Dual Language Education Challenges & Opportunities

Kate Kinsella offers evidence-aligned strategies to build reading fluency within dedicated ELD and content-area coursework

Social–emotional learning’s (SEL’s) reach has expanded significantly over the past decade and has especially accelerated during the last few years. High-quality SEL can support students’ general well-being as a pathway to improved academic outcomes (Durlak et al., 2011; Zins and Elias, 2007). With multilingual learners comprising nearly 23% of the US student-age population and rising (National Center on Education Statistics, 2022), as well as the numerous challenges MLs face in receiving an equitable and excellent education, it is important to ask the question of how inclusive SEL initiatives and programs are of multilingual learners. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and

Many of Chicago’s migrant families are settling down in neighborhoods with underresourced, segregated schools that don’t have the proper language support for children learning English as a new language.

Teacher apprenticeships are being implemented across the country, but what role can they play in preparing teachers of English learners??

A new report found the state’s Latinx student population is steadily increasing but in schools where they are less likely to be around students from different backgrounds and less likely to have access to advanced courses and basic resources such as mental health professionals.

My decade-long involvement in shadowing projects across the country has taught me that the average percentage of time that multilingual learners (MLLs) are speaking is often 5–10%. This is in contrast to what researchers like Pauline Gibbons (2015) tell us—that MLLs should be spending at least 30% of their school day in academic talk. This deafening silence has also affected virtual classrooms, where our MLLs are typically invisible and all students may have few speaking opportunities. Additionally, five major lessons learned after ten years of shadowing include the following: • Shadowing is not a panacea—there must be a plan to

Exploring a different language may be difficult in the beginning, and our education system in schools around the United States can always use new ways

Dual language education (DLE) programs are uniquely positioned to be models of culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogy that can shape instruction of multilingual language learners nationally. However, to achieve this goal, DLE programs must prioritize a culturally responsive framework. Here’s a short scenario to set the stage for the topic and briefly define culturally responsive teaching, sharing why it is a critical framework for multilingual learners in DLE programs. Scenario: A Spanish–English dual language immersion program in an urban elementary school uses a 50/50 model with Spanish and English integrated equally throughout the curriculum. The program strives for an equal

If you’re lucky enough to be able to teach your child several languages, don’t hesitate!

Several resources, toolkits, and practices exist to help respond to the needs of immigrant and migrant students.

An interview with Lucinda Lee Katz, the first grade teacher of the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case Lau vs. Nichols.

After the pandemic, English-language learners became a group most likely to be chronically absent from school. In Charlotte, N.C., the group ourBRIDGE for Kids has expanded its efforts from afterschool programs to direct outreach to parents and families to keep these students in school.

When Adriana Cervantes-González started school in California as a child, it was at a time when state policy was determined to get all English-learnin

A judge orders Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne to pay over $120K in attorneys fees after his dual language lawsuit was tossed.

Rebecca Blum Martinez, Dual Language National Advisor for ELSF, shares why it's vital to improve the quality of Spanish language instructional materials.

Teachers can bridge two worlds, one learner at a time, by helping emergent bilinguals with differentiation and belonging, Jose Viana writes.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne has been steadfast in his effort to get Arizona schools to stop using the 50-50 dual language model. He says it not only violates state law, but is not as effective as full, Structured English Immersion. But, many people who have experience with 50-50 programs say it’s the best way to learn a language.The 50-50 model is one of four language models approved by the State Board of Education. It allows students to be taught for half the day in one language and half in another.

Ivannia Soto, Jose Flores, and Karla Palomino share their findings from the first year of their online teacher education program

Having grown up in a multilingual family, Melissa Cuba knows firsthand what school is like for students who have multifaceted identities and come from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds.  As an assistant professor of special education at the University of Maine College of Education and Human Development, Cuba’s research focuses…

Early one summer, my parents moved our family into a 900-square-foot house in the central part of town that would become home for my siblings and me for the next 25 years. We didn’t have much, so it only took a few truckloads to get us from the old apartment building, only a few blocks from one of the area’s busiest US/Mexico border crossings, to our new palace. As a six-year-old boy, I was amazed I now had a yard and sidewalks that were safe for me to use to explore the rest of the block. My mother, her mother,

Spanish speakers in the U. S., among linguists and non-linguists, have been denigrated for the way they speak, says UC Berkeley sociolinguist Justin Davidson.

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), a member of the Senat

The U.S. Department of Education Invites Applications for NPD Competitive Grant By: Beatriz Ceja, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA) and Loredana Valtierra, Policy Advisor, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development (OPEPD) The need for bilingual and multilingual teachers is critical more than ever, as over five million of our public-schoolContinue Reading

Refugee children and asylum seekers go through a lot before they show up in American classrooms. This program gives educators tools to head off mental health struggles before they turn into a crisis.

A school principal offers best practices and practical advice for supporting literacy growth in any language.