Resources, News & Publications
District EL Administrator Advocacy Network
Have you heard about our District EL Administrator Advocacy Network? Applications are now open until April 10! Please use this social media toolkit to promote this network to administrators who would be great advocates.
Media Toolkit: https://caltog.co/3F60PBL.
When Young Children Return to the Classroom
By Alissa Alteri Shea at Edutopia
What day is it? What’s the schedule? Are we doing remote, hybrid, or in-person school this week? For some of us, the way school looks has changed frequently this year, to the point where our heads are spinning. Our routines, schedules, ways of teaching lessons, and expectations—of both our students and ourselves—are in a constant state of flux; any day can feel like the first day of school, over and over again. This can be particularly challenging for those of us who teach young children, who thrive on consistent structure and routines.
The day will come when all teachers return to the classroom for hybrid or full in-person learning. If you are one of the many early childhood teachers taking first steps back into the classroom after teaching remotely, you may be wondering how you will establish routines, set up norms, and strive to create a community mid-year.
Helpful Strategies
Make safety protocols fun: Mask wearing, maintaining distance, and hand washing are important in keeping all of us safe at school. When you use kid-friendly language to set the tone and explain these safety protocols, young children can feel more comfortable following the rules.
When students arrive at school, have them check to make sure their “superhero masks” are on right; remind them that all superheroes wear their masks correctly and tightly around their face. On entering the classroom, have them do a wiggle dance as you sing a song to the tune of “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” while applying hand sanitizer: “Front, back, and in between, in between…”
Ready for the Fall? A Must-Read for TWBI/DLI Programs
Making TWBI/DLI Programs Viable in a Virtual Learning Reality
Throughout the U.S., school districts are grappling with how to plan their back to school strategies. There have been many questions about how to plan a TWBI/DLI program through distance learning. This brief was written and edited by a team of program experts and is a compilation from meetings held this past June with experienced TWBI/DLI Kindergarten teams and administrators. These groups reflected on their best practices in the Spring and shared ideas on how to start successfully this coming school year. We hope these ideas will help guide your planning. As planning appears to be very fluid at this time, please read the brief and give us feedback. We welcome your ideas, instructional strategies, sample schedules & virtual resources specifically for TWBI/DLI programs, etc. Please share them with us via info@atdle.org and we will post them for the network of programs.
Grow Your Own Teachers
A 50-State Scan of Policies and Programs
Over the past four years, New America has been researching Grow Your Own (GYO) programs as a strategy for growing and diversifying the teacher workforce. GYO programs—partnerships between school districts, institutions of higher education, and community-based organizations to recruit and prepare community members to become teachers in local schools—are increasingly popular as a strategy for teacher recruitment and development. We began this work with a focus on bilingual teacher development and the need for more
bilingual teachers to support the needs of English learner students.
The need for GYO is clear. States are experiencing teacher shortages across subject areas, such as special education and bilingual education, and regions, particularly in rural areas. Research on GYO suggests that homegrown teachers have higher rates of retention and that these programs remove barriers that have kept some individuals from being able to access and persist in a teacher preparation program. At the same time, states are making efforts to increase the racial and linguistic diversity of the teacher workforce. Students of color make up the majority of the K–12 student population, yet their teachers are majority white, female, and monolingual. GYO programs often focus on recruiting and preparing teachers of color who are invested in promoting social justice and changing the education system from within.
¡Chispas!
Dr. Kathleen Contreras, professor and well known Latina author of children’s books, works with Two-Way & Dual Language organizations to scan the airwaves for news about Two-Way Dual Language programs throughout the U.S.A. This work is invaluable as she works to keep us in the know of the latest developments in the field. Here is her latest ¡Chispas! for you to review.
Translanguaging Origins
The article traces the Welsh origins of ‘‘translanguaging’’ from the 1980s to the recent global use, analysing the development and extension of the term. It suggests that the growing popularity of the term relates to a change in the way bilingualism and multilingualism have ideologically developed not only among academics but also amid changing politics and public understandings about bilingualism.
Wyoming’s News
Casper grade school will offer English-Spanish dual language program in fall.
A dual language program will begin teaching students in Spanish and English at Park Elementary School in Casper this fall.
Natrona County School District trustees unanimously approved the program at a meeting.
Oregon Department of Education
ATDLE is proud to announce its new contract with the Oregon Department of Education! ATDLE will support the ODE Dual Language Collaborative effort throughout the State. Seven sites from throughout Oregon make up the collaborative and are working to initiate and/ or re-align their TWBI/DL Programs. Dr. Kathyrn Lindholm-Leary will be working to establish clear evaluation guidelines for the programs. The work with ODE will commence in January and continue for 2-3 years!
3 Interesting Articles on Education Week
10 Teacher Picks for Best Tech Tools
Teachers and administrators from pre-K through 12th grade named these tools their top picks for this year and beyond.
By Jonathan Eckert at edutopia, February 5, 2021
If there was ever a year for teachers to beg, borrow, and steal good ideas, this is it. All good teachers know this is how we get better, and this is a curated list of tech tools that I have begged and borrowed from others—and I didn’t have to steal any of these as there has never been a year when teachers were more generous.
Based on my own teaching of college students as well as the responses of 1,461 virtual learning academy participants—pre-K to 12 teachers and administrators—to survey questions on impactful tools that I conducted from May to December 2020, and over 70 webinars and virtual learning sessions I’ve conducted in that time, these are the top teacher-tested tech tools I have identified. My learning has happened with my own students and through my own mistakes, and I received great ideas from educators across the U.S. and around the world.
I will continue to use these tools and recommend their use regardless of student level or how we deliver education moving forward.
Starting Out the School Year Virtually – Resources
Here is a good listing of resources available to support your virtual instruction at the PreK-1st grade level. Remember that the languages should not be mixed. Many of these resources are in both languages…use them appropriately in your Dual Language classroom.
SSB COVID-19 Guidance Letter – July 2, 2020
Updated Guidance for Awarding the State Seal of Biliteracy
The California Department of Education (CDE) will continue to award the State Seal of Biliteracy (SSB) during the 2019–20 and 2020–21 school years. As always, local educational agencies may order insignias through the online Insignia Request Form located under the “Procedures, Requirements, and Forms” tab on the CDE SSB web page at https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/el/er/sealofbiliteracy.asp
Distance Learning Parent Newsletter – July 2020
DEAR PARENTS,
The Distance Learning Parent Newsletter was published weekly during the transition to distance learning. Starting with the June 2020 issue, the newsletter will now be published monthly.
This issue focuses on talking to kids about social justice. With race and racism in the news, children of all ages are likely to have questions. Talking to children about race and racism is important, but it can be difficult to know how to handle these conversations in an age-appropriate way. For that reason, this newsletter provi
Fluency in a Second Language
Fluency in a Second Language: Should it Be Part of College and Career Readiness?
The rise in popularity of dual-language programs in public schools has been well documented in recent years—I did a story about it two years ago—and there’s even been a small, but growing policy push to encourage students to become bilingual and biliterate. (There are now official state seals of biliteracy given to high school graduates who qualify in California, New York, Illinois, and, most recently, Texas.)
I have no doubt that dual-langauge programs will continue to proliferate, especially as they continue to gain favor with middle class families.
Additional Resource Articles on TWBI/DLI Education
New Ways of Seeing: How Multilingualism Opens Our Eyes and Trains Our Minds for a Complex World
Washington Post, Speaking two languages may help the aging brain (December 2018)
Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA), What the Research Says About Immersion
American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), What the Research Shows
CARLA: How Can Learner Language Inform Mandarin Immersion Teaching? (October 2018)
NPR, 6 Potential Brain Benefits of Bilingual Education (November 2016)
New York Times, The Superior Social Skills of Bilinguals (March 2016)
Education Week, Is Language Immersion Right for My Child? (March 2016)
RAND Corporation study of Portland Public Schools Mandarin immersion programs, Portland Immersion Students Become Better Readers, English Speakers (November 2015)
New York Times, Dual-Language Programs Are on the Rise, Even for Native English Speakers (October 2015)
Washington Post, Parents Want Elementary Pupils to Learn Foreign Languages — But Where? (October 2014)
Psychology Today, Cognitive Advantages of Second Language Immersion Education (January 2014)
Education Week, What Research Tells Us About Immersion (September 2012)
Wall Street Journal, More Area Schools Embrace Chinese-Immersion Method (August 2012)
Asia Society, Chinese Language Learning in the Early Grades: A Handbook of Resources and Best Practices for Mandarin Immersion (2012)
Collier & Thomas, 2004: The Astounding Effectiveness of Dual Language Education for All
Grancois Grosjean: Psychology Today: 10 Questions on Bilingualism https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/between-cultures/201607/10-questions-bilingualism
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/life-bilingual/201311/second-language-learning-bilingualism-in-schools
Kaja Perina: Psychology Today: Beyond Words: The Benefits of Being Bilingual
