New Infographic: English Learners Who Are Black
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A new infographic from OELA highlights facts on Black students within the EL population. According to data from the 2017–2018 school year, 223,893, or 4.2%, of K–12 ELs identify as Black in U.S. schools. In some states, such as South Dakota and Maine, more than 25% of all Black students are ELs.
Among the top 10 local educational agencies (LEAs) with the highest percentage of Black students who are ELs, percentages ranged from 12% to almost 75%. Minnesota had the most LEAs in the top 10 LEAs reporting the largest percentage of Black ELs.
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Thank A Teacher
May 4 was National Teacher Day! OELA recognizes the dedicated educators across the country and the lasting contributions they make to our lives. Thank you, teachers!
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Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program
Teachers, did you know that if you teach full-time for five complete and consecutive academic years in a low-income school or educational service agency, and meet other requirements, you may qualify to have up to $17,500 of your student loans forgiven?
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ICYMI: English Learners in Secondary Schools Webinar Recording |
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Highlights:
- We need lots of innovation to support dually identified students.
- ELs need a high-challenge and high-support pedagogy.
- Some warning signs that offer an opportunity for intervention include course failure, repeated courses, missing core content areas in schedule, incomplete schedules, slow progress toward credits required for graduation, and chronic absenteeism and/or disengagement.
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In this webinar, English Learner Portal colleagues Brenda Custodio and Judith O'Laughlin will share a description of students with interrupted education (SIFE/SLIFE); causes of interrupted schooling; two main categories of SLIFE in Western schools: refugees and Latinos; issues unique to SLIFE; and academic and socio-emotional supports needed. |
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Join the Center for Applied Linguistics for their series Research to Policy: Critical Conversations in Language Education. Speakers will consider digital teaching and learning in dual language bilingual education programs, including Indigenous language programs. They will discuss the importance of going “beyond the tech” and will critically consider how technology affords the potential for both inclusion and exclusion in dual language bilingual education programs. |
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Join English Learner Portal’s colleague, Laura Gardner (Founder, Immigrant Connections), for a conversation about how to best welcome and support new unaccompanied youth in our schools. This webinar will cover who unaccompanied immigrant youth are and strategies to get you started in planning for their arrival. |
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May 27–28 or June 1–2, and June 3–4
Summer Institutes
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Join leading experts during these virtual summer institutes to get support for navigating this ever-changing educational climate for your ELs and emerging bilinguals. Teachers, instructional coaches, and district leaders will have the opportunity to dive deeper into best practices, cultural responsiveness, and support for language learners |
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June 24–26
Virtual Conference
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Join a community of indigenous educators and researchers to share proven strategies and practical resources that participants can immediately use to welcome students to their classrooms and to promote student success in 2021. The theme is “Culturally Sustaining Practices for Teaching Indigenous Students.” |
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July 14–16
Virtual Conference
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Learn from fellow educators, education leaders, and SIOP® authors how to make learning relevant and comprehensible for ELs. |
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November 10–13
Hybrid Conference
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La Cosecha 2021 will be a hybrid event, comprising both a virtual and an in-person conference. Virtual registration is open now, and in-person registration is expected to open in July. La Cosecha Conference offers you the unique opportunity to share best practices and resources and current theory and practice, build networks, and fuel community efforts to build a better future for our children as we “harvest” the best of our multilingual and multicultural communities. |
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Daily News
The West View Elementary School in Muncie, IN, started a kindergarten English-Spanish dual language immersion program in the 2017–18 school year, adding one grade every subsequent year. The dual language program is now offered to students from kindergarten through 3rd grade. The goals of the West View dual language program are “bilingualism and biliteracy, high academic achievement, and sociocultural competence.” To meet these goals, the program uses an 80/20 system (i.e., 80% of the classes are taught in Spanish and 20% in English). The West View School is one of 32 schools in Indiana that offer a dual language immersion program.
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Vox.com
Like so many schools across the nation, the Gregory Heights Elementary School in Burien, WA, traded in-person classes for virtual classes last spring. About 50% of students attending Gregory Heights qualify for free or reduced lunch; of these students, 40% are ELs. The switch to online learning raised concerns that students were falling behind, especially those students who had been struggling before the pandemic. The school staff initially considered remediation and retention to address the issue. However, research from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina indicated that acceleration, where students do grade-level work but get targeted help when they don’t understand something, was more effective than retention or remediation. The early results from Gregory Heights’ use of an accelerated approach to address “lost learning” show that it’s working.
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Education Week
This article and a companion 10-minute BAM! Radio Show discuss strategies for effectively assessing the learning and progress of ELs. Four educators contributed to the discussion, each one focusing on a different aspect of assessment. The strategies presented include (1) using assessment to maximize linguistic and cultural equity, (2) formal and informal assessments, (3) rubrics, portfolios, and conferences, and (4) portfolio-based assessment for young dual language learners.
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Institute of Education Sciences
NEW RESOURCE: What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Math Tips for Parents and Caregivers
The WWC has released two sets of math tips for parents and caregivers to use when helping children learn fractions and algebra at home. These brief guides are based on WWC practice guides. The tips on fractions guide includes activities that cover kindergarten through grade 8. The tips on algebra guide is intended for students in middle school and high school.
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Institute of Education Sciences
NEW RESOURCE: DoingWhatWorks Library
Two sets of DoingWhatWorks videos that portray implementation of evidence-based practices for teaching ELs from the WWC guides are now available for download. The Pre-K–1st Grade English Learner Instruction set includes three videos that address interactive read-alouds and academic vocabulary instruction. The 6th–7th Grades English Learner Instruction set has two videos; one depicts an instructional strategy for 6th grade science and the other video relates to history instruction in 7th grade.
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Successful Innovations, a partner of the National Association for Family, School, and Community Engagement, is seeking proposals for workshop presentations for its 2021 National Family Engagement Summit, taking place in Norfolk, VA, and virtually, October 13–15. The Summit brings together family, school, and community engagement professionals from across the country for a professional development opportunity to gain valuable strategies to support family and school partnerships. Presenters will address a group of 40–70 participants for 60 minutes.
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This program focuses on closing the gap for heritage school teachers and/or native speakers by creating a Personalized Learning Plan to work toward state certification. This teacher training program will support up to 50 prospective teachers in eight targeted STARTALK languages to address the critical need for K–12 language programs in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
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This program is designed to help early-career language educators succeed in their current assignments and learn the skills to be successful in the long term. Mentors and mentees will be matched by language, level, interest, and location as best as possible. Three mentor programs are available: the traditional program for in-person educators, the distance-language-educator program for those who teach online, and a hybrid program for those currently teaching in-person and remotely.
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Registration is now open for the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) Summer Institutes, which are targeted at elementary through postsecondary foreign/world language educators and language teacher educators. All the institutes will be taught online in either an asynchronous or synchronous format.
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Take part in an engaging facilitated online professional learning community and earn a certificate for 12 hours of professional development upon successful course completion. All SupportEd online courses are asynchronous, go-at-your-own pace with intermediary deadlines. Most courses are based on books by Drs. Diane Staehr Fenner and Sydney Snyder. Courses include:
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Adams 12 Five Star Schools
Thornton, CO
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The Education Trust
Washington, DC
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Podcast: EL Teacher Preparation
Teacher preparation is a key challenge in providing high-quality instruction for ELs. OELA’s two-part podcast featuring Jessica Swan and Anjali Pandey explores the successes, challenges, and lessons learned from the TARGET teacher training program in Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
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Subscribe to NCELA Nexus
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Submit Your News
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Send your alerts, upcoming events, resources, and job postings to AskNCELA
by Tuesday, May 18 for inclusion in the next edition of Nexus.
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National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition (NCELA)
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Disclaimer: NCELA Nexus is intended to share information that can be of use to educators, parents, learners, leaders, and other stakeholders in their efforts to ensure that every student, including ELs, is provided with the highest quality education and expanded opportunities to succeed. The information and materials presented on NCELA Nexus do not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by NCELA, the Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA), or the U.S. Department of Education.
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