Latest from the Blog
When Your Program is Not Really Dual Language
Dual Language (DL) programs are often on the chopping block. Poor data will quickly push those in power to say, “Dual Language doesn’t work.” The closing of DL programs, then, discourages other districts from launching DL programs. However, the research is clear that DL programs do work. So what is the disconnect? One of the…
Simultaneous Bilinguals’ Surprising Language Trajectories
When most people think of Emergent Bilingual students, they usually think of sequential bilinguals. Sequential bilingual learners are those students who have a clear first language (L1) and acquire English as a second (or subsequent) language (L2) at school (or elsewhere). However, across the United States, the majority of our Emergent Bilingual students are simultaneous…
Policy Examples Supporting Dual Language Education
In our last post, we discussed how Dual Language (DL) programs always tend to be on the chopping block. Various reasons may be given. Many of those reasons may even be legitimate concerns that need to be addressed such as instructional strategies or the need for high quality resources. But always mindset has a greater…
Addressing Policy Rather Than Mindset to Protect Our Dual Language Programs
Dual Language (DL) programs always tend to be on the chopping block. Those whose mindsets are against DL often give a variety of reasons for our programs to face demise. Let’s be honest. Sometimes programs are in danger because we, as Dual Language educators, have failed to build a strong program. We have either failed…
5 Ways to Build Resilience, An Essential Tool for Sociocultural Competence
Sociocultural Competence is one of the three pillars of Dual Language Education and encompasses the following four domains: identity formation, intercultural competence or diversity, the ability to identify injustice, and the ability to take action against injustice. When our students are able and willing to take action against injustice, we know we have reached our…
Proud Parent of an “EL” Student
A few years back, a principal vehemently argued with me that a student who had scored “approaching proficient” on her English language screener should not be classified as an English Learner (EL)*. According to this principal, the student, who was at the time entering Kindergarten, spoke English well and did not speak much Spanish. When…
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Social Justice and Education 