WIDA's 15 Essential Actions for Educators of ELLs

This year, one of the initiatives of our ESOL department is to help our teachers understand and implement the 15 Essential Actions identified by WIDA for educators of ELLs. These actions should be undertaken by all teachers working with ELLs- not just the ELL specialist!

Throughout this next school year, I'll probably make a few posts about the Essential Actions, so here's a quick video overview for you!

How to collaborate effectively with your ESOL Specialist

Most schools in the United States these days have an ESOL Specialist. I talked in my last post in this series about what an ESOL specialist is and what they do. This post is centered on how to effectively collaborate with your ESOL Specialist to ensure that your students are receiving the best possible education.

Plan together.
This can take on many forms, but your ESOL specialist can't support the students properly if she doesn't know exactly what you're working on. This means more than telling the specialist "We'll be working on equivalent fractions this week." If you do daily plans, share these with the ESOL specialist as soon as you finish the plan. Additionally, since ESOL specialists often work with more than one grade and content area, you might consider give him/her a list of important vocabulary words and phrases associated with the topic. This way the ESOL specialist can determine the best way to offer language support that is tailored to your lesson.

Invite the ESOL specialist to your grade-level planning meetings. Sit down personally one-on-one with the specialist. Use Skype or Google Docs to collaborate remotely if you don't have time during school and don't want to stay after.

Do remember that your ESOL Specialist is there to help support the language of the content, not the content itself. However, your ESOL teacher is uniquely trained on how to infuse language learning into content learning. They are not there to help your kids "finish this worksheet" or whatever else you're doing in class. They have their own standards relating to language development which must be met. Often, the activities done in the mainstream do not focus on or support language development, so the ESOL teacher usually plans specific activities to complement your lesson that are designed boost academic language acquisition. Please do not treat your ESOL specialist like a para-pro and ask them to finish whatever you were doing.

Keep the ESOL specialist in the loop.
Often, mainstream teachers and other school personnel forget to keep the mainstream teacher in the loop on what is happening in the school or classroom. I can't tell you how often I've shown up at a class with all my materials and a lesson that took a long time to put together, only to hear "Oh, I guess I forgot to mention, the kids have art/an assembly/a class party today".

Please communicate with your ESOL specialist and give him/her the same professional respect you hope to receive!

Learn exactly what your ESOL specialist does.
Many teachers don't utilize or work with an ESOL specialist correctly because they don't know what one does. My last post touches on that, but it can often vary from school to school, so get to know your ESOL specialist and find out exactly what responsibilities they have at your school. This will build a bridge to successful collaboration with your ESOL specialist. If you're not sure what to ask, here's a few to start:

• How many students do you have on your caseload?
• What instructional duties do you have besides teaching? (testing accommodations, etc)
• What non-instructional duties do you perform?
• Do you have your own set of English language development standards?
• What is your preferred teaching style?
• How many grade levels do you service?

Treat your ESOL specialist like the professional educator he or she is.
Most often, your ESOL specialist has achieved the same level of education as you have, or higher, and is a certified teacher. Many ESOL Education programs are graduate programs resulting in a Master's or higher.

However, ESOL Specialists, especially those that "plug-in" to the classroom rather than offer pull-out service, are relegated to the duties of a para-pro in the classrooms where they plug-in. Or, they are given a table where they can work with their students, which is still really "pull-out" education. Rather, in order to make your plug-in truly successful, offer your ESOL specialist the opportunity to design an activity or teach a lesson or mini-lesson to the whole class. Treat the situation as having two teachers in the room (because you do) rather than a teacher and a para-pro (because that is not the case).

Ask for help or resources.
Don't be afraid to ask your ESOL specialist or help with reaching your ELLs, understanding their needs or for resources. ESOL specialists often have great ideas and a variety of resources they can provide you to help meet the needs of your students. But, don't expect them to do all the work for you. I've many times had a teacher come and tell me, "YOU need to find ____ for this student because I don't have time." Remember, your ESOL specialist has as many responsibilities as you do. Work together!

I hope these tips will help you as you work with your ESOL specialist this year!

What is an ESOL specialist and what do they do?

I'm starting a new series here on my blog called "Putting the Pieces Together for Effective ESOL". Throughout this series, I will share information about what is going on in the ESOL world, up-to-date research, different ESOL instructional models and how you can maximize the knowledge of your ESOL Specialist to improve the quality of instruction for your English Language Learners. The intended audience for this series is mainstream teachers who work with ELLs and ESOL Specialists.

In my career, I've encountered many misconceptions about ESOL professionals and what they do, and I want to take some time to correct some of those misconceptions. An ESOL specialist can be a great resource for you and your school, if you take the time to understand what they do.

What kind of education does an ESOL specialist have?

At a minimum, an ESOL specialist must have a bachelor's degree in elementary or secondary education, teaching certification, and an endorsement by Praxis in ESOL PreK-12. In reality, most ESOL specialists have a bachelor's degree (may or may not be in education) and a master's degree in ESL Education or TESOL, and a teaching certification. Many ESOL specialists have a background in linguistics, language development or second language acquisition.

What does an ESOL specialist do?

Most ESOL specialists have a caseload of LEP students. The number in the caseload varies from state-to-state and district to district. During most of my career, I have had a caseload of about 60 students. Sometimes they have all been in one or two grades, sometimes they have spanned grades K-6 or grades 6-8.  An ESOL specialist is generally responsible for providing a certain amount of service time (often legally mandated by the state) to each student on their caseload. Specialists who span multiple grades also often have multiple levels of students in each grade level as well. This means that they are doing a separate lesson plan for each level and each grade every time they see those students. I have had as many as 7 daily lesson plans to prepare each day at times in my career.

In addition, the ESOL specialist is responsible for sending out and collecting much legally mandated paperwork, much like Special Education professionals. We do testing accommodations forms, parent permission letters, testing notices, personal education plans, and more. If our paperwork is not in order when we get audited, then our teaching license could be on the line.

ESOL programs vary widely from state to state, district to district, and even school to school. In my school district, the ESOL program format is up to the discretion of the principal. Some principals mandate co-teaching, others leave it up to the discretion of their ESOL professionals.

Whether an ESOL specialist is co-teaching or not, he or she must attend grade-level planning meetings to stay abreast on what their students are working on. In addition, he or she must also attend data meetings and collect and analyze data pertinent to the LEP subgroup.

Often, ESOL specialists also have other duties that classroom teachers do not have- such as morning and afternoon duties (busses, car riders, breakfast, etc) as well as a lunch duty. I have had years where up to 1.5 hours of my instructional day was spent doing "duty".

Much of an ESOL specialist's time is also spent providing testing accommodations during district-wide and state-wide standardized testing. The testing accommodations often require small groups of no more than 5-10 students depending on the accommodations, and often the ESOL specialist spends a substantial amount of time testing accommodated groups beyond the testing time of the rest of the school.

What do ESOL specialists know?

Your ESOL specialist is a wealth of information on second language acquisition and language development. Chances are that your average ESOL specialist is also well versed in reading strategies and interventions, as well as content-based literacy. ESOL specialists not only generally know the English language proficiency tests inside and out, but the content area tests as well.

ESOL specialista  are often familiar not only with their state's ESOL standards, but with the Language Arts standards, and often those of many of the other content areas as well.

What is an ESOL specialist's stake?

Many teachers think that ESOL teachers do not have a stake in standardized testing scores, and that is not true. When I taught at the secondary level, I was my students' Language Arts teacher of record, meaning that I was 100% responsible for whether or not my students met the state objectives, as well as their progress on their English language proficiency tests. In my years in the elementary level, I have been held equally accountable with mainstream teachers on my students' reading and math progress, as well as solely responsible for my students' English language proficiency scores and progress. If the LEP subgroup for my grade level (or school, if I am the only ESOL teacher in a school) does not meet AMAOs or AYP, I am in the spotlight. The truth is, ESOL teachers often have double or triple the stake in their students' scores as a mainstream teacher, even though they are able to spend only 10% of the time with these students.

How does the ESOL specialist speak all of those languages? Why won't he or she translate my document/conference/phone call?

The truth is, many ESOL teachers do speak more than one language (I speak 4 myself) or have been ELLs themselves, but not every ESOL specialist speaks the languages their students speak, and not every ESOL specialist is bilingual or multi-lingual. Since ESOL methodology relies primarily on scaffolded instruction in English, proficiency in another language is not required or necessary. Don't presume your ESOL teacher can translate your document or parent conference; you might be unpleasantly surprised!

Even if your ESOL specialist is bilingual, save the translation requests for emergencies. If you have parents who do not speak English, find out how to schedule a translator for conferences and do so in time. It is not your ESOL specialist's job or responsibility to do this for you OR to translate your conference/document/phone call if you fail to do so. Your ESOL specialist is paid to teach ESOL, not to translate.

As a multi-lingual ESOL specialist myself, I have often been pulled away from providing service for my students to translate, even in non-emergency situations. Let me be clear: I do not mind standing in when there is a true emergency. But it is not my job to translate every parent question or phone call that comes in in a language other than English. The district hires and pays people to do that. I do not get an additional stipend for doing this, like others do for managing the technology or serving as department chair. When it is not directly related to one of my students, it is outside the scope of my job.

Why doesn't the ESOL specialist work with me like other para-pros in the classroom?

I'm going to say this only once: Your ESOL teacher is NOT a paraprofesional. Your ESOL teacher is a professional teacher with a degree in education. Do NOT treat your ESOL Professional as a paraprofessional. Give him or her an active role in the classroom. Co-teach, co-plan, and play on one another's strengths to provide the best education for your students together.

What does an ESOL teacher teach?

In the not so distant past, most ESOL standards were focused on social and instructional language. Modern ESOL methodology has taken a turn to focusing on academic language and literacy in addition to social and instructional language, which is inherently necessary for newcomer learners.

When I was in the classroom, my language goals were aligned with content goals (CCSS, State Curriculum, etc) that my students needed to meet curriculum requirements and pass tests. I based what I taught on the data, and I focused on the language that my students needed to more successfully access the content in the areas and skills where they were lacking.

My goal is to teach the language of the content, and I choose to do this through scaffolding, teaching, and reinforcing the content in certain ways so as to emphasize the language.



I hope this has helped to dispel some of the confusion surrounding the role of an ESOL teacher. If you have additional ideas or comments, please feel free to pipe in!