4/2/2024

The Road to Equity: Helping Multilingual Learners Grow from Spectators to Players

By Aurora Daniels

Picture this: A rural, midwestern Wisconsin town of about 300 occupants, including a school, church, park, and bank. As you might imagine, a major pillar of the town is the school. It’s no wonder that of the 19 high school graduates from the class of 2017, at least six became teachers, giving back to towns like this that value the role of a connected school and community. And you guessed it; I’m one of those six. I became a teacher to continue what I learned in my childhood—that schools offer a special space for children of our communities to be valued, seen, challenged, and encouraged to grow.

However, as I learned more about student demographics across the country, I realized there’s a special population of students who are often not given equitable opportunities in the same rural communities I wanted to serve—multilingual and Emergent Bilingual students.

My current position as a teacher to multilingual learners (in a town not 20 miles from where I grew up) was created to adjust to the growing population of students with linguistic backgrounds other than English. I was tasked with the not-so-unique challenge and privilege of developing the school’s methods of engaging with these students. From the start, I welcomed, supported, and educated the new-coming multilingual learners in a school district unfamiliar with these students. My tasks included working closely with families, classroom teachers, district administrators, and school staff in a K–12 district to encourage educational equity for our multilingual students.

Educational Equity for Multilingual Learners

So, what is educational equity for multilingual learners? And why should all teachers care about it? It’s important, first, to consider the difference between equity and equality. I’m sure many of you know of the metaphor about three children at a ball game. There’s a fence that blocks each child's view of the game. How would you help these children? Equality would mean giving each child the same-sized stool. But only the tallest child can see the game. Equity would mean, instead of giving each child the same sized stool, giving each child the appropriate-sized stool which allows them to clearly see the game. That difference can drastically affect academic outcomes for our students.

Interaction Institute for Social Change | Artist: Angus Maguire

Let’s continue that metaphor. What if, instead of giving those children stools of appropriate heights, we tear down the fence barrier keeping them from seeing the game? Or…invite them to actually play in the game? They can be transformed from spectators to participants, engaged in actively making decisions and growing in their skills. Oftentimes, educators use a one-size-fits-all approach with multilingual learners, not considering practical ways to include these individual students in classroom discussions, activities, and events.

Too often, our educational professionals, myself included, may simply focus on getting the right-sized stool for each student. When, in reality, we have the opportunity to stretch further and focus on developing independent, action-making players. That type of thinking, I believe, is crucial for creating an educational environment that is both rigorous and accessible for ALL students.

The Road to Equity

What does this type of accessible, equitable education look like? Well, it starts with breaking down a fence that many educators may have unknowingly inherited—the myth that in general education, content-area teachers should focus on the monolingual population of students in their classroom, while the teachers of multilingual learners are responsible for the students with different language backgrounds. This type of thinking creates division instead of inclusion. Oftentimes, district leaders may believe they “have the bases covered” by simply having an educator with a title including “EL,” “ESOL,” “ML,” or “EB.” But, in reality, many districts are missing valuable opportunities for connection and growth with these students. These educators are missing valuable opportunities for providing an equitable education.

All teachers are language teachers, and all students are language learners. By using this lens, we can work to bring effective language education to each student in each class. We can consider the academic language needed to engage with the content and the social language used to communicate among peers studying that content. Explicitly teaching academic language in each class helps everyone—not just multilingual learners. To help all students learn the language used in academic conversations, all teachers must become and realize they are teachers of language.

Teacher Tips to Increase Equity for Multilingual Students

Let’s dive into some practical examples and ideas to use in your classroom.

Encouraging student ownership of their education

• Consider how you are continuing the development of how students communicate their thoughts about the content. Are students planning what they say before sharing? Checking their own work? Sharing their thoughts through different modes of communication? Think about different modes of communication, such as writing, speaking, and using media like video or voice recording. By developing student’s skills in each of these areas, students will learn to communicate their ideas effectively.
• Work within students’ interests. Find ways to help students be active participants in your school’s community. Provide multilingual students with the same quality and spectrum of extracurricular activities as other students. Being included makes a huge difference in these students' social and emotional well-being.
• Focus on an assets-based approach with our language learners. These students have rich cultural and linguistic experiences. Let them be the experts, and show all of your students that everyone can learn more together by sharing perspectives and listening to others.
• Use a lot of projects. Projects help keep students engaged and can be adapted for many different language levels. It can be exhausting for language learners to interpret language throughout each class. Having time devoted to working on projects can offer a break from the English input they receive while providing the practice of making a product in English.

Teaching language in the classroom

• Use your vocabulary expertise. If you are a content-area teacher, remember—you are the language expert in your field. Think about how you teach domain-specific vocabulary to the whole class. Take your time teaching the vocabulary several ways, using the words in different activities. Don’t simply translate the words or passages into another language for your multilingual students. Think to yourself, “Would I expect a student at this grade level to know this domain-specific vocabulary without teaching its meaning first?” Expecting your multilingual students to understand the translation of domain-specific words without explicitly teaching the meanings is unreasonable. Focus on explicitly teaching vocabulary meaning.
• Explore varied group settings. Small groups can be a great way for multilingual students to practice using their language knowledge without the large social risks of whole-group activities. Consider using paired language partners to group students with the same language backgrounds. This may help students discuss content in their home languages, leading to deeper conversations about the topic. Of course, this strategy should be used in moderation. Take care not to keep multilingual students separated from others in the class. Using paired language partners is helpful in small doses.
• Provide specific language-learning tools. It’s a difficult task for students to just “pick up” on the language without directly teaching it. I’ve used Lexia English Language Development™ with our multilingual students for several years and found it a wonderful tool for learning English. Students can independently use this resource to practice their English language skills. I especially love how students get a lot of practice listening to language and producing verbal language. Students also see many different representations of characters from diverse backgrounds, which is a great opportunity for students to visualize themselves using language as fluently as the characters one day. I love to set specific goals with my students, and I share the progress-monitoring sheets with classroom teachers and parents throughout the year.
• Seek out resources. This site offers a variety of resources about how to support multilingual students in any classroom: Specific Strategies to Support Dual Language Learners (DLLs) When Adults Do Not Speak Their Language.

Collaborating with other educators

• Work with classroom teachers and all district staff to build a school community that welcomes and supports multilingual students and families. Set an example for your peers and colleagues on the best way to work with parents, guardians, and family members who may not have English proficiency.
• Offer professional development. It’s important to clearly communicate that this field of teaching language learners is constantly growing. With that, we need to deepen our understanding of instructional best practices. Consider leading professional development sessions for staff members in your district. Break ideas down into small chunks so all of you can implement what you learn in practical ways. Similarly, send resources to other teachers regularly. Did you find an interesting article about a specific language instructional strategy? Send it on! Here’s a great resource that covers the basics of working with multilingual students: National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition: Newcomer Toolkit.
• Collaborate with your school librarian. They can help ensure students have access to books in their home language. And, hopefully, your librarian will identify books written by people specifically in those languages, not just translations. This helps students develop their understanding of their home language and communicates that all languages and language identities are valued.
• Ensure the planning teams and committees in your school include language specialists, such as multilingual learner teachers. These specialists have unique perspectives on some potential barriers families might have when considering being involved in school activities and events. While on planning teams, these teachers can advocate for the needs they know certain populations have to create a more welcoming and inclusive environment.
• Work with multilingual specialists in other school districts. The more ideas, the merrier, right? By collaborating with other districts, you can learn about and share the practices that have worked best in your communities.You might even have the possibility to create opportunities for connection among students. Use virtual resources like Flip to have students practice their language with students from other districts.

Collaborating with families

• Engage with your students’ families. By looking further into your students’ lives and getting to know your students’ families, you can more effectively teach to your students’ needs. Practice culturally responsive teaching. Do you have a second-grade writing activity about a specific cultural event or festival that a multilingual student isn’t participating in? Consider that student’s possible background knowledge. Talk with families and include them when considering the topics you expect students to contribute to. Perhaps that student is not writing anything because they have never engaged with that specific cultural event.
• Work within cultural differences. I sometimes struggle with identifying these cultural differences when they are happening in the moment. For example, when I first started teaching multilingual learners, I noticed there were several days during the year when whole families of students would not come into school. Living in Wisconsin means snow. And, while there can be snow days, it doesn’t mean that for every day there’s snow on the ground, there’s no school. I was confused about why several families missed school completely until I stopped and had a conversation with those families. That was a great learning opportunity for me to understand the importance of working on learning different expectations families may have.
• Focus on clear communication. Make sure families have access to translated information about school events. Consider different community resources your school could point these families toward. Also, ensure you have direct communication with families. Use translation tools to help. There are a lot of tools out there. TalkingPoints is a great translation resource for classroom teachers to message directly with families. Use resources like DeepL or Google Translate, on the “Documents” tab, to translate PDFs of school events. And within Google Docs, you can use the “Translate Document” option under “Tools.” Many document-creation websites also have translation features, such as Canva. When using any of these resources, please clarify to families that you used a translation tool. This helps identify possible misunderstandings if those translations don’t accurately communicate your message.
• Learn about your students’ families with their specific needs, and advocate for them as much as possible. Our multilingual students and their families may not currently have the English language proficiency to advocate for themselves. Families don’t know what they don’t know. Help guide families by sharing resources that help them know what types of questions they can ask about their child’s education. Here’s a great family resource page from WIDA: Resources to Strengthen Connections with Families.
• Read this tool kit. Created by the Institute of Education Sciences, this tool kit about research-based practices to use with multilingual students and their families is an excellent resource for parent and family engagement: Welcoming, Registering, and Supporting Newcomer Students: A Tool Kit for Educators of Immigrant and Refugee Students in Secondary Schools

Collaborating with community partners

• Consider creating a multilingual learner welcoming committee. Create a group of school staff and community members to welcome new families to the area and give them important information they may need.
• Identify the community resources available to families. Consider the language needs of families. Does your community have a health clinic with services in the home languages of your students’ families? Are there any activities and events families can participate in so they are included in the community? Share those resources.
• See newcomers as members of the community. By considering the potential for community involvement of multilingual students and families, you are acknowledging your students are more than simply children in a classroom. They are members of your community and should have the opportunity to engage with all the resources, tools, events, and support available.

I, and many teachers like me, chose this occupation to help our communities and the children in them. We work passionately to welcome, support, and encourage these students. I believe that to realize our potential as educators and help our students fully, we must consider how to bring an equitable education to our multilingual students and families. We must also implement those practices to encourage those students to become active participants—active players—in our communities. We get the opportunity to help our multilingual learners transition from spectators of this education world to players making decisions and actions with their peers. So, what will you do today? Are you going to build a stool or break down a fence?

Aurora Daniels is a multilingual learner teacher at a small, rural school district in Wisconsin. She grew up in Juda, Wisconsin, and graduated from Wheaton College, near Chicago. Daniels gained a degree in Elementary Education with endorsements in Bilingual Education, English as a Second Language, and Middle School English Language Arts with a Spanish minor. Some of her favorite memories include exploring and learning alongside people from other cultures. She has traveled to countries including Spain, Peru, and the Dominican Republic. In her experiences, Daniels has developed a passion for advocating for inclusion while admiring differences. She finds that the more she is curious about the people around her, the more meaningful the connections she encounters.