Teaching Channel Talks Episode 113: Supporting Multilingual Learners in Every Classroom (w/ Katherine Hamilton, Ensemble Learning)

Dr. Wendy Amato 00:00

Welcome to Teaching Channel Talk. I’m Dr. Wendy Amato, your host, and as often as I can, I jump into conversations about topics that matter in education, and with more than 5.1 million students identified as English learners in US public schools today, meeting the needs of this population is certainly important.

In this episode, I welcome Catherine Hamilton, vice President of Programs for Ensemble Learning. Catherine, welcome.

Katherine Hamilton 00:36

Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to talk about this great population of students.

Dr. Wendy Amato 00:41

I’m excited to hear your story. Catherine, why is this an important topic to you?

Katherine Hamilton 00:47

I think first is, I mean the data, you, you shared it multilingual learners, um, which is a term we use at ensemble just to really encompass the, the different terms, English learners, ESL, emergent bilinguals.

We use this umbrella term multilingual learners. Um, but they are the fastest growing population of students in the United States. And so, um, it is a group of students that spend most of their time in. Tier one instructional classrooms, and we really want to ensure their success. For, for me personally, I started my teaching career in the northeast part of Los Angeles.

Um, I was a high school math teacher, and for me, really, I got into teaching and teaching math because I saw it as such a barrier for students. Um. Attaining graduation, attaining higher education. Just math is something that really kind of is this wall for many of our students and very, very quickly in serving the community I was serving, I realized I.

Language is also a barrier, but it could also be something that really catapults students to success. And it was really, it reframed my entire way of thinking about teaching that I was not just teaching math, I was teaching math and language and language for students to interact with one another. Just, just generally to be, you know.

Critical voices in the world, but also the language they needed to be successful in math and then successful in kind of higher education and, and career. And so, um, this framing, like I said, changed my way of thinking about teaching and learning. And, um, when an opportunity came to really focus on, you know, how do I help?

All teachers see this framing, um, around content and language and really support students in the classroom. Um, I took that opportunity to join Ensemble and haven’t looked back and just, you know, love the way that we can elevate this amazing community of students, support them and, and help them really, you know, meet all, you know, their dreams, um, in, in schools.

Dr. Wendy Amato 03:01

Ensemble Learning is a small nonprofit. Tell me about it and describe the mission.

Katherine Hamilton 03:07

Yeah, we, um, we are small but mighty, I like to say, and we have the distinct privilege of focusing on equity for multilingual learners. And, you know, in this day and age. School leaders, uh, school systems, they have what feels like a million things on their plate.

And so we get to come in and partner with schools, with districts, even with, you know, state education agencies. We’re a partner of TEA in Texas, um, to help really understand how do we best serve and, and support those entities and how to best serve our multilingual learners. And so. At a school level, we work with teachers and school leaders, professional learning and coaching, really what’s happening in the classroom.

But then we also, um, zoom out and look at, you know, how do we align district, uh, even state priorities? How do we really help schools leverage funding for the best, uh, resources for these students? Um, and really just think about how do we, you know, make schools great places for multilingual learners to learn and thrive.

Dr. Wendy Amato 04:19

Katherine, one of the things that you and I have talked about is the different priorities that people have in various roles throughout the schools. At the district level, the school level, the classroom level. Can you talk about how you’re able to help different roles align on priorities? I.

Katherine Hamilton 04:37

I think that’s one of the biggest challenges our public schools face is they, they’re getting directives from kind of all areas.

And also educators are amazing and they, they want to support all students. And so it’s very easy to start creating a strategic plan or looking at a school improvement plan and suddenly end up with, there are 20 things that we want to do. Um, and so. The first piece is when we partner with a school, um, or a district, we really want to like embed ourselves and understand the work that they’re already doing.

What direction, you know, is their boat heading? Wh where, where is their due north? What’s their, what are their top priorities? Because it, we understand that if we come in and say, actually we’re gonna do something completely different to serve multilingual learners, um, it’s gonna be overwhelming. We’re not gonna create the instructional change for teachers.

Um, and so we really, we always start with an audit. We always look at where our schools will do walkthroughs. We’ll do empathy interviews with teachers, uh, with leaders, with students understanding. What’s going well so that we can build on that. But then what, you know, what are the priorities? What are the directions that a school is going into?

Um, and so, you know, if a school’s focusing on rigor, which is a common thing a lot of schools are focusing on, how do we then say, okay, how do. Let’s analyze what you’re currently working on, see what is working for your multilingual learners, and let’s see where maybe the gaps are so that we can help you move in the same direction.

Um, we like to really emphasize bite-size pieces, bite-size growth. What is the small unit of instructional change we wanna see in the classroom? How do we help teachers learn that? How do we coach them to do it? Often we’ll do like demo lessons, help them really see that shift in the classroom, and then we align up to the school leader and then the district leader and say, okay, if this is what we’re working on in the classroom, here’s what the instructional leadership will look like at these different levels to support it and move in the same direction.

What is really great is so much of our research for multilingual learners, like I said, is there are strategies that are going to actually help all students with academic language, with rigor, with um, kind of deeper, higher level thinking. So there’s just a lot that we can help move in the right direction.

But it does depend on looking at data together. I think that’s really important ’cause we have to. You know, the proof is in the pudding. We have to look at what’s actually the outcome for our students, and then it’s also our partners trusting us to bring the research, bring some of the like best practices in the multilingual sphere to them so that we can align there.

Dr. Wendy Amato 07:29

What does the research tell us about what does work for multilingual learners?

Katherine Hamilton 07:36

First of all, the research is astounding about the power of dual language programming. So it’s something that, you know, different states are at different places in terms of pushing that forward. Um, like I’ve said, we’ve been working with the Texas Education Association or Texas Education Agency, um, because they have really been on the forefront in Texas about saying.

If you have a certain number of multilingual learners, like we want your school to have dual language programming. Um, and so that is something there where when we’re partnering with a district, not just a school, but kind of a bigger system, we will really bring the research and say, let’s look at your capacity to move and shift into dual language programming, because that.

Students by by, you know, tapping into students’ home and first language, we can really meet the promise of grade level content instruction and language development. And we give students that opportunity to really tap into their cultural and linguistic repertoire to achieve academic success. Um, so that’s the first thing is like if there’s a possibility for even program innovation, dual language programming.

The second thing is if, if it’s not a dual language school, we, um, we really look at the research of Retta Hammond looking at culture, a lot of the cultural pieces that need to be in place. And then we also use a lot of research, um, from Jeff Weers and his team around, um, you know, that comprehensible input.

How do we really. Break down language, um, to understand the language demands on students and then how do we support output. And honestly, something we’ve been elevating a lot is structured student talk since the pandemic, we don’t give students opportunity to practice language in a structured way in our classrooms.

So that’s been a really top kind of research based strategy that we’ve been, uh, doing a lot of professional learning about.

Dr. Wendy Amato 09:41

Our listenership always appreciates really practical application of concepts. Can you give me a specific example of a practice that you have in the past recommended to a classroom teacher to help their language learners?

Katherine Hamilton 09:56

When we talk about student talk, um, one of the most important things in a classroom, um, and something that. It can be scary for teachers to give away that control for students to talk, and also cannot always feel fruitful because a teacher might pose a question and say, you know, turn to your partner, and then only a handful of students are talking.

And so we, um, really look at the research around what makes productive student talk. And in order for it to really support multilingual learners, it has to be. Coached, it has to be very explicit about what language, um, kind of functions, what language forms are students actually practicing. Um, and you have to have that universal accountability.

And so the really tangible thing, um, that, that I teach when I work with, with schools, our, our whole team really sticks to, is kind of the big three. With student talk. You need to have a structure, you need to have language supports, and you need to have accountability. And within those, there are many.

Different little pieces you can mix and match to get the right, um, you know, hitting all three of those. Um, I always push, uh, or point people to side. Lets, education has a structure called q triples a. It’s where you pose a question. You give students a stem to practice the language, get started a sentence stem, you have a signal.

So students have the appropriate amount of think time. They can signal to you when they’re ready. They share that. Third S is share. So a way for them to practice with a partner, um, or a small group before you would speak as the whole class. And then some type of a accountability. So a way for them. Are they, are you using equity sticks, calling on students to the whole class?

Are students, um, writing a response after they talked? But some way to have that accountability and each time, even in professional learning, I wanna model these things. And so each time I’m planning for teachers to have structured student talk or I’m coaching them, I always just go back to those three pieces.

Structure, language, support, accountability.

Dr. Wendy Amato 12:09

Talk to me a little bit about some of the technicalities of that intersection between perhaps the student’s WIDA score and their grade level.

Katherine Hamilton 12:19

I mean, that’s the reality of the US classroom right now is you could be a third grade teacher and you have students who’ve only spoken English their whole life.

You have students who were born in the US but didn’t speak much English maybe until they got to school, and you have students arriving at your school. In March who have just arrived in the US and um, even for those students, some have been in school in another country, some have been outta school for a while.

So that is the reality of the US teacher is you have a wide variety. When you look at those WIDA access scores or telpas or elpac, whatever state you are in, they are gonna run the gamut. And it really goes back to like our role as a classroom teacher is. Teaching students grade level content. And that feels so challenging when you have a variety of language, so, you know, language, um, proficiencies.

And so it’s really taking, if this is the content. Really breaking it down into, okay, what’s the content learning my students need and what’s the language learning, you know, to, to, you know, write about or communicate about the content we’re learning in third grade, you know, we’re learning about fractions and we wanna be comparing and contrasting them.

What’s the academic language my students need to be able to build and to have, um, and once you as a teacher can look at. Your grade level content and say, what’s the content and what’s the language? Then you have this piece, this language, that you can then say, okay, for my newcomer students, how do they access it?

How do I support them for my students at beginning proficiency? And you can start to think about what are your students at those different data levels need for you. Teachers are sometimes afraid of providing too much language support because they. Look at students who don’t need it and think, oh, I don’t wanna give them too much.

I want them to be, you know, practicing language without too many scaffolds. Um, but I think really reminding teachers, you know, you can, if you have a, a closed sentence or a really supported sentence, stem or frame, you can print it out on a piece of paper and just hand it to individual students. You can really think about strategically.

Um. How you wanna support language. It doesn’t mean you have to be providing that for every student. Um, and it’s also a conversation you can have as a classroom. Hey, isn’t it so great that we are learning together and we have friends who speak other languages? That’s awesome. They can help us as we talk about cognates as we talk about, you know, the great community we have.

Sometimes when we are practicing our academic English, you’re gonna notice that different friends in our classroom have different resources. If you ever feel like you need more of a resource, let me know. I will help. But often we aren’t transparent with our students about, you know, the different needs that people have.

And so that can be a great place to, you know, build culture and community and, and celebrating those different languages in your room.

Dr. Wendy Amato 15:40

One of the things I appreciate that you do is to help with key practices for successful classroom walkthroughs. I’m imagining an instructional coach or a school administrator walking through a classroom not having content knowledge or not being familiar with the fluency or language backgrounds of the learners.

What advice would you have for me in that kind of position?

Katherine Hamilton 16:05

Yeah, I think, well, it, it really connects to what we talked about earlier of, you know, looking at school goals and priorities and working to align those. And so, um, what we do. In our work, we will, you know, provide professional learning, we’ll provide coaching, but we also, um, in our partnerships really like to provide coaching for instructional coaches.

And also we will model classroom walkthroughs because we wanna build the capacity of schools and districts to continue the work, you know. All the time, not just when we are there. And so the real key piece is, um, being clear when you’re gonna walk into a classroom of what it is that you are looking for and.

What we tend to do is we have clear look fors for, for example, structured student talk. What are some key look fors? You know, there should be students interacting with one another. Teachers are posing discussion worthy questions. Teachers are circulating and giving feedback like there are all these look.

As we unpack that, we actually. Present to teachers in the professional learning so they know, Hey, what should this look like? You know, when I’m assessing, self-assessing. And then we use those same look fors with coaches as we think about how do we identify next steps and what does that coaching cycle look like?

And then it’s those consistent look fors with a school leader. Um. A real key for a walkthrough is delineating. What’s the purpose of a walkthrough versus the purpose of coaching or. Even for a walkthrough is the purpose of this to inform our next professional learning is the purpose of this to inform ongoing coaching is the purpose of this, to evaluate the effectiveness of the last professional learning.

And you can have a number of purposes, but I think at the outset being really clear about we’re collecting data for this. Purpose, here’s the consistent tool and look fors, you know, grounded in the research of that practice. And then when you come back, that facilitated debrief kind of helps you narrow in and focus on, you know, why did we do this walkthrough?

You can kind of, you can have a couple of focus areas, often will say. We wanna know what was supportive in the last pd, how many people are actually doing this practice. And then we also want to know the nuance of what are they doing well, but what kind of, where’s the next step for them? And we also wanna gather a little bit of data to know like maybe some of the individual conversations our coach should have.

Um, but it’s always really important after a walk to be really clear about what those next steps are from the different perspectives Also. Wanna set the stage because you said something so powerful that not all school leaders have expertise in everything. And so also using it as a space for them to ask questions.

Um, and so, you know, leaving a classroom saying, did you have any questions about what you saw? Are you wondering anything? And using it really as almost a coaching session for school leaders to build up their expertise. You know, I was a high school math teacher. So I might go into a third grade dual language bilingual classroom and say 95% of what happened in there.

I understand I can connect to practice, but there is a little 5% that I’m like, oh, I think that’s something very specific to dual language. And I will turn to my dual language expert and say, help me understand this piece. Um, and we want coaches and leaders to feel comfortable doing that so they can be continually, continually growing as well.

Dr. Wendy Amato 19:56

Catherine, let’s invite you to offer a call to action to the education community across the United States. In a sentence or two, what would you like to see happen in schools today?

Katherine Hamilton 20:09

I want people to know that multilingual learners are amazing. They are coming to our classrooms with a vast linguistic repertoire.

It may not be in academic English yet, but what they are contributing, the whole communities are contributing culturally, linguistically it. It is amazing and all educators need to just really hold on to these are all of our students and, and the promise for success when we support them is so vast and so incredible for our schools, for our country, for our future.

Um, so just get, get excited, get the support you need because, you know, this is, there’s so much promise here.

Dr. Wendy Amato 20:54

Thank you, Catherine, to our fellow educators, thank you for joining our conversation. If you’d like to explore topics that Catherine and I discuss today, please check out the show [email protected] slash podcast.

Be sure to subscribe on whatever listening app you use that will help others to find us. I’ll see you again soon for the next episode. Thanks for listening.