that “Hindi States” are enough and not Indian States? Use of a single language does not help unity. Desolation does not foster integrity. You are making the same mistake over and again; but you are not going to succeed.”
Conflict over the status of Hindi has been behind protests, some violent, since 1937 when the Indian National Congress attempted to teach Hindi in Madras. As a way to end the conflict, a compromise was proposed whereby Hindi would not be made the national language but Hindi in the Devanagari script was made the “official language of the Union” and English was to be used for all official purposes for 15 years from the date of the constitution. This date could only be extended by the Parliament.
Article 343 and Schedule 8 was drafted in the Indian constitution that granted the Indian states to adopt any language as the official language for correspondence purposes. However, Article 351 of the Indian Constitution stated that it would be the duty of the state governments to promote Hindi language and project the nation as being united by one language.
As soon as the extension expired, a movement against the imposition of Hindi rose up especially in the state of Tamil Nadu, where violent protests in 1965 led to the deaths of 70 people. To bring these protests under control, the Government of India enacted an Official Language Act in 1963 that allowed the continued use of English alongside Hindi.
The Indian constitution does not mention making Hindi the national language of the country.
With the celebration of la fête nationale, or Bastille Day, as it is generally referred to in English, on July 14th, in many towns and cities in the US like Piermont, NY, we may tend to think of it as part of the summer season, but it is interesting to take a look not only at the Hexagone, the taking of the Bastille for many of the ideas and values that drove our American Revolution, and at French as a European and as a global language, but also at French as part of our US heritage and cultural identity—past, present, and future.
Our Francophone Heritage – Our Francophone Past The story of French in what is now the US begins in the earliest years of the European era, with parts of New England and much of the Mississippi Valley part of la Nouvelle France. The course of US history was upended with the fall of Québec in 1759 and the role of the ideas of the Enlightenment in the American Revolution, as well as the aid and assistance given by France to the new nation. However, many Americans may be relatively unaware of the presence of French language and Francophone culture throughout our history and across our country.
French surnames and place names like St. Louis, Boise, and Vermont, along with L’Étoile du Nord as the state motto of Minnesota, hint at the French-American connection, but it is key to recognize that this connection is not limited to the history books, but is part of our present, in the everyday lives of people across the country.
French in the US Today – Our Francophone Present More than 10 million people in the US consider themselves of French ancestry, and an estimated 2 million speak French at home. Louisiana and New England are well-known for their significant French and Francophone heritage and presence, but South Florida is home to a fast-growing French and French Creole-speaking community, New York City is home to 80,000 Francophones, while an estimated 160,000 French nationals live throughout the US, and a resurgence of French in Maine is being driven in part by recent immigration from Africa. Rather than being a nostalgic part of our history, French language and Francophone culture are not only part of our present, but also importantly, our future. Priorities to be considered include support and promotion of French language learning and use in the widest possible variety of settings, support of French language educators and French language programs at all levels, and support of media and cultural initiatives related to France and the Francophone world.
Francoresponsabilité and Franco-Activists in the US Francoresponsabilité, a term used initially in Québec, refers to developing the use of French in daily life, and Franco-activists can be found across the US. A few selected examples include the Oui! Initiative, a movement to promote the use of French by Louisiana businesses, the activities of CODOFIL (Council for the Development of French in Louisiana), the Nous Foundation, whose work includes “living and creating in French and Creole,” and the Laura Plantation, Louisiana’s Creole heritage site. Beyond Louisiana, New England is home to the French-Canadian Legacy Podcast, the Franco-American Centre, and the New Hampshire PoutineFest. The University of Maine hosts Franco-American Programs and Acadian Archive, as well as a recently-established Alliance Française, and the multi-university collaborative Franco-American Digital Archive (FADA). In Minnesota, the French American Heritage Foundation promotes knowledge and engagement, and in Missouri, the Foundation for Restoration of Ste. Geneviève offers an annual French Heritage Festival. In New York and beyond, the Bilingual Fair, or Salon de l’Éducation Bilingue, brings information about French language education to interested parents and communities, and “French Morning,” “Frenchly,” and “France-Amérique” are among media bringing useful information to French and Francophone communities and to Francophiles in the US.
Films, music, media, and the creative and performing arts, in French and/or on Francophone-related themes, including Télé-Louisiane, films like Carrefour and Réveil, musical artists like Zachary Richard, Josée Vachon, Dennis Stroughmatt, and Sweet Crude, among others, are an important part of advocacy and activism, and these are just a few of many examples.
French Language Education French is the second most widely-studied language in the US, with 1.3 million K-12 students and 176,000 college and university students enrolled in French programs. The American Association of Teachers of French (AATF), whose mission is “to promote throughout North America the teaching and learning of the French language and French-speaking cultures and civilizations,” includes French language educators at all levels.
Noteworthy trends include the rising interest in immersion programs and the success of college and university programs and courses that address specific student needs and interests. Examples include the French immersion programs in New York City and the surrounding area that have been propelled forward by the Bilingual Revolution (most recently, the Pointe-au-Chien immersion school in Louisiana), the French Heritage Language Program, and pre-professional and special-interest courses at the college and university level. The master’s program in Professional French at the University of Wisconsin and programs responding to student interests as highlighted in the most recent MLA report and the French Language Job Fairs on campus and online are examples of bridging the gap between language learning and the benefits of French language skills in the workplace and in daily life. It is important to remember that French language education offers language learning pathways to a variety of learners with a wide range of goals. From Anglophone children whose parents would like their children to be bilingual and adult learners who are seeking to improve their knowledge base and cultural knowledge, advance their careers, or re-connect with a partially forgotten or lost heritage language. Even more importantly, French language education serves the needs of French-speaking families trying to ensure that children and future generations continue to speak the family language.
Needless to say, in addition to world language education in schools and colleges, community-based language learning, after-school and weekend programs, and summer camps—both onsite and online—play an important role.
Issues facing French language education include, but are not limited to, expanding access to include all interested learners. Online learning and affordability play a significant role in expanding access, as do community-based programs and after-school, weekend, and summer programs. An example of community-based online learning is the Prêt-à-Parler program of the Franco-American Centre in Manchester, NH., along with language French language tables, either onsite or online, offered by libraries, cultural centers, and other institutions, including the Alliance Française.
Our Francophone Future Our US Francophone future is bright— vibrant and diverse, and includes Francophones from around the world, so it is necessary to respond to a wide range of needs and goals, for Anglophone and other French language learners, to children of Francophone families who are learning a family language, to those who are re-acquiring a partially or completely lost heritage language. As paradoxical as it may sound, outreach to those who don’t speak French (yet) is part of our Francophone future. The sheer number of Americans potentially interested in Francophone culture—just think of the 10 million Americans of French ancestry, who may speak French well, somewhat, just a little, or even not at all, not to mention Francophiles – makes outreach in terms of events, programs, and activities to those who may not know the language an obvious next step.
Unfortunately, even the best initiatives may not be sustainable in the absence of reliable ongoing funding. Partnerships are a possible answer to sustainable funding. While public funding made possible by a language policy is best, private philanthropy used for scholarships, grants, and endowments can provide the means for a wide variety of initiatives to continue. The FACE (French American Cultural Exchange) Foundation is an example of the role of philanthropy in language and cultural advocacy. The French government has launched a Dual Language Education Fund, announced by French President Macron at the CUNY Graduate Center during his 2017 visit to NYC for the UN General Assembly. The campaign for the French language worldwide announced in 2018 is framed by goals including learning, communicating, and creating in French, with the publication in 2021 of the online Dictionnaire des Francophones and the opening of a Cité de la langue française in 2022 its most high-profile projects thus far.
It is impossible to fail to mention the work of the OIF and the CFA in any discussion of the French language in the world. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), with its mission “to support the French language and cultural and linguistic diversity” and the Centre de la Francophonie des Amériques (CFA), with its mission “to promote and enhance an exciting Francophonie to secure a bright future for the French language in today’s culturally diverse landscape” are pillar of Franco advocacy and activism.
Given the significant number of Americans of French ancestry, with language skills ranging from mother tongue and heritage language speakers to those who speak limited or no French due to assimilation and language loss, along with their geographic dispersion, online and independent self-directed learning are important elements in our Francophone future, with the increase in OERs (open educational resources) offering a wide range of quality learning materials to learners of all ages wishing to create their own learning journey. Valuing regional French and including those who do not speak French are essential, because French has many local and regional variations and vocabulary. It is important that both global French and the needs of those without language proficiency are included in our US Francophonie.
It is also important to consider the needs of different age groups. While many existing programs and initiatives focus on adults, the needs of children and young adults, sometimes referred to as Gen-Z, are especially important for the future of French. Born since 1997, Generation Z is tech-savvy, and resilient in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, and our Francophone future will inevitably evolve within a context of effective use of technology and a focus on the importance of language and languages in the life of the individual. This focus on the importance of the motivations and purposes of the individual language learner in planning both learning and cultural alternatives is essential to the future of the Francophonie in the US.
Conclusions Building on recognition of and respect for the many historical connections and centuries-long friendship between the Americans and the French, the future of French includes not only descendants of early French explorers and settlers, but also the descendants of the million French-Canadians who came to the US from the early 19th century through the early 20th century, descendants of the Acadians who came to the US during the Grand Dérangement, and all who have come to make their home here at different times throughout our history.
However, while French has been a language used in what is now the US since the early years of the European era in the Americas, advocacy for French language and Francophone culture remains necessary as a result of language loss and in response to challenges facing French language learning at all academic levels, especially at the postsecondary level, in the years leading up to and immediately following the COVID pandemic.
Advocacy for French language and Francophone culture in the US needs to be inclusive, responsive to a wide range of needs, and the work of a broad partnership of French language educators and partners in our communities, businesses, and government— especially parents. Advocacy also needs to focus on the importance of multilingualism in a globalized world, recognizing the importance of French as a global language, and maximizing the personal, cultural, professional, and global citizenship benefits to US Francophones.
Advocacy can take place at the highest levels, through the Languages Caucus or French Caucus in the Congress, or through US officials like Secretary of State Antony Blinken and others like Senator Mitt Romney, or former Senator, former Secretary of State, and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, all of whom speak French. It can also take place over a cup of coffee with a family member, friend, or local decision-maker. The important thing is that we work together – L’Union fait la force!
Best Bastille Day wishes to all, as we celebrate Bastille Day on July 14th and embrace our US French heritage every day! To learn more about French language and Francophone culture in the US and to stay up to date on the latest news, local, regional, and national organizations are among the best information sources. Research, data, and historical information can be found in numerous reports, books, and articles. The following are just a few examples.
Selected References • Acadian Archives/Archives acadiennes • Alliance Française du Maine • American Association of Teachers of French • Bilingual Fair • Le Centre de la francophonie des Amériques • Le Château de Villers-Cotterêts, écrin de la langue française et de la première œuvre de Mondes nouveaux • Defining generations: Where Millennials end and Generation Z begins • Le Dictionnaire des Francophones (DDF) • Emmanuel Macron launches global campaign to promote French speaking • Enrollments in Languages other than English in United States Institutions of Higher Education • FACE Foundation • Franco-American Centre • Franco-American Digital Archive/Portail franco-américain • La Francoresponsabilité, un enjeu en Louisiane • French American Heritage Foundation of Minnesota • French Heritage Language Program • French-Americans • French Canadian Legacy Podcast • International Strategy for the French Language and Multilingualism • Job Fairs • Language Use in the United States: 2011 • Laura Plantation • The National K-12 Language Enrollment Survey Report • New Hampshire PoutineFest • New York, la capitale méconnue de la francophonie • Nous Foundation • Organisation internationale de la Francophonie • Pointe-aux-Chenes French immersion school proposal passes through state House legislature • Professional French Masters Program • University of Maine. Franco-American Programs
Kathy Stein-Smith, PhD, is associate university librarian and adjunct faculty in foreign languages and related areas at Fairleigh Dickinson University— Metropolitan Campus, Teaneck, New Jersey. She is chair of the AATF (American Association of Teachers of French) Commission on Advocacy. She is a member of the ATA (American Translators Association) Education and Pedagogy Committee, the CSCTFL (Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) Advisory Council, and the NECTFL (Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) Advisory Council. She also serves as French language facilitator at MLOW (Many Languages, One World). She is the author of three books and several articles about the foreign language deficit, has given a TEDx talk, “The U.S. Foreign Language Deficit—What It Is, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do about It,” and maintains a blog, Language Matters.
The Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture at UMass Dartmouth is in the planning stages for a new Museum of the Portuguese-Speaking World to be constructed at the campus, which the center’s director Dr. Paula Noversa hopes will become “the heart of this community.”
“What I’m envisioning is a new building at UMass Dartmouth, and that building would be the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture,” Dr. Noversa told O Jornal. “Within that building, there would be, among other things, the museum. In my mind, the museum would be two floors: one devoted to the Portuguese diaspora and the other devoted to the community of Portuguese-speaking countries.”
Meanwhile, the Museum of the Portuguese Language in São Paulo’s Estação da Luz is reopening its doors to the public once again six years after it went up in flames. The museum began operating in 2006 but burned down on Dec. 21, 2015, in a blaze that claimed the life of a firefighter who died of smoke inhalation.
Back-up security copies enabled the museum’s almost entirely digital collection to be recovered, although the original structure designed by Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha (1928–2021)—winner of the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2006—and his son Pedro was lost.
But now, following a severe economic crisis and a pandemic that is blamed for nearly 550,000 deaths in that South American country, the Museum of the Portuguese Language will finally be re-inaugurated on July 31 and offer several new experiences to visitors. That new start comes after an “intense reconstruction process” that took years and enlisted the contributions of artists, intellectuals, and musicians, the museum’s technical director, Marília Bonas, said. All told, 86 million reais ($16.5 million) were spent on the rebuild.
The museum is starting a new phase with the same overarching objective as before: to celebrate the diverse forms of the Portuguese language spoken around the world. Those different dialects are the result of indigenous and African cultural influences, as well as the incorporation of linguistic elements from a variety of other languages, including Japanese, Spanish, and Italian.
The museum traces the history of the Portuguese language from its Latin origins to its multiple present-day varieties, ranging from the types of Portuguese spoken in rural areas to those found in the favelas (shanty-towns) of Brazil’s largest cities.
“The idea is to propose a space for dialogue, reflection, and discovery of all that potential of the Portuguese language. Ultimately, it’s about answering the question, ‘what does this language want and what can it do?,’ paraphrasing Caetano Veloso,” Grinspum said in reference to that famed Brazilian composer and singer’s song “Lingua.”
Although there are 260 million Portuguese speakers spread across nine countries, few spaces around the world are specifically devoted to the Romance language.
Last month, Latino Media Network (LMN), a media company focused on content creation, talent incubation, and distribution across multiple platforms, announced its formation. Founded by social entrepreneurs Stephanie Valencia and Jess Morales Rocketto and backed by several Latino luminaries, they also announced their first major deal with Univision to acquire a set of radio assets to reach nearly a third of the US Latino population. Most of the acquired stations are primarily Spanish language and a few are bilingual.
In one of the largest capital raises by a Latina owned and operated start-up in the US, with over $80 million in capital raised from a diverse set of investors, Latino Media Network will be a media company serving the Latino community, owned by Latinos for Latinos. Its mission is to help Latinos make sense of the world and their place in it by inspiring, informing, and celebrating Hispanics through an audio-focused multimedia network. It will embrace cultural pride by telling Latino stories, addressing community concerns, and talking about opportunities for a better future.
Board members, investors and advisors include: • María Elena Salinas: Award-winning journalist and author, including co-anchor of Univision’s evening news for more than 30 years; principal, MES Multi-Media LLC. • Eva Longoria: Director, actor, activist, philanthropist, and businesswoman. CEO and founder, UnbeliEVAble Entertainment, and founder, Casa del Sol Tequila. • Dr. Eduardo Padrón: President emeritus, Miami Dade College; strategic corporate advisor; board, Urban Institute. Recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. • Al Cárdenas: Board member, Coral Gables Trust Co.; investor and treasurer, American Business Immigration Coalition; former longtime chair of the Republican Party of Florida; former chair of the American Conservative Union. • Maria Contreras-Sweet: Co-founder, Pro-America Bank; former US administrator of the Small Business Administration; former secretary of business and transportation for the state of California. • Monica Lozano: Former publisher and CEO of La Opinión and CEO of its parent company, ImpreMedia, LLC. Currently board of Walt Disney Corporation, Apple, Inc., and Target Corporation. • Henry R. Muñoz III: American activist, business leader, designer, and philanthropist. He has launched national movements including Momento Latino, TheDream.US, and Latino Victory to support the Latino community through awareness, college funding, and electoral support. • Christy Haubegger: Founder, Latina magazine, and current executive vice president, chief enterprise inclusion officer, and head of marketing and communications, WarnerMedia. • Stephanie Valencia: Co-founder and president at Equis. Co-founder of Poderistas, Latino Talent Initiative, the Latina Collective, and Latinos44. Formerly Google, Obama White House, US Congress.
To coincide with its launch, LMN also announced that they have signed a definitive agreement with TelevisaUnivision to purchase 18 radio stations in ten cities from coast to coast in a $60 million all-cash deal. LMN has secured equity investments from leading Latino investors and debt financing for the acquisition from Lakestar Finance LLC, an investment entity affiliated with Soros Fund Management LLC.
“As Latinos drive population growth in the United States they continue to navigate the ocean of information on what is happening in the world and their place in it. With minority media on the decline, now is the time to be investing in more resources to create content for Latinos by Latinos. Through the unique combination of creative content and new and existing media platforms to serve our community, we can embrace cultural pride and collectively empower Latinos,” said LMN founder Stephanie Valencia. “Our company, and these stations, are for our community,” said LMN founder Jess Morales Rocketto. “We believe in the power and reach of radio, and it remains a main source of media for a significant number of our community.” “This is such an exciting day for the media landscape,” said Eva Longoria. “My mission is to tell and amplify all of our community’s stories so the world can see the joy, the power, and the heart of our community in ways that are still all too rare. Media can make a difference and real change in our world. I’m so proud to be a part of Latino Media Network, as together we will ensure that our media includes narratives that uplift our voices.”
The 18 stations in the deal are a combined set of AM and FM stations in the largest US markets and eight of the top ten Latino markets, reaching 33% of US Latinos: LA, NYC, Miami, Houston, Chicago, Dallas, San Antonio, McAllen, Fresno, and Las Vegas. These stations primarily program sports, entertainment, and music.
Even though nearly 20% of students in California K-12 schools are English Learners, the latest research from EdTrust West (https://west.edtrust.org/ed-trust-west-research-in-brief-series/) finds that the majority of teachers across the state are not being given the resources and support they need to effectively teach math to emerging bilingual students. The study, California Mathematics Teachers’ Perspectives on The Quality Of Their Instructional Materials For English Learners, looks at survey data from teachers and addresses four key findings:
Elementary teachers broadly used the curriculum adopted by their district, while most secondary teachers used self-created materials on a daily basis.
Most teachers reported that their curricular materials were aligned with the math content standards. Yet, only half responded that their materials helped them to tailor instruction to support English learners
The majority of teachers reported that their materials lack relevance for students
The majority of teachers reported that their materials do not support them to assess or provide feedback on English learners’ development of math language
As California is in the midst of updating the state’s math framework, this important research adds yet another voice to the many educators, advocates, researchers, and others who are urging state leaders to modernize math instruction.
“We are plural. The I is an illusion: bilinguals know this, they are hybrid like the words inside them, surprised halfway on the translation path.” (Jurgenson, 2014, p. 115).
Yes, we have always been and will always be plural. That is, until we are taught to divide who we are and what we know. Until we have been diminished to only those words from one language inside us. Yet Jurgenson’s quote highlights not just a theoretical and philosophical stance but a body of evidence that has been confirmed through science. The science of the bilingual reading brain.
What Science Says about Transfer
Transfer is “the ability to directly apply one’s previous learning to a new setting or problem” (Schwartz and Bransford, 1998, p. 68). We see everyday examples of transfer when we learn what a stop sign is and recognize it in another country where we can’t actually read the word stop itself. We see transfer in the way we still know what a chair is regardless of the material used to make it. Yet, for emergent bilinguals and dual language (DL) students developing biliteracy, transfer serves a more important role. In fact, transfer is an indispensable part of the formula for developing biliteracy: oracy x transfer x linguistic comprehension x word recognition = biliteracy (or O x T x C x D = R2) (Guilamo, 2021).
Why is transfer a biliteracy nonnegotiable? Research has confirmed that when we use cross-linguistic transfer, it not only enhances but accelerates reading ability (Dijksra et al., 1998; Gottardo et al., 2021; Schwartz et al., 2007). And accelerating reading ability is critical for DL programs for two key reasons. First, it balances the strong relationship that exists between bilingual students’ proficiency in a language and the development of phonological awareness in that language. The earlier students are in their language-learning journey, the greater the impact on their phonological awareness development. I have always understood this relationship to underscore the challenge that emergent bilinguals and DL students have in early word recognition. How can a student confirm if they’ve accurately decoded a word if the word is unknown to them? By transferring vocabulary, phonemes, language structures, and so on that students already know, educators can accelerate language development and, by extension, reading ability.
The second reason transfer should be a biliteracy nonnegotiable is that when emergent bilingual and DL students are explicitly taught to transfer what is applicable, they free up the time and cognitive resources to develop an understanding of English phonology, since it has a more complex orthography and morphology system requiring more processing skills than Spanish (Dijksra et al., 1998; Guilamo, 2021). For the many Spanish/English DL programs in the US, this reason is vital. It represents the countless missed opportunities that rob us of limited instructional minutes. For example, too many programs expect DL students to learn the entire alphabet in Spanish and then again in English even though the two are nearly identical. Why do students need to learn the alphabet in English if they have already learned it in Spanish? It is the different letter–sound relationships that students must be able to distinguish, discriminate, produce, and manipulate. And learning how these relationships are different from the ones they already know requires time and cognitive resources (two things that get squandered when we reteach things students have already learned).
We must be purposefully disciplined with our time if DL students are to achieve equity, bilingualism, biliteracy, and academic success in two languages. If all standards were taught in Spanish and then repeated in English, we would need a 14-hour school day. I don’t know too many educators lining up to do that. At worst, emergent bilingual and DL programs need to apply students’ previous learning from one program language to the other as a matter of survival. At best, we must use transfer to affirm identities and empower critical thinkers, pattern finders, and intentional language users.
Scientific Evidence for Using Translanguaging to Facilitate Transfer
A closely related debate involves translanguaging. Translanguaging refers to how bilinguals use their funds of knowledge and full language repertoires to exist, to make meaning, to interact with others, and to be successful in school (García, 2017). This working definition doesn’t give language proficiency levels or state standards the power to define how language is used to exist, make meaning, interact with others, and master content.
It empowers emergent bilingual and DL students to understand, define, and use their linguistic resources and knowledge as powerful accelerators for their success in school and life. So, what evidence does the science of the bilingual reading brain provide for how translanguaging gives students a biliteracy advantage and facilitate cross-lin guistic transfer in particular?
Remember the formula for developing biliteracy—O x T x C x D = R2 (Guilamo, 2021)? Well, decoding (or, more accurately, word recognition) includes phonological awareness and sight recognition (Scarborough, 2001). Word recognition requires students to match graphemic (visual) and phonemic (sound) information with increasing automaticity.
Especially in the case of Spanish and English, there are a plethora of grapheme and phoneme relationships that are the same or similar across both languages—they are transferrable (Schwartz et al., 2007). However, just because they are transferrable doesn’t mean that they will be transferred.
The bilingual brain is so powerful that when DL students are taught to leverage graphemic–phonemic relationships within and across languages, they are able to make within- and cross-language matches with increasing automaticity (Harm and Seidenberg, 2004; Mechelli et al., 2004; Melby-Lervåg and Lervåg, 2011). But that transfer requires educators to take translanguaging stances, translanguaging spaces, and translanguaging pedagogical approaches that see, hear, and use students’ full linguistic repertoires as worthy of transfer and application (García, 2017). In other words, if educators don’t care that students have learned something already (like the alphabet as mentioned above), students won’t even get the opportunity to apply it in the partner language.
Linguistic comprehension, on the other hand, includes background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge (Scarborough, 2001). The development of linguistic comprehension depends on short-term and long-term memories (Ordóñez et al., 2002; Quinn, 2001).
For emergent bilinguals, these memories will reflect many interactions across languages and many experiences from diverse contexts, communities, and countries. Even before a single lesson is delivered, emergent bilingual and DL students know about many of the concepts they will encounter in class. They have knowledge about geometric shapes, democracy, plants, making meaning, and more. They walk in the door with this knowledge because they’ve lived it. They’ve seen geometric shapes from the places and foods in their communities that exist in those shapes. They’ve developed phonemic principles, vocabulary, and literacy knowledge from saying their own names and the many family stories that have been told over the years. The funds of knowledge acquired throughout students’ lives hold powerful academic currency when they are used as hooks that turn life’s lessons into academic concepts that can be applied, or transferred, to the classroom. These hooks provide a biliteracy advantage when DL students are taught how to use what they know as the context needed for meaning, especially when they are still early in their language-learning journey.
These two defining characteristics of translanguaging (the desire to leverage students’ full linguistic repertoires and their funds of knowledge) serve as the conditions and prerequisites for transfer. The desire and willingness to acknowledge and use what our students know matter. Sometimes we hear educators say that emergent bilinguals come to school “knowing nothing.” However, I have yet to meet an emergent bilingual student raised without words, raised without a single experience, raised in an empty void of nothingness. But this belief that emergent bilinguals bring nothing of value does prevent students from connecting and transferring what they actually know to a new (or academic) setting (Stefanakis, 2000).
When DL students get to use their full linguistic repertoires and funds of knowledge, DL educators can more accurately determine what to teach, what to transfer, and how to allow students to be secure in the powerful learning that is taking place. But when the principles and practices of the monolingual reading brain prevent DL teachers from doing so, we often find that the “developmental patterns… in speech discrimination, speech production, and intra-word segmentation… [still] reflected characteristics of the [emergent bilingual’s] first language. In other words, differences… [in] second language [reading ability and language development actually mirrored] patterns of phonological development that resembled those of children with speech impairment[s]” (Genesee et al., 2006).
Science-Based Recommendations for Transfer and Translanguaging
So, what can educators do to leverage translanguaging and transfer in ways that reflect the science of the bilingual reading brain?
Explicitly teach those sounds that are unique to English by contrasting both partner languages. Explicitly transfer those sounds that are similar in both partner languages by explaining and demonstrating the critical feature, rule, or pattern to be transferred side by side.
Provide consistent opportunity and scaffolded literacy tasks for students to meaningfully engage that integrate the new feature, rule, or pattern into their daily literacy behaviors.
Use the content vocabulary during literacy centers to identify which are cognates and which part is the same or different across the pair.
Have students transform genres within and across languages (e.g., changing poems to stories) using diverse text types: primary sources, dialogue, social media posts, interviews, ads, emails, postcards, texts.
Leverage bilingual books and bilingual classroom libraries.
Create multilingual word walls and multilingual, student-generated picture dictionaries (students can use the bilingual books they’re reading from the bilingual classroom libraries to guide what words they need to include in their dictionaries).
Have teachers collaboratively plan and design scaffolds, literacy strategies, and key vocabulary lists so that the applicability, or
transfer, is more visual, immediate, and concrete.
Have partner language teachers or general education and bilingual teachers intentionally coordinate who will teach new content and skills that must be learned and who will transfer that learning into the partner language (and how).
As a DL educator, I do not dispute a need for structured instruction for word recognition and linguistic comprehension. But I also cannot refute the overwhelming amount of scientific evidence that confirms a need for structured oracy and transfer. Without it, the other two components are insufficient in an emergent bilingual and DL context. Have the scientists who’ve researched the monolingual reading brain looked at how bilingual brains excel? I don’t know. But the brain images are there if you’re willing to find them (Olulade et al., 2016).
Alexandra Guilamo is a dual language expert, author, keynote speaker, and chief equity and achievement officer at TaJu Educational Solutions (a company dedicated to professional development, coaching, and technical support for DL and bilingual programs). Visit www.tajulearning.com or follow Alexandra @TajuLearning on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
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