Five questions about Multilingual Learners with Dr. Ayanna Cooper

To celebrate National Bilingual / Multilingual Learner Advocacy Month, we sat down with ANet’s resident expert, Dr. Ayanna Cooper Director of Multilingual Learners / English Learners, to talk about what we can do to better serve our linguistically diverse students.

1. Let’s set the scene. Can you provide some context over what acronyms we use to talk about multilingual learners and the context around who we’re supporting?

This is a great time of year to acknowledge and celebrate linguistic diversity since April is National Bilingual / Multilingual Learner Advocacy Month. About 5 million students in primary and secondary schools in the U.S. are identified as English learners (EL). This means that students have a primary home language other than English and are eligible for language support services. This distinction is different from native English speakers who are studying a foreign language. Being eligible for language support services means that learning communities are obligated to provide students with language supports to help them learn English while having access to a high-quality, standards-based education.

The U.S. Department of Education, and several states, currently use the acronym “EL”. This acronym is just one of many that are used to refer to this particular student population. Additional acronyms include;

• Dual Language Learner (DLL) birth — 5yrs.
• Emergent Bilingual (EB)
• English Language Learner (ELL)
• English as a New Language (ENL)
• English as a Second Language (ESL)
• English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL)
• Multilingual Learner (ML)
• Long Term English Learner (LTEL)

This is not at all an exhaustive list and can sometimes be a bit confusing. Terms and acronyms may differ by region, state, district, and school communities. They may also be used to refer to a student population, courses, or a particular program model. What’s most important is to learn what acronyms and terms are used by our partners. It is also important to ask students and families directly what terms they prefer. For more about acronyms see Support Ed’s (2023) research brief. At Achievement Network, we use the acronyms ML and EL interchangeably. Although acronyms change over time, we mustn’t lose sight of obligations for linguistically diverse learners. Our goal is to support improved student outcomes so that students become self-sufficient, autonomous, life-long learners.

Linguistically diverse students are not a monolithic group. They differ not only by language but also by culture, race, socioeconomic status, and schooling experiences. The majority of ELs are born in the United States. This may be surprising based on current migrant and unaccompanied minor trends. In addition to acronyms, some districts use terms, such as Bilingual, Monolingual, or Newcomer to describe their student population. For example, Newcomers are usually ELs who have been enrolled in a U.S. school for 12 months or less. There are slight variations in how newcomers are defined. Be sure to check with your state department or local school district.

Top 20 Languages

What’s important for educators to remember is first, to be able to quantify the population served. Asking quantifiable questions (Cooper, 2020 p.11) about the population is a great starting point for understanding the context and to increase one’s efforts to better serve linguistically diverse learners. Here are some of the quantifiable questions you can ask:

1) the number of students identified

2) grade levels assigned

2) levels of English (and home language proficiency if available)

4) if they are served with an Individual Education Plan (IEP), gifted & talented

I’m interested to hear what questions (and answers) have you asked and what related conversations have you had around supporting linguistically diverse learners.

2. I have to ask since it’s the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board–are there any civil rights implications to supporting this group of students?

Indeed! 2024 marks the anniversary of two very important Supreme Court cases. As you noted, the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board, which ruled segregated schools unconstitutional. Lau v. Nicholes celebrates its 50th anniversary. This landmark case ruled in favor of providing additional language support instruction so that students can learn English to receive an equal education. There is no doubt about the significance of these landmark decisions. I wonder about the progress we’ve made (or not) over the years. How far have we come? How much further must we go to create and sustain equitable learning communities?

In 2015, the United States Department of Education, in partnership with the Office of Civil Rights and the Department of Justice, issued the Dear Colleague Letter. That letter outlined the federal obligations for English learners. In And Justice for ELs: A Leader’s Guide for Creating and Sustaining Equitable Schools I use the obligations to help illustrate what those obligations look like day to day. Topics include identifying students eligible for language support, types of language support programs offered to students, how annually language progress is monitored, and what we are doing (or not) with this data set. it’s imperative we not only know and understand the obligations but also what’s at stake if we don’t. I also use the obligations to help learning communities self-assess and redress areas in need of attention.

Providing EL Students with a Language Assistance Program…school districts must provide them with appropriate language assistance services. Language assistance services or programs for EL students must be educationally sound in theory and effective in practice; (USDOE, p. 12)

When we evaluate various student performance data points, I help partners look for trends. If we see a trend where students are plateauing, I’ll ask what might be contributing to this trend. The same question applies when we see students exceeding expectations. What variables could be positively or negatively impacting positive student outcomes? The data may not tell us exactly what is happening, but it can help us to ask more probing questions. At the very least, it points us in the right direction if we look closely enough. My favorite is “Do you have data to prove that what’s in place is working for your students?”

Although we have come a long way since Brown v. Board of Ed. and more students have been afforded a bilingual education since Lau V. Nicholes, there are far too many communities that remain divided by zip codes, socioeconomic status, and appropriate resources. This affirms the importance of the work we do as an anti-racist organization, including being champions for linguistic diversity and advancing equity across the learning communities we partner with.

I’m interested to hear what questions (and answers) you have asked and what related conversations you’ve had around state and federal obligations for linguistically diverse learners.

3. That’s critical information. So, now that we know what the civil rights implications are, what is our approach to providing support for multilingual learners?

ANet’s approach to supporting linguistically diverse students centers around data before differentiation. The data-first approach is important since we have to know as much as we can about the community and context before strategizing and prioritizing areas in need of support. This approach is centered around federal and state obligations which help to provide the big picture. Oftentimes, the focus is on strategies and differentiation with little or no data to reference. Here are two examples of how the data before differentiation approach undergirds this approach.

Math Support
I was recently asked if I had any math resources for teachers who teach English learners. I asked two follow-up questions: what grade level and what is the student’s level of proficiency? Without answers to these initial questions, any recommendations/resources would be simply guesswork/random compared to resources that were more intentional and aligned to the student’s needs and the content being taught. The coach and I continue to support with data before differentiation questions.

Other answers needed to support this request would be;

• The grade level
• The content standard
• The program model associated (e.g., English development, dual language, bilingual education, etc.)
• What high-quality curriculum is being taught

Building Capacity
During an And Justice for English Learners book study session, a group of educators were discussing Chapter 3; Conversations Beyond the Rubric. This particular group of school-based educators is responsible for supporting English learners at an intermediate level of English proficiency. This chapter centers on the need for more dialog around what is expected from students compared to what’s accepted by students. What started as a vibrant discussion eventually led to more pauses and silent reflection. I wondered if they had come to the realization that affirms 1) the need to understand and use data more efficiently and 2) a shared sense of responsibility (Staehr Fenner, 2013) for supporting their students. If we are not clear on how to best use the data we have, then knowing how best to teach content concepts to linguistically diverse learners can leave educators and their students more frustrated.

I’m interested to hear how our data before differentiation approach would be beneficial for your learning community. What conversations have you had recently around supporting linguistically diverse learners in content area courses?

4. What gaps do you see in how educators support multilingual learners?

That’s an interesting question. I’ll frame my response by first highlighting areas where the field has made notable progress. Acknowledging and celebrating linguistic diversity has been fascinating. For our U.S. Secretary of Education, Dr. Miguel Cardona to champion bilingualism as a superpower is huge (Cooper, 2024)! This is part of the U.S. Dept of Education Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA) “Raise the Bar: Lead the World” initiative. It’s also important to have more awareness of bilingual and dual language programs, nationwide, so we know what’s possible and for whom. We must continue our efforts for equitable access so that more students can have the opportunity to be part of bilingual

learning communities (Conor et al., 2023).

The gaps I’ve experienced most often in providing technical assistance to partners are;

1) non or limited use of language data

2) shallow knowledge of federal, state, and district obligations

3) too much time learning vs. doing

These gaps have been especially challenging since the pandemic. These are the areas in need that may not be any different than other aspects of the field, but for MLs, these gaps can be further exacerbated. For example with #1, during a recent conversation I had with a teacher she communicated to me her interest in wanting to learn more about English language proficiency data analysis. I had just completed a presentation where I was showing slides that helped facilitate learning and application using language data. She hadn’t previously been afforded time to learn and apply that knowledge. Sure, she’s expected to differentiate instruction and provide all of the necessary scaffolds for her students but without data, she still has gaps in her ability to do what’s best for students. Where do this teacher and teachers like her go for help?

Another example related to #2 is assessing and understanding more about one’s depth of knowledge regarding serving MLs. Most educators come with some experience having taught MLs, perhaps having studied a foreign language or being multilingual themselves. These experiences are undoubtedly beneficial, but do they fully prepare someone for all that PreK-12 ML advocacy efforts entail? I’ve created a survey where over 300 educators have answered a series of questions to self-assess their level of knowledge. I refer to the survey questions as being simple questions with complex answers (Cooper, 2023). Some of those questions are;

1. What are the intended outcomes for MLs?
2. What is the data telling us or not?
3. Is what is being offered working for students?
4. How is English language proficiency/performance data being utilized?
5. Are students part of data analysis and related discussions? If not, how come?

The first question is probably the most challenging to answer since it depends on who you ask. What surfaces here is the need to agree on what those intended outcomes are. Without agreement, there will be very little, if any, coherence regardless of the amount of time spent planning. Most educators are overextended and under-resourced. As a result, time for learning, planning, and applying what’s been learned is limited. This leads to surface-level learning with patchy application efforts. Plans are often short-term and lack reflection and periodic checks that can help ensure the plan in place is for sure the plan that yields the highest outcomes for students.

These gaps affirm the importance of having a data-before-differentiation approach so that our efforts will be more intentional, student-centered, and long-term.

What types of responses to the aforementioned questions would you expect if you were to ask educators in your learning community? How might you use the responses to strategize an approach for ML support?

5. Throughout this month, Dr. Cooper has provided us with resources, strategies, and thought-provoking questions at the end of each section.

In our first week, we set the stage and talked about the terminology behind language support services. In part two we talked about how civil rights cases such as Brown v. Board and Lau v. Nicholes inform how we support multilingual learners, especially with the approaching anniversaries of both historic cases. The primary question we began to ask ourselves is, “Do you have data to prove that what’s in place is working for your students?” We moved into talking about our approach to supporting ML/EL students and Dr. Cooper shared some examples of data before differentiation approach. Last week, we spoke about the gaps in support and some additional questions that Dr. Cooper refers to as “simple questions with complex answers” that we encourage leaders to reflect on to start taking action.

Now, I’d like to know more about what can we do better. How can we celebrate and support linguistic diversity?

Here are a few helpful resources.

• Colorin Colorado: https://www.colorincolorado.org/
• English Learner Success Forum: https://www.elsuccessforum.org/about#Our-People
• English Language Learners High School Graduation Rates https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/raisethebar/viz/EnglishLanguageLearnersHighSchoolGraduationRates/ELLGraduationDashboard
• NCELA Fact Sheets: https://ncela.ed.gov/fact-sheets
• Seal of Biliteracy: https://sealofbiliteracy.org/

After our conversation, we reached out to other bilingual/multilingual ANetters to ask them about their experience with this superpower.

Marie Kodama, Senior Content Specialist, ELA

• What language(s) you speak?
  Japanese and English
• What benefits have you seen thanks to your ability to speak multiple languages?
  Although I have spent most of my upbringing in the U.S., being bilingual has allowed me to maintain my ties with family and friends in Japan, most of whom only speak Japanese. I grew up going back to Japan every summer to stay connected to them and have continued to make yearly trips to Japan in adulthood. In addition to being bilingual, being bicultural has also helped me to understand and support my family and friends better; for example, knowing the cultural context around gender roles is important when my Japanese friends and I discuss the challenges of being a woman both at work and at home. In my work at ANet, being bilingual has also proved to be an asset because I can put myself in the shoes of the EL/ML students that we serve. As I develop our ELA assessments, I often consider the cognitive load of idiomatic phrases and figurative language on EL/ML students and ensure that they do not impede students from making sense of what is being asked on any given item.

Cesar Rios, Manager, Marketing Video Production

• What language(s) you speak?
  English and Spanish
• What benefits you’ve seen thanks to your ability to speak multiple languages?
  Having been raised in a city that celebrated different cultures, and the Mexican culture specifically for me in Chicago, I benefited from being able to communicate and have access to a deeper understanding and appreciation of that culture due to my ability to speak and read Spanish. Knowing English and Spanish created a deeper immersion for me that has widened my perspective on people, and traditions, and being able to be open-minded to cultures I don’t speak the language to.

Isabella Perez, Assessment Operations Assistant

• What language(s) you speak?
  English and Spanish
• What benefits you’ve seen thanks to your ability to speak multiple languages?
  I work on the Assessment Operations team helping to make English and Spanish assessments for Math and Language Arts. I’m Cuban (on my dad’s side), and I grew up studying Spanish in school and majored in Hispanic Studies in college. Creating assessments that are equitable and accessible to students is so important to me. Translating Spanish assessments is extremely meaningful to me because it allows students to take ANet assessments in the language they feel most confident in and that allows them to do their best. In so many ways, I see how Spanish makes our assessments better. For example, there are some passages used on our English-language ELA assessments that use Spanish vocabulary. I can use my knowledge of the language to aid me when I review those passages and related items. In this way and so many others, my Spanish fluency helps to broaden the scope of our assessments and provide new perspectives for our work.

Our work supporting linguistic diversity goes beyond April’s celebration of National Bilingual/Multilingual Learner Advocacy Month. If you are looking for support, do not hesitate to reach out!

Resources

Question 1:

Cooper, A. (2020), And Justice for ELs: A Leader’s Guide to Creating and Sustaining Equitable Schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin

National Bilingual / Multilingual Learner Advocacy Month

Snyder, S., Staehr Fenner, D., Smith, S. & Singh, J. (2023, March). Terminology to Describe Multilingual Learners: Labels and Their Implications. SupportEd.

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2023, February). The top languages spoken by English learners in the United States. Retrieved from https://ncela.ed.gov/sites/default/files/2023-02/OELATopLanguagesFS-508.pdf

Question 2:

Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)

Lau v. Nichols, 414 U.S. 563 (1974)

U.S. Department of Justice & U.S. Department of Education. (2015). Dear colleague letter: English learner students and limited English proficient parents. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-el-201501.pdf

Question 3:

Cooper, A. (2020), And Justice for ELs: A Leader’s Guide to Creating and Sustaining Equitable Schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin

Staehr Fenner, D. (2013). Advocating for English learners: A guide for educators. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin

Zwiers, J., Dieckmann, J., Rutherford-Quach, S., Daro, V., Skarin, R., Weiss, S., & Malamut, J. (2017). Principles for the Design of Mathematics Curricula: Promoting Language and Content Development. Retrieved from Stanford University, UL/SCALE website: http://ell.stanford.edu/content/mathematics-resources-additional-resources
Math Language Routines

Question 4:

Cardona, M. (2023, November) Secretary Cardona Touts Multilingual Education in Being Bilingual Is A Superpower Initiative Launch Event. Ed.Gov. Retrieved from https://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/secretary-cardona-touts-multilingual-education-being-bilingual-superpower-initiative-launch-event.

Cooper, A. (2024, February). The pace of progress. Language Magazine, 23(6), 30–32.

Cooper, A. (2023, July). Making (Language) Data CUTE: Comprehensible, Useable, Timely and Empowering Part I. Language Magazine, 22(11), 35–37.

Williams, C., Meek, S., Marcus, M., & Zabala, J. (2023, May). Ensuring Equitable Access to Dual-Language Immersion Programs: Supporting English Learners’ Emerging Bilingualism. The Century Foundation.