Stay ConnectedOn the Highest Aspirations Podcast, we engage in important conversations about the most rapidly growing student demographic in the United States – English Language Learners. We speak with educators and students, researchers and policy makers, and parents and community members about how we can help all students reach their highest aspirations.
Join us on this important journey as we bring the vibrant ELL Community together around the topics that matter most to the students we serve.
How might we provide equitable instructional resources and services to English learners and their families? What can we do to support families who may not have internet access or adequate devices? What are some tools that teachers can use to keep English learners engaged? We discuss these questions and more with Katie Frances.
Katie is a certified EL teacher in Fayette County, KY. She spent her first 8 years as a mainstream classroom teacher working with diverse groups of students. She currently teaches at Northern Elementary School where she and her teammate Jamie Combs service over 150 English Language Learners.
How do we ensure that English learners and their families in rural communities have access to services that schools normally provide? What are educators doing to overcome the challenge of providing students with food when transportation is a challenge? How are schools addressing equity issues in areas where internet and device access is not widely available?
We discuss these questions and more in our conversation with Kelly Aldinger. Kelly is a K-3 English as a New Language teacher in a small, rural district called Elba Central Schools, halfway between Rochester and Buffalo, NY. She is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Teaching ESOL from Clarkson University Kelly is a a passionate advocate for educational equity and inclusion and would love to connect with others who are similarly motivated! Find her on Twitter!
This episode is part of the Highest Aspirations "Look for the Helpers" series. If you'd like to share your story, go to bit.ly/ELLHelper.
You can access all the resources that Kelly mentioned on out Look for the Helpers channel.
How can teachers and tech staff continue to collaborate to support English learners while schools are closed? Why might this be a good time for teacher professional development and how might schools implement systems to support it? What are some key resources that educators can use right now to help support their English learners?
We discuss these questions and more with Dr. Yolanda Rios and Gretta Rogne of New Caney ISD in Texas. Dr. Rios has over 14 years experience in bilingual education and currently serves the New Caney ISD community as the Director of Multilingual by providing services for students and families of English Learners and Immigrants/Migrant students. This role has allowed her to provide educational access to students who are learning English by providing resources and training teachers on strategies to help their students succeed.
Gretta Rogne is the Director of Digital Learning. Over the course of her 13 year career, she has worked as a classroom teacher as well other educational roles. Her role is critical to support teachers and students as they transition to remote learning environments.
This episode is part of the Highest Aspirations "Look for the Helpers" series. If you'd like to share your story, go to bit.ly/ELLHelper.
What can we learn about online learning from EL educators who have been doing it for over 8 weeks now? Why is backwards planning so important when designing online lessons? How might we go about striking the appropriate balance between synchronous and asynchronous strategies to ensure equitable access to instruction?
We discuss these questions and much more with Tan Huynh. Tan (@TanELLclassroom) is a career teacher specializing in language acquisition. Tan has taught students from fifth to twelfth grade in public schools, private boarding schools, and charter schools. Internationally, Tan has taught in schools in China, Laos, and Vietnam. He shares teaching strategies on his blog, Empowering ELLs, and has provided professional development training in places such as China, Thailand, Singapore, Italy, and Canada. Tan’s goal is to support all teachers who are committed to empowering English learners whether it be in a tweet, a blog post, a book, a training, a course, or over coffee.
Tan appeared on the podcast to discus collaboration with content teachers in Season 2 - you can find that episode here.
This episode is part of our "Look for the Helpers" series. If you'd like to share your story, take 2 minutes to fill out this form.
What are some strategies and resources teachers can use right now to help reach English learners while schools are closed? How might we sustain communication with teachers, families, and other stakeholders? Are there any silver linings to this very difficult situation? We discuss these questions and much more with Vanessa Colón, EL Coordinator at International Leadership Texas.
Over the course of her 16 years in education, Vanessa has served English Learners as a bilingual teacher, district ELL specialist, campus administrator, and district EL coordinator. As life-long learner, she is currently pursuing a doctoral degree from Texas A & M – Commerce in Supervision, Curriculum & Instruction with an emphasis in Bilingual Education. As an EL advocate, she has presented at numerous local and state conferences, such as BEAM and TexTESOL. Vanessa Colón is also a contributing author in the Handbook of Research on Pedagogies and Cultural Considerations for Young English Language Learners. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling with her two children & husband and spending quality time with family, friends & a good book or podcast!
During our 18 minute conversation, Vanessa shared some great resources. You can access all the links and see them in action on this 4 minute video.
This is the first episode of our “Look for the Helpers” series on the impact of coronavirus related school closures on English learners. During this challenging time, we believe it is more important than ever to amplify educators’ voices. For that reason, we are inviting anyone who works with English learners to share their stories on Highest Aspirations. Whether you have tips on keeping students and their families engaged, minimizing the social or academic impacts of social distancing, providing food and other necessities to vulnerable populations, or anything else, we want to hear from you.
To participate, just go to bit.ly/ELLHelper, take 2 minutes to fill out the form, and we’ll get back to you to set up a time to talk.
On our first episode of “Look for the Helpers”, we talk with Laurie Johnson and Andrea Barnett from Helen Tyson Middle School in Springdale, Arkansas. Springdale has a large ELL population and serves mostly Spanish and Marshallese-speaking ELL families. With Marshallese being a language that does not have much in the way of translation support, Springdale’s English Language Development teachers, Instructional Facilitators, and Specialists are going above and beyond to help students and families who may be severely affected by social distancing.
Feel free to contact Andrea and/or Laurie by email if you would like to learn more about what they are doing...
abarnett@sdale.org
ljohnson5@sdale.org
Why is reading culturally relevant books such an important part of language acquisition? What can educators do to make sure students have access to relevant and engaging reading materials - both at home and at school? How can providing access to books for immigrant families help promote educational equity?
We discuss these questions and much more with Hermenegildo Paulo, an inspirational educator and recent English Learner now working in Portland Public Schools in Maine.
An educator and English Language Learner himself, Mr. Paulo cares deeply about overcoming inequities that impact the English Language Learner student population and their families. A native of Angola, Mr. Paulo is a passionate math educator who instructed students in kindergarten through college in classrooms of sometimes more than 80 students. During his decade of math instructional experience in Angola, he strived to use best practice and initiate new programs to develop supportive relationships with his students and their families.
Upon moving to the US, Mr. Paulo knew that his only way back into a classroom was through proficiency in English, a language that he did not speak. Starting in early 2017, he worked tirelessly to learn English, and found himself back in a classroom less than a year after moving across the world.
Mr. Paulo holds a post-graduate certificate in Education Management from the Catholic University of Brasilia and a Bachelor's in Math Education from Instituto Superior de Ciências da Educação de Luanda in Angola.
Now he works supporting English Language Learners and their families as a Language Acquisition Technician and Interpreter at Reiche School in Portland, ME.
He is excited to share information about his new program, Reading Refuges, which helps overcome home literacy inequity. Mr. Paulo works with students and their families to curate a home library, complete with first language and English books. Books are then placed into storage crates, with a seat on top of them, so children have a portable, comfortable place to enjoy a good book at home.
How can Newcomer Academies help immigrant students get off to a good start in on their academic journeys? Why is community and family engagement so important and how can educators implement strategies that work? How do we go about streamlining EL programs while also mitigating concerns around change management?
We discuss these questions and in the first in a series of episodes featuring Ellevation Educators of the Month, an award program we kicked off on October of 2019 to recognize and celebrate educators who go above and beyond in supporting the needs of their multilingual students. In this episode, we speak with Dr. Geniene Delahunty of Boone County Schools in Kentucky. Geniene was nominated by her colleague Kathy Hammonds, who is also featured in this episode.
Dr. Geniene Delahunty is the Director of Language Learners at Boone County Schools, KY. Geniene has been working in education for 18 years and is still as passionate about serving the needs of students as she was on day 1. Being born and raised in South Africa lends a unique perspective to her life and educational career. She is dedicated to equity in education, and addressing differences - not barriers (for example ‘language’). Active on Twitter (@geniened) to connect with other educators and community leaders, Geniene is always eager to learn. Geniene and her husband adopted 4 boys from Taiwan (at ages 7, 10, 12 and 13). When not at work Geniene can be found on her 15 acre mini-farm, with ducks; chickens; dogs and her bearded dragon.
Kathy Hammonds started her teaching career near her hometown and taught Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade. While working there she attended Union College where she received her Master’s Degree in Elementary Education. After a few years, she moved to Las Vegas, Nevada where she taught 3rd and 4th grade as well as serving as a Literacy Specialist and Interventionist. This is where her passion for working with English learners started and grew. She returned to Kentucky to work as a classroom teacher in Boone County, where she now works as an English as a Second Language Teacher in her building. She enjoys working with my teachers every day as a team to support the learning of all students. Her team also works closely with their families and community.
This is a very special episode of Highest Aspirations, not only because of our well known and highly respected guest, but also because almost all of the questions come directly from our listeners. We’d like to thank everyone who contributed to this episode by submitting questions for Sonia Nazario, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author of Enrique’s Journey and we’d love to keep the conversation going. You can use our voicemail feature to share your comments so we can share them in future episodes. We also want to offer a special thanks and congratulations to Emily Golightly from Carteret County Schools in Morehead City, NC who is the winner of our drawing to win a copy of "Enrique’s Journey".
During our conversation, Sonia and I discuss her inspiration for writing "Enrique’s Journey", how themes in the book connect directly with the students we work with, what we can do to help curb the cycle of violence that force so many to flee countries like Honduras, and much more.
For those who may not be familiar with her work, we invite you to learn more by visiting her website at enriquesjourney.com. You can also read her column here.
You can stay connected with us by joining our ELL Community at ellevationeducation.com/ellcommunity. There you can leave comments about this episode and others. You can also engage with great content like our short video series, blog posts, and articles. Finally, please consider leaving us a review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. This will help us continue bringing you the best topics and guests on Highest Aspirations.
How does Exc-ELL help teachers better serve their English learners and Dual language learners? How do we go about coaching others when observing classrooms and how does using observation protocols help administrators understand what teaching vocabulary, reading comprehension, and other strategies look like? How might we create a culture of giving and receiving feedback? Plus, we come back to the Seal of Biliteracy to ask how all this work might help more students access it. For more information on Dr. Calderón's expansive work, check out the show notes on Part 1.
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