ELL News Headlines

Throughout the week, Colorín Colorado gathers news headlines related to English language learners from around the country. The ELL Headlines are posted Monday through Friday and are available for free!

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How to Foster a Positive School Climate in a Virtual World

EdSurge
As we continue to adjust to this new virtual learning environment, success will depend, to a large extent, on whether we can shift our focus from tactical to strategic. And there is nothing more strategic than school climate. You may feel like you have too much on your plate to worry about school climate right now. But the truth is, school climate is the plate. More than 25 years of research tells us that the climate of a school matters; it literally guides how well almost everything gets done. Positive school climates are characterized by psychological and physical safety, where students feel comfortable expressing themselves, asking questions and taking risks, and educators are free to raise ideas or try new techniques. Having a positive school climate means practicing collaborative decision-making to ensure students’ and teachers’ voices are heard, building connections with the community, delivering excellent academic instruction and supporting the well-being of both staff and students.

Support Native Language Center to Help Fight COVID-19

Language Magazine
Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) is calling for the inclusion of a provision in the next coronavirus relief bill to establish a Native American Language Resource Center (NALRC) to support Native American language education schools and programs hit hard by COVID-19. The proposed center would promote best practices in Native American language education; provide outreach to students and families; acquisition of distance learning technologies and training for parents, students, teachers and learning support staff; compile digital libraries and curate other online resources in target Native American languages; develop distance learning curricula appropriate for preschool to PhD levels, pedagogical training for teachers, and other efforts necessary to continue Native American language acquisition among American Indian, Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian communities.

Less learning and late guidance: School districts struggle to help English language learners during COVID-19 crisis

Chalkbeat

In elementary schools, children got 30 minutes of remote instruction in English and math each day. Teachers were supposed to incorporate language skills into that work, but students missed out on 55 minutes of daily English language development they received before the virus struck. The rapid shift to remote learning forced by the COVID-19 crisis has left the nation’s roughly 5 million English language learners in a precarious position. Many have seen their language instruction shrink as districts balance competing priorities and struggle to connect with students attending school from their living rooms. Schools and districts have largely had to figure out how to meet the needs of English learners on their own. 

DACA Students Excluded From U.S. Federal Aid; Lawsuit, New Act Ensue

Language Magazine
The U.S. Department of Education has blocked DACA recipients and other undocumented students from receiving COVID-19 relief money in the CARES Act. Around $14 billion in aid money was given to college campuses from the CARES Act, and nearly half of that money was intended to go to students directly in the form of grants. Several weeks after the bill passed, Secretary DeVos released guidance on eligibility for students in which she stated that students must eligible for aid under Title IV of the Higher Education Act in order to receive the CARES Act grants, which excludes DACA recipients and other undocumented students. DACA recipients and other undocumented students may receive future aid, however. The House has included new language to the HEROES Act that would prohibit the education department from imposing the same restrictions if it were to pass through Congress. The new act would only require a student to be enrolled in a college or university to be eligible for assistance.

Supporting Families of ELs During the COVID-19 Pandemic

TESOL
Educators of English learners (ELs) are teaching remotely all over the globe. Many educators reported on a 20 April #ellchat entitled “Engaging & Supporting Families of ELLs during COVID-19 Pandemic” that their success is dependent on the partnerships they make with the families of their ELs. Without these partnerships, teachers may have difficulty contacting their students and their families or, once contacted, students may not come to class regularly. Here are some ways that you can engage and support the families of ELs.

COVID Stories to Remember: New radio program for Spanish-speaking parents fills gaps in distance learning

WTSP (Tampa Bay, FL)

Distance learning during this pandemic has been a learning curve. It’s no secret it has comes with challenges as parents take on a new role as teachers. A Suncoast radio station is helping parents adapt to distance learning with a new educational program for parents and students. Solmart Media and Dreamers Academy teamed up to create “Nuestros Niños” or “Our Children.” It’s a new half-hour weekly program for Spanish-speaking parents. It covers educational topics focusing on the needs of parents who are now involved in distance learning with their children. It allows Spanish-speaking parents to engage in their child's education, while still using their language and upholding their culture.

Why Grading Policies For Equity Matter More Than Ever

KQED Mindshift

While some students are learning in homes with abundant resources and parental support, others are sharing devices or bandwidth, taking care of siblings, or fitting school work around jobs. Such varied learning conditions raise a question: how can schools grade fairly during a pandemic? For some educators, the answer is simple: they can’t. “If we’re grading right now, we’re grading privilege,” said school equity consultant Sheldon L. Eakins. Resource disparities are one of several reasons that grades cannot accurately represent student learning right now. Other factors include the enormous stress families are experiencing, which can impede cognition and lower student performance, and the reality that teachers have rapidly shifted to online instruction with little training. At San Leandro Unified, leaders took all of those factors into consideration when devising a plan for grading during COVID-19. Their solutions included switching to a pass/incomplete system at secondary schools and focusing on narrative feedback at elementary schools.

We Might Have Gotten Remote Learning Wrong. We Can Still Fix This School Year

Education Week
If you accept the position that the end of the school year hasn’t usually accounted for much learning, you could easily wonder if teachers, students, and their families would have been better served if we had used this time differently. Instead of trying to mimic, as best we could, regular school, we could have instead: 1. Offered optional enrichment activities for those students and their families who wanted it rather than adding stress to their lives and the lives of teachers, too. 2. Focused on supporting the most vulnerable populations of students–English-language learners, those with special needs, and students who are at risk of failing or dropping out. Those are the students most affected by “opportunity gaps,” and the ones, it seems to me and others, who are most hurt by the school closures. 3. Planning for the kind of hybrid teaching we're likely going to have to do for the next two years until there is a vaccine, along with training on issues relevant to both physical and virtual classrooms—culturally responsive teaching, ways to create the conditions for student intrinsic motivation, and more.

California Boosts Training for Teachers and Higher Education Faculty to Meet the Needs of Dual Language Learners

New America
As California adopts policies that value bilingualism, early childhood teachers need training and support if they are to ensure the children in their care are ready for kindergarten. An early learning classroom in Los Angeles can be juggling a dozen different languages, including native dialects. In the Imperial Valley, immigrant or refugee children may stay only a short time. Teachers must learn to meet those children’s needs even if they themselves don’t speak the child’s language. Realizing this, California’s Preschool Instructional Network (CPIN) used new available funding to offer online professional development through the California Department of Education that trains early educators to better serve DLLs.

Visualization of 'Tips for Remote Teaching With ELL Students'

Education Week

The blog Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo has featured educator-created English- and Spanish-language visualizations and infographics of key points in a number of Ferlazzo's videos. In a recent blog, Ferlazzo shares a new visualization of the key points made in his video, 'Tips for Remote Teaching With ELL Students,' which discusses student choice, rethinking synchronous teaching, keeping things simple, connecting with parents, and more.

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