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Sep. 23 is International Day of Sign Languages

September 23 is the United Nations’ International Day of Sign Languages and this year’s theme is “We Sign for Human Rights.” The result of a 2017 initiative by the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD), the International Day of Sign Languages is observed on September 23 because it was on that day in 1951 that the WFD was established.

The United Nations (UN) states that the purpose of the International Day of Sign Languages is “to raise awareness of the importance of sign language in the full realization of the human rights of people who are deaf.” The organization believes that early access to sign language and services in sign language “is vital to the growth and development of the deaf individual and critical to the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals.”

In commemoration of the International Day of Sign Languages, the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) and the WFD have organized a webinar scheduled to take place on September 23 at 8:00 a.m. EST. The webinar will feature high-level experts from the UNOG, WFD, and State-Parties with a view to raising awareness of the importance of sign languages. State-Parties will receive guidance as to how they can ensure that sign languages are made available to everyone.

Panelists include:

Dr. Joseph J Murray – WFD President
Ms. Shirley Liu – President of the WFD Youth Section
Mr. Robert Nkwangu – Project manager of a WFD project – Uganda
Dr. Amalia Gamios – Vice Chair of the CRPD Committee
Ambassador Keva Bain of the Bahamas, Chair of the Human Rights Council Task Force on Accessibility for Persons with Disabilities
Ms. Kira Kruglikova, Director of the Division of Conference Management at UNOG and UNOG Focal Point for Disability Inclusion

Also on September 23, the WFD and the Italian Deaf Association will co-host a webinar in celebration of the WFD’s 70th anniversary. The webinar, which will be broadcast from Rome, Italy, will take place at 10:30 a.m. EST and will feature the unveiling of a statue of Mr. Vittorio Ieralla, the first president of the WFD. Both Dr. Joseph Murray, the current president of the WFD, and Mr. Florian Rojba, a WFD board member, will be present for the festivities.

For more information on the International Day of Sign Languages, visit https://www.un.org/en/observances/sign-languages-day.

Questioning the Test

University admissions officers and faculty strive to recruit and admit students who, either at the time of admittance or after additional English language preparation, possess a level of English language ability that will enable active participation in academic and social settings, from the lecture hall to group projects, social interactions, and office hours with faculty.

English proficiency tests are one of the elements that university admissions staff consider as part of the application process for international students. English tests provide an objective indicator to help the institution decide whether the applicant’s proficiency in English meets the minimum standard for success—either for direct admission to a degree-granting program or to determine the need for additional English language instruction prior to admission.

Colleges and universities set their own English proficiency requirements for international students to perform successfully at undergraduate or graduate studies and decide which exams they accept to certify English proficiency. English language requirements for postsecondary studies, generally between intermediate and advanced levels (or B1 to C1 levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages [CEFR]), are usually listed on the admissions webpage for international students. Colleges and universities list the exams that they accept and the minimum scores that meet their requirements for each exam. As a general standard, most universities accept test scores that were administered up to two years before the application for admission. Test scores often need to be sent directly and securely by the examination board to the university.

The following are important questions that admissions teams ask when evaluating whether they will recognize and accept a new English proficiency exam:

• What language skills does the exam evaluate? While some exams evaluate only one or two skills, exams used for university admission purposes often need to assess all four language skills— listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

• Is the exam valid? A valid exam is one whose results reflect the actual knowledge and skills that need to be measured for a particular setting and purpose. Valid tests include content and tasks that are as close to the target language situation as possible.

• Is the exam reliable? Reliable tests are those that produce consistent results over time, such as when different forms of the same test or different raters are involved. If students take two equivalent forms of the same test within a short period of time, the results from both tests are expected to reflect a similar range of scores.

• Is the test fair? All test takers should have equal opportunities and access to the test to certify their proficiency in English.

• How do test results compare to levels or standards of English proficiency? Standard-setting studies are often conducted with a panel of experts to objectively determine the level of performance of test takers in relation to standards of English proficiency, such as the CEFR.

• Are guidelines provided to interpret and use test scores and to set minimum scores for each institution? Examination boards have the responsibility of providing information and guidance to help higher education institutions understand how to use the scores of their test.

• Are the exams administered under secure conditions? Secure administrations eliminate the potential for cheating. Enhancing test security is even more important for exams administered remotely.

• Can higher education institutions receive the results directly and securely? Test takers indicate which institutions they want to share their results with, and the examination board can send the results directly and securely to those institutions. Another option is for institutions to verify scores that the test taker has submitted.

Michigan Language Assessment, a not-for-profit collaboration between Cambridge English Assessment and the University of Michigan, has developed the Michigan English Test (MET), a secure, valid, and reliable exam that will be available digitally this fall with a new platform that makes sharing results with accepting organizations easier than ever. MET is a secure, multilevel exam aligned with A2 to C1 levels on the CEFR and accepted for admissions evaluation and professional licensing verification.

MET Digital will be available any day of the year and almost anywhere in the world. Thanks to Michigan Language Assessment’s partnership with Prometric, a leading provider of technology-enabled testing and assessment solutions, MET Digital also features enhanced test security with human and AI proctoring.

Fernando Fleurquin is Michigan Language Assessment’s director of marketing, communications, and stakeholder relations. He has presented at conferences in over 20 countries on English teaching, teacher development, language testing, standards, leadership, strategic planning, program evaluation, and marketing. Fernando has a master’s degree in marketing and business management and is currently a doctoral (EdD) candidate in higher education. He is also a medical doctor. For information about MET Digital or other Michigan tests, visit www.michiganassessment.org.

Assessing Change

Our ability to adapt to new situations is key to success. However, change often happens too slowly for us to recognize it, so it takes a sudden, dramatic shift in circumstances to spur a reaction. Despite worldwide efforts to modernize schools, public education systems have been notoriously resistant to change. Of course, it requires more effort to adapt large organizations, but there is another major factor that keeps school systems from evolving—nostalgia for our own childhood experiences and the misplaced notion that education systems can be measured by the success of their students in high-stakes testing.

Assessment is essential to good teaching. Teachers need to be able to see where students are in the learning process, how effective their teaching has been, and where they should be focusing additional instruction. Likewise, students need to be able to see what learning strategies or styles work for them and where they need to concentrate more time and effort. However, a one-size-fits-all approach to testing is not appropriate for the diverse student populations that now inhabit our schools.
School exams and assessments are only now starting to change after decades in which they remained the same despite massive demographic shifts in the makeup of our societies, fundamental developments in communications, and striking swings in priorities.
The pandemic and resulting school closures acted as a catalyst for change across the education sector, much of which looks likely to continue once COVID ceases to be an existential threat. In the UK, where centuries of reliance on standardized testing have been the norm, university entrance exams have been replaced by teacher assessment for the second year in a row. In the U.S., more than two-thirds of the 2,330 bachelor-degree institutions will not require students to submit ACT/SAT scores to be considered for fall 2022 enrollment (see p. 10).

The crisis has helped to focus attention on the long-existing inadequacies in our approaches to assessment and in particular our oversimplification of the process in the pursuit of increasing “accuracy” without gauging its impact on student learning.
A relatively new 21st-century skill—learning to learn—is now having an impact on teachers’ approaches to assessment, and experts are calling for more time to be available in teacher education courses for teachers to develop their own theoretical understanding and practice of assessment.

Opportunity gaps have not been closing despite studies showing that results from high-stakes tests were not a reliable indicator of eventual college success. Just as we’ve learned how important it is to adapt teaching to different learning styles, we can now start to adapt our methods of assessment to suit the diversity of skills and approaches that our students have to offer, while reexamining the very purpose of testing to ensure that it benefits students without judging them by some long-outdated standards.

Family Advice

According to the U.S. Department of Education’s recent report Education in a Pandemic: The Disparate Impacts of COVID-19 on America’s Students: “For many elementary and secondary school students with disabilities, COVID-19 significantly disrupted the education and related aids and services needed to support their academic progress and prevent regression— and may have exacerbated longstanding disparities in their academic achievement.”1

Many students with communication disorders were particularly affected by changes like virtual and hybrid learning that were implemented during the 2020–2021 school year due to the pandemic. As some of these children return to in-person instruction for the first time in more than a year, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) recommends the following ways for families to help them prepare for a successful in-person school year and support recovery of communication, social, and learning skills:

• Attend school open house/meet-and greet events. Try to attend if your schedule allows. If you cannot attend, ask if there is an opportunity to meet the teacher virtually or visit the building at another time. You may be able to visit the speech–language pathologist (SLP) as well. This can help children with communication disorders reduce uncertainty about the classroom and school environment—and give families specifics that they can talk about in advance with their child (e.g., where they will be sitting and with whom, where to go if they are overstimulated or want alone time, who is in the class, etc.).

• Practice social skills. Everyday interactions such as talking with friends, playing at recess, and eating lunch in the cafeteria may be difficult for children with language and/or social communication disorders, particularly those who had little interaction with same-aged peers during the past year. All of this can play a role in academics as well as social success. Families can help children by playing school at home and practicing these specific scenarios. They may also want to arrange playdates with classmates and visit parks, pools, and other places where kids are, as family comfort level allows.

• Prepare for social/behavioral expectations in the classroom. Children may need to be reminded of basic classroom behaviors like staying in their seat, raising their hand when they want to say something, or asking for permission to go to the bathroom. Pandemic-related expectations such as social distancing, wearing masks, and staying with a particular group of children at lunch or recess may also be required. Talk about these changes in advance and practice behaviors that may be difficult. Families of children with communication disorders may want to create social stories—structured, personalized stories that explain social situations to children. These stories can help children with language and social disorders troubleshoot challenging situations.

• Prime children for learning. At least one week prior to the first day, formalize habits to put your child in a good place to start the year. These include nightly reading before bed, gradually reducing their screen time, and practicing going to bed early and waking up on time. Children with speech and language disorders generally thrive on such routines. A visual chart of these routines and maintaining a consistent schedule may help as well.

• Role-play potentially stressful scenarios. There may be specific situations that concern your child about going back to school. For example, a child who stutters may be worried about introducing themselves on the first day of class or reading out loud. By talking about these situations and practicing, you can help reduce stress, decrease negative reactions and emotions, and build confidence about new social interactions.

• Keep communication open with your child’s teacher, their SLP, and other school staff. If you have specific concerns about the return to school and/or any particular skills and learning regression, let the school know in advance so that staff can do everything they can to help your child succeed. You can do this informally (e.g., email the teacher) as well as formally (e.g., at meetings to discuss individualized education programs [IEPs] or 504 plans).

• Prepare for possible changes in IEP services or 504 plans. For students who have existing IEPs or 504 plans, there may still be changes in how speech–language and other services are delivered due to the pandemic. This may vary by school district and even by school. Talk to your child’s IEP coordinator and/or case manager about what services will look like so you all can know what to expect.

• Educate yourself about your child’s services. Know that families still have the rights they always had when it comes to special education services. When you meet with your child’s educational team, discuss how they are evaluating them for any regression of skills and how the school will address this. Your child’s SLP and other providers want what’s best for them. Through a collaborative relationship, your child can meet their highest potential.

• Stay positive about where your child is right now. Despite the challenging circumstances of the past school year, not all was lost. Children are resilient and can recover. Stay upbeat and help get your child excited when shopping for school supplies or a new backpack, picking out the first-day-of-school outfit, and talking about teacher assignments and other details. Their excitement about the new year can impact both their learning and their social success.

For more information on speech and language services in schools, visit www.asha.org/public/speech/development/speech-and-language-services-in-schools.

Links
1. www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/20210608-impacts-of-covid19.pdf

Reading Programs

Although initial test data show that in fall of 2020, students in grades 3–8 performed similarly in reading to same-grade students in fall 2019, the public health, education, and economic damages inflicted by COVID-19 are likely to exacerbate long-standing inequities disproportionately affecting Black, Latinx, and Native American students, as well as English learners and students with disabilities, according to NWEA (www.nwea.org/content/uploads/2020/11/Collaborative-brief-Learning-during-COVID-19.NOV2020.pdf).

“Preliminary fall data suggests that, on average, students are faring better than we had feared,” says Beth Tarasawa, head of research at NWEA. “While there’s some good news here, we want to stress that not all students are represented in the data, especially from our most marginalized communities.”

World of Reading—Readers in 37 Different Languages
World of Reading offers exciting readers in 37 different languages—bilingual, multilingual, and monolingual. They have board books, paperback books, hardback books, and digital books. They have graded readers in levels for elementary school through college, picture books, novels, and nonfiction from publishers worldwide, all at competitive prices, with discounts for class sets.
There are big books for preschool and bestselling adult fiction. They have both translations of classic readers and authentic readers in their original languages. Looking for a specific title or author? World of Reading loves special requests.
Languages include Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Bengali, Brazilian Portuguese, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, English (ESOL), Farsi, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Kurdish, Latin, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Somali, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, and Vietnamese. Monolingualism can be cured!
www.wor.com


Lectura Books
Lectura Books offers award-winning bilingual and bicultural books (print and digital) in Spanish and English. They specialize in publishing for parent engagement for cultural competency and language development with English and Spanish learners and provide training and curriculum for educators.     Lectura Books partners with the Latino Family Literacy Project, an award-winning, research-based parent and family engagement program for English learners. The age-specific programs help parents to learn strategies for reading aloud, reading comprehension, vocabulary development, and ESL skills using culturally relevant books and educational materials. Their new and improved curriculum now supports dual language development in Spanish and English.
For more information about their award-winning supplemental curriculum materials and staff development workshops, please visit www.LecturaBooks.com.


Okapi
Since 2010, Okapi Educational Publishing has met diverse student needs through flexible, best-practice instructional resources for grades K–5, currently in use nationwide in a range of programs and a variety of instructional settings. Okapi continues to support educators and students learning at distance with their stellar lineup of literacy programs now available digitally on Okapi Digital Literacy™ (ODL). ODL includes books and supportive instructional material from all levels of their four flagship programs: Flying Start to Literacy™, Despegando hacia la lectura™, WorldWise: Content-Based Learning™, and ExploraMundos™. Users can build foundations necessary to launch students successfully on their path to literacy with more than 1,100 titles for small-group instruction and content-based learning. ODL provides easy-to-access digital books, downloadable lesson plan cards, and vocabulary starters in English and Spanish, with each English-language title matched by its Spanish counterpart. Regardless of the instructional approach a teacher has adopted, their emerging bilinguals will be assured of exciting and equitable resources in both languages.
myokapi.com

GO! ELL Tween Literacy Library
Saddleback Publishing’s GO! ELL Tween Literacy Library is a unique collection of fiction and nonfiction books aimed at upper elementary and middle school English language learners, including newcomers. Many of these learners struggle with reading and a limited English vocabulary. This makes it difficult to do well in content-area classes, where textbooks are often written above grade level. For this reason, the GO! ELL Tween Literacy Library focuses on social studies, math, and science topics in books written at accessible levels. Each engaging fiction and nonfiction book features age-respectful storylines and full-color photographs on every page to support beginning readers at the secondary level.

Organized in five content-based genres, this collection includes 20 unique titles. Each genre includes three fiction books and one nonfiction book. Special emphasis is placed on vocabulary, with five key vocabulary words highlighted in each book.
There is extensive teaching support for every book, including progress monitoring in the form of summative assessments and program checklists.
www.sdlback.com/go-ell-tween-literacy-library

Crabtree Publishing
Crabtree is a trusted leader in pre-K–9+ curriculum nonfiction and fiction books. With the goal of inspiring children with a life-long interest in reading and learning, Crabtree and acclaimed author Bobbie Kalman have been bringing beautifully illustrated books to schools and libraries for over 40 years.
Introducing Two NEW Early Reading Imprints
Crabtree Roots Collection
Reading level: Pre-K–1
Series: Farm Animal Friends (six titles) | Seasons in a Year (four titles) | My Favorite Color (six titles)
Developed by early learning consultants, books in Crabtree Roots feature simple text with pictures to aid in comprehension and help children learn to read with confidence. Available in English, Spanish, French, and Haitian Creole.
Crabtree Seedlings Collection
Reading level: K–2
Series: My First Science Books (eleven titles), My First Science Words (five titles), In My Community (ten titles), I Read-n-Rhyme (eleven titles), Little Stars (18 titles), Early Learning Concepts (eight titles)
The next level up from Crabtree Roots, books in Crabtree Seedlings engage early readers with a “read-to-learn” approach and build reading and early vocabulary skills required for higher-grade success. Available in English, Spanish, and French.
Roots and Seedlings books are available in print and e-book formats—including read-alongs. Supplemental teaching guides are included.
www.crabtreebooks.com/products/imprints

Curriculum Associates
Magnetic Reading to Help Build Students’ Reading Confidence
Curriculum Associates’ new reading comprehension program, Magnetic Reading, is designed to help students master critical reading skills. This blended, research-based program for grades 3–5 helps teachers facilitate classroom discourse and engage all students with grade-level content.
Magnetic Reading works seamlessly with i-Ready® Assessment to help students become confident readers. Using the data from the assessment as well as Magnetic Reading’s grade-level scaffolding report, teachers are able to craft a success plan for each student, student group, or strategic pairing.
Curriculum Associates partnered with the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education to ensure that each unit of Magnetic Reading comprises texts that effectively build knowledge in critical areas. The Magnetic Reading content was created using “culturally responsive teaching protocols,” developed by Dr. Sharroky Hollie of the Center for Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning.
Magnetic Reading features three types of scaffolds: resources for preteaching, embedded supports for students, and formative assessment opportunities. It also includes strategic supports for English learners.
www.curriculumassociates.com/magnetic-reading

Bellwether Media
Bellwether Media wants to create a lifelong love of reading in beginning readers and, for those who have lost confidence in their reading ability, provide opportunities for them to once again love the feeling of picking up a book. Their imprints feature high-interest subjects, accessible text, and special features to spark curiosity and help children learn about their world.

At-Level Imprints

Blastoff! Beginners uses simple language and high-frequency words paired with crisp, colorful photos to encourage young children to become independent readers.

Blastoff! Readers is a carefully leveled imprint designed to guide early readers through each stage of their journey toward fluency. Each of the increasingly challenging levels is uniquely designed to build new literacy skills and reading confidence for emergent readers.

Blastoff! Discovery takes the reading momentum and consistency of Blastoff! Readers and launches a new mission: reading to learn. Each book ignites curiosity and offers the fluent reader an exciting universe to explore, using the skills acquired from Blastoff! Readers.

Hi/Lo Imprints

Torque thrusts students into the action-packed world of sports, vehicles, mysteries, and adventure. Extreme high-interest subjects are paired with low reading levels to motivate and excite striving readers.

Epic pairs ultra-high-interest content with ultra-low reading levels to inspire students reading well behind their peers. The books grab the attention of struggling and reluctant readers, creating confidence and bringing them back to the world of reading.
Through all of these imprints—those for emergent, fluent, striving, and reluctant readers—Bellwether creates premium nonfiction that sparks curiosity, ignites imagination, and instills in all students the desire to learn about their world.
www.bellwethermedia.com and www.bellwetherlearning.com

Pearson English Graded Readers
Share the love of reading with adult and young adult learners. Pearson English Graded Readers e-book libraries offer collections of graded readers by level in digital format. What makes Pearson English Graded Readers e-books special: online and offline access, embedded audio, front-of-classroom presentation tools, annotation tools, comprehension activities, and a rich variety of genres, including classics, nonfiction, contemporary fiction, plays, and short stories, all graded across ability levels according to strict language guidelines. With seven levels of Pearson English Readers and five levels of Pearson English Active Readers, teachers can enrich their students’ knowledge, improve their reading skills, and spark their love of reading. The Pearson English Graded Readers are perfect for programs that want to supplement standard English course materials and build their students’ English competence.
pearsoneltusa.com/readers
www.longmanhomeusa.com/reader-libraries

Reading Horizons
The Easy and Engaging Way to Align Reading Instruction with Reading Science
Reading Horizons is a simple, systematic, and sequential approach to teaching reading using a blended model of direct instruction materials and online software to support the learning process. The Reading Horizons curriculum is aligned with the principles of reading science and structured around Orton-Gillingham multisensory phonetic cues. This method equips beginning readers, struggling readers, and English language learners with the skills they need to read, spell, and pronounce words with proficiency.

They Support Users, Every Step of the Way
Included with every implementation, Reading Horizons Accelerate® helps teachers fully implement the curriculum with on-demand resources for training, lesson planning, and technical support. They also offer customized implementation support, training, and continued professional development through their customer success, implementation, and certified coaching programs.
Visit ReadingHorizons.com for a personalized demo today.
“You have made the implementation process extremely smooth and customer-friendly. I have been working with SEVERAL curriculum companies implementing new curriculum for the coming year, and Reading Horizons has hands-down been the most user-friendly and supportive. You are laying out each step clearly and comprehensively. It makes my job so much easier and makes me see the success that we will have with this program because I know that with all of your support, time, effort, and training, there is no way we can fail!” Carrie Mugridge, reading director, West Franklin USD 287 KS
www.readinghorizons.com

Scholastic
Make Every Read-Aloud Experience Intentional and Instructional 
Award-winning children’s writer and acclaimed author Dr. Lester L. Laminack provides guidelines, lessons, and resources to engage students in deep thinking about fiction and nonfiction books. Central to Laminack’s message is his breakthrough thinking about the value and importance of “best friend books”—a small, carefully curated collection that teachers turn to repeatedly for specific teaching purposes. Laminack underscores the profound instructional value of literature in the classroom and helps students discover the magic of literacy and language. 
Each grade-level kit includes fiction and nonfiction best friend books, a teacher’s guide for each text, teaching cards, a copy of Laminack’s professional book The Ultimate Read-Aloud Resource (second edition), and online access to resources for teachers, students, and families.  
https://shop.scholastic.com/teachers-ecommerce/teacher/shops/lester-l-laminack.html

myON
Research shows two key factors can help boost student reading: motivation and access to books. With myON, students get both. Students can choose from personalized reading recommendations, dynamically matched based on their grade, interests, and reading level, or browse the vast library of thousands of engaging digital books and age-appropriate news articles in English, Spanish, and additional languages.
myON aims to engage students in frequent, high-quality reading practice with robust scaffolds, close-reading tools, professionally recorded audio, and a built-in dictionary that helps students build reading and writing skills.
myON’s comprehensive approach to personalized literacy includes all the tools educators need to guide and enrich their students’ reading, along with customizable assignments and reports to help nurture and monitor progress, then celebrate students’ achievements.
www.renaissance.com/products/myon

Learning Without Tears
The research is clear – handwriting can influence students reading, writing, language use, and critical thinking. Without explicit instruction, students are missing a vital literacy building block.
Build the foundation for literacy with NEW hands-on learning packs from the award-winning Handwriting Without Tears curriculum. We use fun, engaging, and developmentally appropriate instructional methods to enable children to master handwriting as an automatic and comfortable skill.
Get a bundle of our favorite writing materials for use in and out of the classroom. Each kit, available for students Kindergarten through 2nd grade, comes individually packaged with instructions and a wide range of multisensory materials needed to boost literacy skills, including our beloved Wood Pieces for Capital Letters and a slate chalkboard, little sponge cubes, and little chalk bits for Wet-Dry-Try! Our equitable handwriting program offers materials available in both English and Spanish, with support for English language learners.
A strong handwriting foundation creates literacy success!
https://go.lwtears.com/reading-showcase

Two-Thirds of States Receive Relief Fund Balance

At the end of August, the U.S. Department of Education approved Minnesota’s American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ARP ESSER) plan and distributed the remaining ARP ESSER funds to them. Minnesota’s was the 33rd such plan to be approved, and like the others, it details how the state is using and plans to use ARP ESSER funds to safely reopen and sustain the safe operation of schools and equitably expand opportunity for students who need it most, particularly those most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, including multilingual learners.

Earlier this year, the department distributed two-thirds of the ARP ESSER funds, totaling $81 billion, to 50 states and the District of Columbia. The remaining third of the funding to states will be made available once state plans are approved. Minnesota is receiving $1.3 billion total in ARP ESSER funds, and this approval of their plan will result in the release of the final $441 million. Last week, the department approved plans for Alaska, Connecticut, Illinois, and Louisiana. Minnesota’s approval means a total of 33 ARP ESSER state plans have been approved since June. The department has approved plans supporting more than 50% of students nationwide.

“I am excited to announce approval for Minnesota’s plan,” said U.S. secretary of education Miguel Cardona. “It is heartening to see, reflected in these state plans, the ways in which states are thinking deeply about how to use American Rescue Plan funds to continue to provide critical support to schools and communities, particularly as we look ahead to the upcoming academic year. The approval of these plans enables states to receive vital additional American Rescue Plan funds to quickly and safely reopen schools for full-time, in-person learning; meet students’ academic, social, emotional, and mental health needs; and address disparities in access to educational opportunity that were exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. The state plans that have been submitted to the department lay the groundwork for the ways in which an unprecedented infusion of federal resources will be used to address the urgent needs of America’s children and build back better.” 

“As students head back to school in person this fall, we must have the protocols and resources in place to support safe learning,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar. “The distribution of this funding will help that effort by providing key services to address learning loss and protect the health and safety of students and educators as we continue fighting this pandemic.”

The Minnesota Department of Education will award ARP ESSER funds to districts and charters to address the academic impact of lost instructional time. Districts and charters will be required to select and implement evidence-based practices focused on the needs of historically underserved students, including those who have missed the most in-person instruction and who did not consistently participate in remote instruction. Funds will be made available for summer learning and enrichment programs to community organizations, with an emphasis on community-based organizations that have experience working with student populations that were disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, including students from low-income families; Hispanic or Latino, American Indian, Asian, and Black students; English learners; students with disabilities; migratory students; students in foster care; and neglected, delinquent, and incarcerated students.

A total of 46 states and the District of Columbia have submitted their ARP ESSER state plans. The department also is in contact with states that have not yet submitted plans, the vast majority of which delays are due to state board of education or legislative review requirements.

South African and European Universities Form Consortium to Boost Use of Indigenous Languages

South Africa’s university system notoriously lacks instructional programs offered in the nation’s Indigenous languages, like isiXhosa and Sesotho. Currently, English and Afrikaans are the only languages widely used in university-level coursework, however even Afrikaans’ future is not entirely certain (see Language Magazine’s coverage of UNISA’s ban on the language in instruction from earlier this summer).

A new, transcontinental initiative at seven universities is attempting to boost the status of South African indigenous languages. The universities (four in South Africa and three in Europe) joined together to form a consortium, officially called “Boosting the use of African languages in education: A Qualified Organized National Development strategy for South Africa” (BAQONDE, which serves as both an acronym and a nod to the Nguni-language word “baqonde,” meaning “let them understand”).

“The BAQONDE project is leading us towards the restoration of dignity and parity of esteem for our indigenous languages, and that is commendable indeed. This is very encouraging and is the kind of enthusiastic response we hope can be emulated by other institutions,” said Mahlubi Mabizela, the chief director of university policy and development support at Rhodes University, one of the schools in the consortium.

The universities that have spearheaded BAQONDE’s development will offer training sessions for lecturers and students to gain a better understanding of the challenges and strategies involved in multilingual pedagogy. The ultimate goal of the project is to ensure that participating universities have the resources, training and outreach necessary to offer a robust curriculum in the country’s indigenous languages in coming years. The three European universities involved in the project have guided the South African universities in developing a plan to ensure that they are able to develop a strategy for implementing indigenous South African languages as an instructional medium.

The majority of South Africans do not speak English as their primary language, in spite of the fact that most of the country’s higher education is conducted in the language. The country is home to nearly forty indigenous languages, nine of which hold official status alongside English and Afrikaans. In recent years, the South African government has made an effort to improve the status of the nation’s indigenous languages, with the passage of the “Language Policy Framework for Public Higher Education Institutions in South Africa” in 2020 requiring that universities develop instructional frameworks for the nation’s indigenous languages by January 2022.

“The BAQONDE project with its aim to facilitate and promote the use of indigenous African languages as mediums of instruction at higher education institutions in South Africa advances the objectives of the Language Policy Framework for Public Higher Education Institutions,” Mabizela added.

Helsinki Mayor Floats Idea of English-Language City

Finland has two official languages: Finnish and Swedish. The government also recognizes an additional handful of regional languages like Sámi or Karelian, as well as local signed languages—of all the languages with some sort of legal status in Finland, none of them are English.

Despite this, the mayor of Helsinki—the nation’s capital and largest city—recently floated the idea of declaring the city an English-language city, according to a recent report in The Guardian. Mayor Juhana Vartiainen believes that the Finnish language is a sort of deterrent for potential immigrants to the nation, and that the city could better attract skilled foreigners looking for work by embracing the English language.

“Helsinki could call itself an English-speaking city, where people who speak English wouldn’t need to speak Finnish or Swedish,” Vartiainen said, speaking about the matter with the city’s daily newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat.

The mayor noted that Finnish can be a fairly difficult language for foreigners to learn, and that it might be too much of a daunting task for foreigner. On the other hand, English is a widely spoken and taught language which could attract people to immigrate to the city. In particular, the mayor wants to attract young, skilled workers who can contribute to the nation’s economy.

Finland, home to an aging population, has made many efforts to attract such immigrants, but these attempts have largely been unsuccessful. The Guardian notes that more than a third of international students who attend university in Finland leave the country within a year, despite measures to better facilitate relocation for foreign graduates.

Still, it’s unclear whether or not the language is actually a contributing factor to the nation’s struggle to attract skilled young immigrants. Finnish is widely acknowledged as being a fairly difficult language to learn, in large part due to its complex grammatical case system. Unlike neighboring European languages, Finnish is a member of the Uralic family, and is typologically quite distant from the Indo-European language family.

Emphasizing the Needs of Hispanic Students

The Florida Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents (FL-ALAS) helps to transform educational institutions across the state of Florida by seeking to ensure that the educational needs of all students are met, with an emphasis on Hispanic/Latino youth. FL-ALAS also supports the Florida State Statue 1003.42 (p), which mandates curricular inclusion of “the study of Hispanic contributions to the United States.” The statute helps to ensure Latino history and culture are infused within the curriculum and instruction for all subject areas in grades K–12. It also helps to transform classrooms into culturally responsive learning environments, where all students benefit from being enriched and exposed to diverse Hispanic/Latino experiences. It gives students a better understanding of the culture, customs, and traditions.

The representation of Hispanic/Latino history and culture within the curriculum and instruction also helps Hispanic/Latino students to build a healthy self-awareness, take pride in their heritage, and feel a sense of belonging. Annually, FL-ALAS supports the Hispanic/Latino Studies Institute, which helps to increase cultural competence and assists in the development of culturally responsive classrooms. Visit and learn more at https://palmbeachschools.org/9HispanicLatino.

FL-ALAS also advocates for an increase in diversity among educators, so that students of color are reflected in the teachers and administrators who serve them.

We also proudly work to build capacity, promote best practices, advocate for sound educational policies, advance equity and equal access to education, build pathways for leadership, foster community outreach, encourage parent involvement, and provide networking opportunities for educators.

For additional information, please email us at [email protected] or visit our
website, https://www.flalas.org.

Patricia Trejo is the president of FL-ALAS with 23 years of experience in education. She has served as a teacher, learning team facilitator, assistant principal, principal, and program planner. Her experience includes working at Title I and non-Title I schools at the elementary, middle, and high school levels, as well as at schools with dual language, gifted, VPK, pre-K, STEM, and EBD programs.

She also serves as the co-facilitator for the National Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents’ Linking Latina Leaders Network and is a recent graduate of the ALAS Superintendents Leadership Academy, Cohort X.

Mandarin Imposed on Minority Preschools

The Chinese Ministry of Education is making Mandarin the medium of instruction for preschoolers in areas where minority languages like Mongolian, Tibetan, and Uyghur, as well as regional Chinese languages like Sichuanese or Cantonese, had been used.

“In order to… implement General Secretary Xi Jinping’s instructions on nationwide Mandarin-medium education (‘start them when they’re babies’), we will further promote the use of Mandarin across the country,” an August directive from the Ministry of Education reads. Starting from the fall semester of 2021, kindergartens in ethnic-minority and rural areas that aren’t already using Mandarin for childcare activities must begin to do so, the directive said.

“We will focus on strengthening Mandarin language learning among preschoolers, during the critical period for language acquisition,” says the directive, published on an official government website. The move was aimed at “enabling preschool children in ethnic-minority and rural areas to gradually acquire the ability to communicate at a basic level in Mandarin, and to lay the foundations for the compulsory education phase.”

The government is launching a nationwide group training scheme for kindergarten teachers to ensure a sufficient supply of qualified staff to meet the new demand. To help kindergartens implement the directive, teachers from other parts of China will be “paired” with teachers and kindergartens “sistered” with kindergartens in ethnic-minority and rural areas, the directive said.

These mentors should “guide grassroots teachers to change their ideas about education, and to follow the rules of language learning for preschool children.” Kindergartens in the target areas should “organize a variety of activities to get children to hear more Mandarin, speak more Mandarin, as well as wanting and daring to speak, and to give them the opportunity to speak Mandarin,” it said.

The government has also introduced similar changes to the national curriculum that will phase out Korean-language teaching from schools in northeast China, which is home to a population of roughly 2.3 million Koreans, the largest population outside of the Korean Peninsula, of whom just under two million are Chinese nationals of Korean ethnicity. Meanwhile, authorities in northwestern China’s Qinghai province have detained two Tibetan students accused of opposing the use of the Chinese language as the only medium of instruction in Tibetan schools, Tibetan sources say.

Identified as Gyuldrak and Yangrik, the two 19-year-old residents of Darlag County in Qinghai’s Golog (in Chinese, Guoluo) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture were taken into custody by Chinese police, according to a report by Radio Free Asia (RFA).

Sources say the students used the WeChat social media platform to criticize a Chinese policy mandating that all classes in local schools be taught only in Chinese from September.

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