US Senators Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey) and Ben Ray Luján (D-New Mexico), alongside US Representative Tony Cárdenas (D-California 29), led 20 colleagues in sending letters to the heads of WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal to express serious concerns about the rise of Spanish-language mis/disinformation targeted on these group messaging applications and posed specific questions about what steps, if any, these companies are taking to prevent or address the spread of Spanish-language mis/disinformation. The lawmakers suggested that group messaging applications can address the spread of Spanish-language mis/disinformation without compromising user privacy or the integrity of private encrypted communication “by increasing access to reliable fact-checking across languages, hiring and adequately investing in staff who have the necessary cultural context, and implementing other tools to slow the spread of viral mis/disinformation.” They emphasized that “the spread of content that promotes mis/disinformation, undermines public health efforts, and instills distrust in our democratic institutions must become a top priority…”
“The unchecked spread of Spanish-language mis/disinformation will only further erode our democracy and lead to dangerous long-term consequences that can affect the security and well-being of America’s fastest growing demographic—the Latino community,” said Senator Menendez. “As members of Congress, we have a serious responsibility to ensure that big tech companies and group messaging applications are taking the necessary steps to insulate our democracy and democratic institutions from bad actors hell-bent on destroying our great American experiment. This is a challenge we must confront head-on and I am more committed than ever to working with these companies, as well as holding them accountable when needed, to ensure we can mitigate the spread of mis/disinformation.”
“With millions of users on their platforms, it’s crucial that messaging apps treat Spanish misinformation and disinformation with urgency. Unless they address this problem, dangerous lies and conspiracies will continue to go unchecked—fueling distrust in safe, effective COVID-19 vaccines and undermining our elections,” said Senator Luján, chair of the Subcommittee on Communications, Media, and Broadband. “Latinos depend on these apps to communicate with their loved ones and communities, and it’s time for these companies to prioritize putting an end to Spanish misinformation and disinformation. I look forward to working with my colleagues and these companies to make this a reality.”
“Spanish-language disinformation is running rampant on social media, including on encrypted messaging apps,” said Representative Cárdenas. “Time and again, we’ve seen the continuous spread of flat-out lies that undermine trust in our democracy and public health. It is painfully clear technology companies need to increase their resources to successfully monitor and stop the spread of disinformation on their platforms. I look forward to working with each of these companies to fight back against this disinformation, put an emphasis on content moderation, and protect our community from dishonesty and division.” The letter claims that “Spanish-language mis/disinformation played a significant and concerning role in the 2020 presidential election and COVID-19 vaccination effort. POLITICO, for example, found that ahead of the 2020 presidential election, Spanish-speaking residents of South Florida faced a barrage of mis/disinformation through their WhatsApp chats in an attempt to influence their electoral choices (Rodriguez and Caputo, “‘This Is F—ing Crazy’: Florida Latinos swamped by wild conspiracy theories,” POLITICO, Sept. 14, 2020, www.politico.com/news/2020/09/14/florida-latinos-disinformation-413923). In regard to the COVID-19 pandemic, a study by First Draft, a project dedicated to fighting mis/disinformation online that includes organizations like Facebook and Twitter, found that WhatsApp is a popular platform for those who wish to foster and spread mis/disinformation—and such mis/disinformation leads many Latino users into extreme, conspiratorial anti-vaccine online spaces.”
A poll (https://votolatino.org/media/press-releases/polloncovid) conducted by Change Research on behalf of the Latino Anti-Disinformation Lab found that 66% of respondents whose primary language spoken at home is Spanish received wrong or harmful information about the COVID-19 vaccine through messaging apps.
The lawmakers expressed concerns about how group messaging platforms like Telegram are attractive platforms for those seeking to rapidly spread mis/disinformation to mass audiences because some allow as many as 200,000 individuals in a group, with limited oversight. They also pointed out how it is estimated that by 2023 almost 71% of the US Latino population will be WhatsApp users and how young Latinos in particular are twice as likely to use platforms like WhatsApp compared to the general population. This leaves young Spanish speakers exposed to an even higher rate of mis/disinformation compared to the general population.
Ryanair, one of Europe’s largest budget airlines is demanding that travelers who hold a South African passport must first pass an ‘Afrikaans’ language test at the boarding gates, or forfeit their seat.
Ryanair, based in Dublin, Ireland, has the lion’s share of internal trips in Europe but doesn’t fly to South Africa. However, travelers who live in Europe and hold South African passports must now pass this language test before taking up their seat on any Ryanair plane. The reason for this bizarre rule, says Ryanair, is that there are a lot of fake South African passports circulating in Europe. So, they argue that an Afrikaans language test is an additional validation method to determine that whoever presents a South African passport is actually South African.
‘It’s, testing the tongue, do a quick Afrikaans language quiz so we can onboard you into the plane,’ says Washington Langa, a South African engineer who got furious on being asked to take the test on a recent flight from Paris to London.
Afrikaans is a locally constructed dialect of the original European Dutch language. White colonial settlers of Dutch, Germanic, and French origins constructed Afrikaans on settling in South Africa in the 1600s. Their descendants number four million today in South Africa.
Afrikaans holds an emotive place in South Africa’s memory. It is viewed as a language of Black enslavement and racist apartheid governance in South Africa. For Black South Africans, Afrikaans is the language that was forced on their identity. Just 12.5% of the South Africans population speaks Afrikaans.
‘I felt so traumatized when Ryanair flight attendants asked me to take an Afrikaans quiz, the colonial language that tore apart our identity as Black South Afrikaans,’ Langa the London-based engineer says. Langa passed the quiz and eventually boarded the plane.
For Wayne Todds, a white South African nurse who failed the Afrikaans language quiz and failed to board his Ryanair flight from Spain to London, the language quiz enraged him. ‘Why does Ryanair assume that every white South African speaks Afrikaans? It’s discrimination, it’s stupid.’
Todds was given a refund on his ticket and jumped onto a different airline.
News of Ryanair’s Afrikaans’ language test has sparked widespread fury in South Africa and the South Africa diaspora abroad. ‘It’s racist. It wrongly criminalizes every South African traveler, the notion that if you fail an Afrikaans language test you’re not South African,’ fumed Wandile Xaba, a South African lawyer who travels regularly around Europe.
Ryanair is adamant that it won’t remove the Afrikaans language test to protect what it says is the integrity of its business and claims that it complies with UK immigration rules. South Africa’s government says it is dismayed by Ryanair’s language test because it regularly keeps in communication with airlines to make sure they know how to validate South African passports.
Currently, we are in the middle of what some have described as the Great Reset (Rold & DeVries, 2022; World Economic Forum, 2022), driven by the rapid adoption of technology at scale to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in all aspects of modern life. In this moment, multiple sectors of education around the world are considering a future of learning informed by the skills necessary for success in world that is more flexible, disaggregated, and global than ever before. With so much of the future uncertain, the only thing we truly know is that developing those skills and abilities requires supporting a deeply integrated approach to learning focused more on what learners can do, rather than what they know.
Preparing for the Future with Language Learning Language learning is a critical component of success for many, and it will continue to gain in prominence. After decades of implementing English language learning programs nationwide, several countries are producing more proficient speakers with general English skills who need to develop challenging communicative skills relevant to future work like presenting, negotiating, and networking (British Council , 2018). Even with the disruption of the pandemic, language educators prevailed, and the use of online and distance learning proved to be a valuable addition to language studies—especially around supporting learners with improved feedback and on-demand educational access (Seher & Erkan, 2021). While employers still value English language skills, there is a growing need for a diverse and multilingual workforce (New American Economy, 2017) capable of collaborating on projects using information from a diverse range of subjects. This reset is an opportunity to lean into best practices and newly adopted approaches that develop the most crucial skills for our students’ future success: collaboration, problem-solving, creativity, and a thirst for life-long learning (OECD, 2019; Lieberman, 2021). Fortunately, these are all areas of learning that language educators are well equipped to support. Language educators will be significantly aided by the use of known and emerging frameworks and pedagogies for learning that are designed to help educators support students’ success, regardless of how and where they learn.
Leaning into 21st Century Learning One of the biggest concerns for the future is how much is unknown or unimaginable. Twenty years ago, it would have been impossible to predict that by 2020 you could complete a full days’ worth of work on a portable device that fits in your pocket, which also works as a phone, music player, camera, video recorder, and alarm clock. Technological advances are constantly creating new ways of thinking and working, from managing social media to addressing digital ethics.
Figure 1: 21st Century Learning
Comprehensive learning experiences that embrace 21st century learning prepare learners with the skills they need to be successful in this unpredictable environment (Partnership for 21st Century Learning, 2019). 21st century learning in the language classroom incorporates the four learning skills, digital literacy skills, and life skills. Using the 21st century framework to develop interactive problem-based learning activities should be front and center of every learning experience, whether in-person, online, or hybrid. Increasingly, there is interest in moving learning away from standardized assessment to performance-based assessment (Darling-Hammond, Schachner, & Edgerton, 2020; KnowledgeWorks, 2021). Creating high-quality experiences that synthesize and integrate knowledge from a variety of content areas plays into the strengths of the language learning curriculum, which often leverages learner knowledge and allows for observable performance.
Consider the following exercises: Write, conduct, and report a student survey with a team (scientific process, mathematics) Outline and create a video describing the solar system (astronomy, physics, digital editing, content creation) Experiment with dried pasta and marshmallows to build a structure and report the results (engineering, calculus, scientific process)
These activities promote communication while also drawing on learner knowledge, skills, and abilities from a variety of content areas. These types of integrated, 21st century tasks allow learners to produce work that can be used to evaluate language, critical learning, literacy, and life skills performance.
Thoughtful Integration of Technology It is impossible to ignore the many new and emerging technologies impacting multiple sectors. Educators worldwide are deploying augmented, virtual, and mixed reality technology for training, learning, and research. Ensuring language learner success requires incorporating new technologies into learning experiences to build confidence when transferring communicative context between spoken and written interaction in real and digital worlds. Here, educators will find a great deal of value in understanding and adopting technology frameworks that help scaffold the development of 21st century learning experiences.
Figure 2: SAMR Technology Framework
Two key frameworks are useful in this regard: the SAMR framework (Terada, 2020) and the T-PACK framework (Koehler, 2012). The SAMR framework asks educators to consider how technology enhances learning by examining what technology is doing. While this framework is often presented as a series of steps, it should not be viewed as a linear framework. Rather, the SAMR framework is a tool that allows an instructor to review and question how technology is being used and what additional opportunities may be available for enhancing the learning experience.
Like SAMR, the T-PACK framework also provides scaffolding of technology integration by focusing educators on where technology is best used to support learners’ pedagogical and content needs. TPACK describes three domains of knowledge: technology (TK), pedagogy (PK), and content (CK). While these frameworks can be used independently, both are useful for reviewing learning activities and can be useful when selecting the appropriate technology for learning. For example, if teaching verbs to learners you could use a worksheet and have students match the verb to the definition. In the SAMR framework, you might substitute the worksheet with a digital version, or redefine by using a 360-degree video in virtual reality where students review and select appropriate verb tags to identify the action. Using the T-PACK framework, you may start with learning verbs and definitions using a worksheet, then have students use a video editing app to create a short narrative that incorporates the verbs to demonstrate comprehension. The result of using these frameworks will be robust technology-enhanced activities that completely unbox the power of the 21st century learning framework.
Social Emotional Learning The pandemic has also opened discussion on a broad number of topics that impact education, which are especially relevant for language learners. Social emotional learning (SEL) builds critical strategies that help learners with self-management and self-actualization and can empower learner agency in the classroom (CASEL , 2022). The CASEL framework is a useful tool that uses research-based practices to highlight SEL’s core competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.
Figure 4: CASEL Social and Emotional Learning Framework
During a problem-based activity where learners use technology to research different routes for a future vacation, learners need to manage their focus, monitor strengths, and acknowledge weaknesses when researching, communicate their findings, select appropriate information, and collaborate to share results. Using a post-activity SEL based reflection questions can helps learners engage with their self-management and self-regulation strategies in a meaningful way, abilities that will be valuable in fostering personal well-being. To 2050 and beyond While the future is unpredictable, we know that achieving success will require both a deep resilience in the face of numerous challenges and the ability to work well with others to innovate and solve problems. Language education is a critical part of preparing students for that unknown future. Embracing the The Great Reset in education and leveraging various new and research-informed approaches to learning, will help to accelerate positive changes in how we prepare our students for the world of 2050 and beyond.
Based in Chicago, Sara Davila is an expert on English-language learning, twenty-first century pedagogies, and teacher-training best practices. Author of numerous articles, speaker at countless conferences, Sara’s expertise spans the globe. In her spare time Sara develops curriculum ideas and creates lesson plans for teachers, available for free on her website saradavila.com.
New York City announced that it would be taking increased action to support and improve the learning outcomes of dyslexic students in the city’s school system.
Mayor Eric Adams, who himself struggles with dyslexia, has set aside $7.4 million in his proposed executive budget toward creating resources and establishing testing protocols for dyslexic students. A finalized budget will be decided upon by July 1.
“I know from my own life the challenges that a learning disability creates for a child and how they can be overcome with early diagnosis and the right support,” Adams said.
The funding would allow for the city to adopt measures such as the development of two new reading centers for children with reading disabilities, to be located in the Bronx and Harlem. Additionally, the funding would be used to develop dyslexia screening programs for young students in the city’s school system.
As with similar plans in California to establish improved screening practices for dyslexia and other learning disabilities, some critics have claimed that the measures are not enough to ensure improvements for dyslexic students. Many advocates believe teachers should be better trained to work with dyslexic students, given the fact that such a large number of students struggle with the disorder. Mayor Adams’s office intends to develop a more detailed plan to be shared with the public in the near future. According to Adams, these efforts aren’t merely aiming to improve students’ classroom achievement. As mayor, he has heavily emphasized efforts to combat the so-called school-to-prison pipeline, and he has noted that improving accessibility for dyslexic students could also aid in this goal. When compared to the general population, prisoners have extremely high rates of dyslexia—about half of the nation’s prisoners have dyslexia, compared with around one-fifth of the general population. Because many dyslexic prisoners drop out of school early on in their academic careers due to severe learning difficulties, Adams believes that better identifying learning disabilities early on could help keep children in school and out of prisons. Andrew Warner
While the pandemic presented obstacles for many students during the 2020–21 school year, the federal General Accounting Office’s (GAO’s) nationwide survey of public K–12 teachers showed that teachers with certain vulnerable student populations were more likely to have students who faced significant obstacles to learning and an increased risk of falling behind academically. GAO estimates that teachers who taught in a virtual environment for the majority of the year with mostly high-poverty students were about six to 23 times more likely to have students who lacked an appropriate workspace, compared to all other teachers in their grade-level band. Regarding strategies to address learning loss, GAO found, with one exception, no differences between teachers of high- and low-poverty students.
Estimated Likelihood That Teachers with High-Poverty Students Had More Students Who Regularly Lacked an Appropriate Workspace Teachers in a virtual environment with high-poverty students compared to all other teachers in their grade-level band, 2020–21 school year
GAO also estimates that teachers in a virtual environment with a high percentage of English learners (at least 20%) were more likely than their peers to have students who regularly faced a variety of significant obstacles. These teachers were more likely to have students who regularly struggled with understanding lessons, completing assignments, having an appropriate workspace, accessing school meals, and getting adult assistance. Regarding strategies to address learning loss, teachers with a high percentage of English learners reported (1) small-group work in person and (2) one-on-one check-ins between teachers and students mitigated learning loss for at least half of their students.
Several strategies helped the youngest students make some academic progress despite obstacles presented by the pandemic learning environment. Specifically, K–2 teachers reported that their students had difficulty getting support, lacked appropriate workspaces, and lacked tools for learning virtually. K–2 teachers found that movement breaks, small-group work in person, and tutoring during the school day helped at least half of their students.
Students in kindergarten through second grade could be at increased risk of compounded negative effects of disrupted learning over time. GAO’s prior work has raised concerns about educational disparities for students from high-poverty schools and for English learners. The 2020–21 school year offered useful insights that may help schools, educators, and parents in the future.
The CARES Act includes a provision for GAO to report on its ongoing COVID-19 monitoring and oversight efforts. This second report in a series of three examines obstacles to learning and strategies to mitigate learning loss for high-poverty students, English learners, and students in grades K–2.
Working with queer English learners requires close attention to their emotions and feelings, prior to or in conjunction with the teaching of language and literacy. Queer pedagogy does more than “good” instructional strategies and practices in terms of fitting the representation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ+), or queer, people in the curriculum—it asks the teachers to think about how to explore the process of reading and thinking by disrupting the binary ways of doing and thinking. Queerness is always on the move, in the making, in partiality, and in contestation; therefore, working with queer English learners requires more than a fixed, stable, or totalized approach. In addition, queer pedagogy embraces all identities in teaching, thinking, and doing to co-construct a more accepting, inclusive, and equitable space. Queer pedagogy does not limit understanding to just one particular population who identifies as “queer”; rather, it invites all identities to work together in conducting, thinking, and writing, in the form of relationality, unfixity, unruliness, and disruptiveness of “straightness,” of heteronormativity, in and beyond the classroom spaces. In this article, I invite the readers to think with me about how we can do and think differently in queering English language classrooms.
Acknowledging Students’ Identities First and foremost, a safe and welcoming classroom space is essentially important. Teachers can start with learning how to pronounce students’ names with critical love (Dunlap et al., 2021; Trinh, 2022). In addition, English teachers can introduce the concept of gender-neutral (or inclusive) pronouns (i.e., they/them/their or no pronouns) at the beginning of each semester to disrupt binary assumptions about gender and sexuality (i.e., there is only male or female or Mr. or Mrs./Ms. in schools). Teachers might want to “refer to names and pronouns that one feels most comfortable identifying with or being used when spoken or referred to. Names and pronouns can change over time and based on context and should be honored” (Miller, 2018, p. 38). However, it is important to note that this activity is a voluntary action for the students. In other words, teachers should not disclose a student’s identity unless there is consent from the student, for coming out is a navigational process for queer students. In addition, if the teachers misgender students in public or in conversation, we acknowledge our mistakes, correct ourselves, and continue the conversation. Teachers might want to have their gender pronouns in their email signatures as well and use that as a teachable moment to explain what gender pronouns are and why they are important. By acknowledging students’ identities and showing our acceptance of all identities in the classroom, we are beginning to create a welcoming space for students to engage in a critical discussion.
Adding the Discourse of Difference Once a welcoming and accepting space is established, teachers start to bring critical texts to ignite a conversation with students. In the context of disrupting heteronormative ways of teaching and thinking, I would suggest adding the discourse of difference in the curriculum. The discourse of difference invites multiple perspectives to express how the difference makes us think differently and connects differences respectfully. The discourse of difference could be co-created by inviting both the teacher and students to pay closer attention to materials in and beyond the classroom spaces. For example, the materials could be in the form of bodies, feelings, or emotions, or in the form of discussing the characters in a textbook. Let’s start to think about feelings and emotions first and foremost in the discourse of difference. Teachers can make a small, yet powerful, experience by checking with students, “How are you feeling today? What made you excited last week? What are you looking forward to doing this week?” Teachers can also allow students to respond to each other to build a community of support at the beginning of the class. Further, teachers can use some of the reading resources from Welcoming Schools, PLAG, and Social Justice Books, among others, to think about teaching reading, writing, and speaking skills. The resources I have shared here have a variety of queer-related topics that could open different interpretations of thinking and understanding about binary perspectives in different families, schools, societies, and cultures. While using these resources to teach (and of course depending on the students’ reading levels and interests), teachers can think of critical storytelling (Pentón Herrera and Trinh, 2021) as a way to invite students to discuss and write their own stories in order to connect with, reflect on, and think with the characters in the materials as well as students’ positionalities. In addition, students could use these resources to create their own podcast where they co-learn how to be better allies in school. While listening to students’ critical storytelling, teachers are encouraged to pay attention to students’ emotions and feelings and take these moments to teach critical thinking and actions for social change.
Dropping the Knowledge As students are settled in a safe and welcoming space and as they trust their teachers and peers through critical, empathetic, and thought-provoking discussions, teachers are encouraged to work toward dropping our knowledge. The idea of dropping the knowledge suggests we (teachers, staff, administrators, so on and so forth) reposition ourselves (i.e., power, hierarchy, and authority in the classroom) to listen to students attentively and critically. This idea suggests we move away from the power/authoritative position; instead, the sharing and co-constitution of knowledge are centered and prioritized. In order to concretize this idea in the real classroom, I would suggest teachers do community-based projects with students. Projects that GLSEN and the Trevor Project are modeling, such as Solidary Week, No-Name Calling Week, and Day of Silence, could be modified to create a welcoming and critical space for students and staff to get involved. In addition, teachers can think about local resources and LGBTQ+ organizations in their regions to think about cross/multicultural collaborations. Teachers can use these moments for a field trip and have students write daily/weekly reflections (in English and/or their home languages) and share them out loud later in a final project. These ideas could be the very first start to creating an agency for/with/by both queer and nonqueer students and to allowing teachers to drop the knowledge and learn with students collectively.
In essence, I suggest the three queer considerations above so that students and teachers can begin to think together about different ways of queering English language classrooms. The ideas are not exhaustive, but they could serve as the first steps to invite multiple ideas and possibilities and projects to disrupt the binary of teaching and thinking in our English language classroom spaces.
Miller, S. J. (2018). Embedding the Complexities of Gender Identity through a Pedagogy of Refusal: Learning the Body as Literacy alongside Our Students. TeachingWorks, University of Michigan School of Education. www.teachingworks.org/images/files/TeachingWorks_Miller.pdf
Pentón Herrera, L. J., and Trinh, E. T. (eds.). (2021). Critical Storytelling: Multilingual Immigrants in the United States. Brill/Sense. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004446182
Trinh, E. (2022). Building a community of critical love in English language teaching: Moving global conversations forward. http://www.ellsa.asia/ellsa-pd-day.html
Ethan Trinh (they/them) is teaching and pursuing a PhD at GSU with a minor in women’s studies. Ethan’s work focuses on the intersectionality of gender, race, and language that embraces queerness as a healing teaching and research practice. Ethan’s books are Critical Storytelling: Multilingual Immigrants in the United States, with Luis Javier Pentón Herrera (Brill/Sense, 2021) and Teacher Well-Being in English Language Teaching: An Ecological Approach, with Luis Javier Pentón Herrera and Gilda Martínez-Alba (Routledge, in press). Ethan’s scholarship can be found at www.researchgate.net/profile/Ethan-Trinh-3. Originally from Vietnam, Ethan enjoys creative writing and Vietnamese iced coffee in their free time.
I recently invited a professional to speak to my adult students who are learning English as a second language. They were very excited to have a guest come in and share his view of life and his profession, and to ask questions to gain knowledge and understanding. As I watched my students look, listen, and learn from the presenter, I observed them actively using their English skills. This article addresses how educators and students can reinforce a learning environment at home and at the same time build a bonding scenario between themselves and their new language—it’s very similar to the way teachers build a bonding effect with students.
Look There is a famous saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” which holds the key to the way many people learn visually. The things we observe enhance our learning process tremendously. Visual memory allows us to create images of objects, places, and events in time. This eventually enables us to remember letters, words, numbers, phrases, and even academic language. Observational learning comes naturally to most individuals. In other words, we watch and learn without even realizing that we are taking in these ideas.
Learning visually makes communications quicker and easier. Images are the simplest way to make sure that the learner has stored required information in their long-term memory. The presenter I mentioned in my introduction had a PowerPoint presentation displaying a few words and pictures as he spoke to the students. This simple tool allowed him to stay on task and helped the students understand some of the topics he would be covering.
Even when I am teaching a daily lesson, I find that placing information in outline form is very effective. Students can quickly see what they will be learning that day, which they find comforting. I also find that when information is shown in video format, it is processed more quickly and retained longer. Please remember to stop the video at select points and check for understanding.
These visual aids are the foundation for better comprehension. Comprehension lays the foundation for analysis, which is a higher thought process.
Memories are made of powerful images that often last a lifetime. Many studies show that students who make visual associations with vocabulary have better recall than those who just try to remember the words. Mind mapping is a visual diagram of mental organization and is a popular way for visual learners to memorize relations and connections to concepts. Visual sequential memory is important because it allows one to recall numbers or words in correct sequence. Individuals who use it often have excellent spelling skills and/or the ability to remember phone numbers or become excellent mathematicians.
Educators at all levels find students are more engaged when they are visually entertained. They enjoy showing what they have learned.
Listen Let’s differentiate between listening and hearing. The difference is a thought process. Listening is interpreting what one is hearing, whereas hearing is simply listening without interpretation.
Listening is so important in our daily lives; it helps us to understand what the other person is saying. Additionally, it helps us connect with other people while making an informed decision. My students realized how important listening was to understanding what was being said in the presentation.
Active versus passive listening—what is it? And why is it so important? Passive listening is when one simply listens without a great deal of thought. We often do this when we are listening to music or taking in a live performance. Active listening is far more engaged. When a learner is actively listening, several things are taking place. The listener is reacting to what they are hearing. One can see this through nonverbal cues such as the listener nodding their head or taking notes. The active listener will ask questions to clear misconceptions, summarize, or paraphrase to ensure an understanding of what they heard.
Question-and-answer sessions are an excellent way to develop this skill when studying with a small group (three to four people). Another technique to develop listening is to teach someone else. Saying concepts out loud helps us to hear the information so we can understand it. These two techniques are most often used in my classroom to help students feel comfortable with their new language.
This skill is important, as higher-level learning involves many lecture classes. When an individual can understand a concept by listening, they can process that information much more quickly.
Leadership The Greek philosopher Socrates once said, “No man can lead others who cannot lead himself.” Individuals who are natural leaders instinctively understand this concept, and they apply it to their learning.
First, the learner knows who they are. They develop a great reputation, follow through on their academics, follow their beliefs, and develop a filter that allows them to follow their best self. Next, these learners know what they want. They develop ideas that inspire them, break broad goals into manageable smaller steps, and finally, know why they have these goals. The learner truly understands their choices, sets realistic goals, and follows through on goals that are true to their values.
Students quickly see leadership in their peers and educators. These individuals can encourage us to do and be our best.
Learn When we combine looking, listening, and leadership, we become lifelong learners. Our brains, with their billions of neurons, enhance our thought processes.
Cognition is the ability to exercise mental action or the process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experiences, and the sense of feeling. We must remember a person’s age and experience does influence their thoughts. We all know that a two-year-old thinks differently than a 22-year-old.
A student’s brain analyzes what they are doing. This skill is necessary as the learner moves from entry-level recall to developing higher-level tasks such as analyzation. In planning their approach to a topic, they would be well-advised to develop specific goals as to how to divide and digest the information. Learners should be encouraged to monitor their own comprehension of the topic as they absorb the information. What is the best way for anyone to monitor this? Ask questions and clarify any confusing ideas. Finally, students should be encouraged to evaluate what they have learned and modify where they need additional support. These steps help learners see that they have used their time to recall, interpret, analyze, and apply information so that they really know when they have learned a concept.
Students’ use of knowledge has never been confined to the classroom. Students are using their learned skills to understand their world through a variety of experiences. Those experiences can fuel academic learning. Hopefully, you will see the learning through looking, listening, and leadership, as I have in my own students.
Bay Collyns is an adult ESL educator in Florida. She has been published in Kappan Magazine, Equestrians of Color, and Plaid Horse Magazine. She is a guest blogger for Orange Blossom Publishing and Black Girl Spoken. Her leisure time allows her to help children with disabilities improve the quality of their lives by riding horses, in addition to riding herself.
Research done in the last 40 years confirms the power of providing “a rich supply of storybooks,” otherwise known as fiction. Studies consistently show those who do more pleasure reading have higher competence in reading, vocabulary, writing, and spelling (Krashen, 2004), and we also know most of the voluntary reading people do is fiction (confirmed by best-seller lists and data on library withdrawals).
There is also evidence that reading fiction not only contributes to everyday language but also to academic literacy; books popular with young readers contain a considarable amount of academic vocabulary, and it appears in sufficient quantity that acquisition is likely (McQuillan, 2019, 2020).
More reading also leads to more knowledge of history, literature, and science, as well as practical matters (e.g., West, Stanovich, and Mitchell, 1993). In my opinion, if you want to learn more about how our legal system works, a good way to do it is to read novels by John Grisham. The obvious way to ensure access to “high-interest storybooks” as well as important nonfiction is through public and school libraries. Researchers today have confirmed many times that students attending schools with better libraries (larger collections and staffed with credentialed school librarians) do better on measures of reading and subject matter (Kachel, 2020). In one study, school library quality was the best predictor on a standardized US history test, which confirms the value of reading fiction for knowledge of history (Achterman, 2008). Research also tells us that quality local public libraries have a positive influence on school performance. For example, Lance and Marks (2008) reported that “the greater the amount of circulated materials and the greater the attendance at library programs, the more likely kids will do well in reading.”
For many readers, the only place they have access to books is the library. Unfortunately, in the last ten years the number of librarians in public libraries has declined by 20% (Lance and Kachel, 2021). This goes against Lance and Kachel (2018), who conclude that “in… statewide studies, the most substantial and consistent finding is a positive relationship between full-time, qualified school librarians and scores on standards-based language arts, reading, and writing tests, regardless of student demographics and school characteristics.”
The change I would like to see, the change we need to make: greater investment in school and public libraries and librarians.
Although Maryam Ghatee does not speak French and has no connection to French culture, she has sent her third-grade daughter, Mona, to a local French immersion school—the French American School of Rhode Island (FASRI)—since prekindergarten. Ghatee, 38, was born in Iran in 1983. She lived in the US from ages two to seven before her family moved back to Iran, where she graduated from Shiraz University. Ghatee consistently felt dissatisfied with friendships and a sense of nonbelonging throughout her schooling and moved back to the US after graduation. With pale skin, blue eyes, and a standardized American accent, Ghatee often passes as a White American. However, she has struggled her whole life to form meaningful relationships with monolingual and monocultural people, whether American, Iranian, or other. As an adult, she learned of the term third culture kid, or TCK, an individual who “spent a significant part of [their] developmental years outside the parents’ culture,” says author David Pollock. Now identifying as a TCK, she realizes that her closest friends share this same identity. Ghatee initially dismissed the idea of sending her only child to a French school because neither she nor her husband speaks French. When she visited FASRI, an eighth-grade student tour guide informed her that many students do not speak French at home and still succeed at the school. Ghatee also learned that many of the students’ parents or grandparents are US immigrants. FASRI’s community includes families “from every continent and over 130 countries,” according to their website. Ghatee and her husband are Iranian American, and both of their parents live in Iran. In choosing FASRI for her daughter, she hoped Mona would grow up feeling a sense of belonging among peers from similarly international families, an experience Ghatee lacked. “For her to see that most of the parents speak English with an accent makes a big difference. It makes it more normal,” Ghatee says.
Over the years, FASRI’s international community exceeded Ghatee’s expectations. In kindergarten, Mona’s teachers gathered the students at a school assembly where they chanted the numbers from one to ten in nine different languages. On another day, Mona came home from school and, inspired by a friend who attended Russian school, said, “I want to go to Farsi school.” This surprised Ghatee, whose Iranian friends had told her stories of their children’s disinterest and refusal to speak Farsi. “Being bilingual is almost the minority in this school,” she says.
Another FASRI parent, Stephanie O., similarly does not speak French and has no connection to French culture. She was raised in New Jersey by German-speaking parents who exposed her to business contacts and friends from around the world. Since moving to Rhode Island in 2002, she has noticed that she tends to meet and befriend people who also grew up outside of the state. FASRI seems to attract parents and families who don’t speak French and are immigrants from non-English-speaking countries, Stephanie says. This year, when looking for a preschool for her three-year-old son, Soren, she was impressed by the rigorous French curriculum and also felt welcomed by FASRI’s community, which mirrors her international upbringing. FASRI isn’t unique in offering a French education and an international community. The Rhode Island school is only one of 540 schools across 138 countries in the AEFE, the Agency for French Education Abroad, according to their website. The AEFE network currently educates 368,000 students in French while following the French public school curriculum. Juliette Lange was one of these students growing up. She attended French immersion schools in France and Sweden while raised by a British mother and a French/British/German father. Identifying as international above all else, Lange has worked at Lycée International de Los Angeles (LILA) since 2009 and has been the admissions director since 2014.
“It’s a French school, but ultimately, it’s an international school,” Lange says of LILA. French schools have internationally upheld a reputation as the best schools in countries with histories of French colonization or cultural presence. This is particularly true in the Middle East, Lange says. “If you’re Iranian, the best school in town, pre-revolution [1979], was the French school. It’s the same in Tunisia. It’s the same in Morocco. It’s the same in Lebanon.” In fact, Lebanon, a former colony, and Morocco, a former protectorate of France, lead all countries in the highest number of AEFE schools: 56 and 40 respectively. When families from these countries move to the US, they recognize FASRI and LILA as sister schools. The familiarity and academic reputation lead them to pick the French school, thus creating an international community above a French one, Lange says.
Despite the international community of French schools, race and racial diversity are uniquely tense topics in these French and American environments. When asked if LILA gathers data on students’ racial demographics, Lange says, “We have to. Of course, the French hate that. In France, the word race is banned in any government documentation.” France imposed this ban in 1978, after reckoning with their World War II collaboration with Germany that promoted Nazi racial theories, according to National Review. In contrast, in the US, “information on race is required for many federal programs and is critical in making policy decisions, particularly for civil rights,” according to the Census Bureau. French schools in the US exist at the intersection of these opposing cultures.
“At French school, there were no race dynamics,” says Sarkis “Sako” Tricha, a student at USC who attended French schools K–12. “There were only ethnic dynamics. If you’re African in France, that’s not a race. You’re from a place. The place is super vague, so you could call it a race, but it’s not thought of as a race the way Americans think of race.” “France likes to use this approach of being color blind,” says Gwen Aubrac, a student at McGill University who followed the French curriculum in France, Jamaica, and the US. “For example, in a lot of statistics or national information gathering, they’ll argue that they’re not looking at race or ethnicity because it shouldn’t make a difference.” However, ignoring race and ethnicity does not make them irrelevant. Abigail Chen and Sako Tricha know this from their experiences at Rochambeau French International School in Bethesda, Maryland.
Soon after Abigail Chen was born, her father attended INSEAD, an international business school in France, and found it to be the most multicultural place he’d ever been to. Her mother had been considering sending her to a French school after a colleague praised the French curriculum at an immersion school in Indiana. Inspired by global citizenship and a rigorous curriculum, Chen’s parents enrolled her and her sister in the French system in the hope that they’d learn Mandarin Chinese at home, English in the US, and French at school. Chen, a student at Wellesley College, attended French schools in Los Angeles and Palo Alto before attending Rochambeau from fourth to twelfth grade. Her class at Rochambeau was fairly racially diverse, Chen says. Her friend group consisted of students who were French, German, Ivorian, Malian, Burkinabé, and Moroccan. The largest ethnic or racial group was, “of course, the Frenchies from France,” followed by students of North African heritage, she says. However, Chen was one of only three Asian students in her high school and the only Asian student in her class of 66 people. With no traditional or historical connection to France or French culture, she felt culturally isolated. One day, the school picked students to be included in a photo-shoot, including Chen and her sister. While Chen ended up not being in the photos, her sister went to the auditorium and posed for photos with a White girl and a Black boy. Rochambeau used the photo on a promotional pamphlet to look more international, Chen says. On the other hand, attending French school was expected for Sako Tricha, who is half Moroccan and half Armenian. His uncles had attended Rochambeau after immigrating to the DC area from Morocco. Tricha went to Rochambeau from preschool to twelfth grade, with the exceptions of one year at a French immersion school in the Netherlands and freshman year at the American public school Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda.
“I thought I was gonna do high school in English, and then I went there and hated it,” Tricha says of his freshman year. Differences between the French and American curriculums made transferring academically complicated. He felt unchallenged in his Spanish class, but he was placed in the lowest level math class, even though he was good at math at Rochambeau.
He experienced culture shock as well. “They would call me ‘the foreign kid’ and ‘Aladdin.’ I had felt very American at a French school, so not being American was frustrating. When people aren’t from many places, they don’t understand you as well.” In the Francophone world, Moroccan people are recognized as part of “a known minority,” albeit one that is seen as “immigrant and racially inferior,” he says. At Walt Whitman, he wasn’t recognized as American or Moroccan.
Racial demographics between the two schools, located a ten-minute drive from each other, were starkly different. “It was 3% Black,” Tricha says of Walt Whitman, “which coming from Rochambeau was painful.” He believes Rochambeau was very diverse and, though he doesn’t know the exact number, had a significantly higher percentage of Black students. “Twenty-five percent of our students are monolingual, monocultural Americans,” Juliette Lange explains of LILA. “Only 7% of Americans are African Americans [in LA], and often they’re not the people who are attracted to a French school. The Americans who are attracted to French schools see French as a status language.
They love French culture, they go there every year, and they love the food. They’re often straight-up White. But, of course, we attract the Francophone Africans.” Only 3.6% of Walt Whitman and 1.1% of Rochambeau students were African American in 2014, Tricha’s freshman year of high school. The difference between being African and African American might explain the disparity between Tricha’s impression and the NCES data. Students of international heritage seem to disappear in these statistics, perhaps hidden under “White” or the vague category “two or more races.” While North African and Middle Eastern people are labeled as “White,” Maryam Ghatee and Sako Tricha do not identify or, in Tricha’s case, look this way. While one in four Rochambeau students identify as “two or more races,” only one in 20 Walt Whitman students and one in 30 Bethesda residents identify as such. This data hints at but does not explicitly reveal the French school’s international community.
French schools are not without racism and prejudice. “The French are horribly racist against any Algerians or North Africans,” Juliette Lange says. Tricha’s uncles told him stories where teachers would say “You’re an Arab. You’re not going anywhere” or “You’re lazy because you’re Arab.” He recalls African friends being “treated like they didn’t exist” and teachers forgetting or confusing their names. During the summer of 2020, the US witnessed an intensifying reckoning with racial injustice and inequity following George Floyd’s death. This reckoning affected French schools as well. On June 30, 2020, students at Rochambeau created an Instagram page, Being Black at Rochambeau. Black students could anonymously submit racist experiences they had encountered through a Google Form, which were then posted on the social media page. In under two months, there were 80 posts telling 80 stories of racist encounters. One student, while playing volleyball, was told, “Take a 30-hour flight and go back to where you belong.” Another student who broke the school’s high jump record in eighth grade was told “it was easier for [them] because they were black and that’s the only thing they could be good at.”
Across the country at LILA, starting about five years ago, Juliette Lange noticed new questions from prospective parents. Parents began openly asking about topics such as, “What are you doing to make sure that your literature is not too White-centric?” About a year later, more and more Black parents were confronting the school, no longer putting up with microaggressions their children faced. “In good French reaction, we said, ‘Oh, don’t be silly. They’re only kids,’” she says. Several racially charged incidents— including one where fourth graders said the n-word in a playground discussion of swear words—pushed the school’s administrative staff to reconsider taking action. Again, Lange says the staff initially felt defensive, thinking, “We’re not racist. Why do we have to do any of this?”
Eventually, the staff read White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, which was key in starting conversations and helping them understand the American perspective. Soon after, George Floyd’s death catalyzed the school to take action, and Lange was appointed director of diversity. In this position, Lange prioritized supporting the community of parents and families. “The idea is that as a community, we should be talking through these issues and seeing what we can do to make society a better place,” she says. She formed the parent alliance Parents for an Inclusive LILA, which created affinity groups around sexuality, race, and ethnicity; a book club with monthly meetings on topics related to racism and critical race theory; and the Bookshelf, which produces a monthly list of suggested books promoting diversity. LILA also brings in experts who speak on topics ranging from unconscious bias to Asian history and organizes a series of talks called Dialogues on Diversity, including a panel featuring French and American people discussing their different perspectives.
“A quarter of all staff meetings are now dedicated to teacher training,” Lange adds. “It’s been very hard.” Rosetta Lee, a diversity speaker and trainer, leads these trainings. However, Lee speaks in English, which is not the first language for the majority of the teachers. “It’s a very sensitive issue,” Lange says of the linguistic and cultural difference.
Juliette Lange, self-identified “British, middle-aged, and White,” looks forward to someone else taking over the position, but for now, she says, “The fear of doing it all wrong shouldn’t stop you from doing your best.”
French immersion schools in the US are beginning to rethink the way they approach race and culture, but at FASRI, Maryam Ghatee doesn’t mind that the majority of students are White. While she doesn’t know the exact data, she says that over 60% of Mona’s third-grade class this year is of European heritage. “The Whiteness comes second to the international diversity,” Ghatee says. “The fact that this kid is from Germany and that one is from Poland is stronger to me than this kid is White, and this kid is White, and this kid is White.”
Ingrid Ren is from the Bay Area but wants to move to Philly. Her writing has been published by Columbia College Chicago, post–magazine, and For Women Who Roar.
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