What Is Translanguaging and How Is It Used in the Classroom? by Ileana Najarro

Frankly, I always felt that language in the traditional bilingual language classroom was too stiff, creating distinct lanes for English and Spanish despite a real complexity of language often referred to as "Tex-Mex" that teachers looked down on when I was growing up. I imagine that many people still do. 

Not so in the world of bilingual education, with CUNY Graduate Center Professor Dr. Ofelia Garcia and her students like Dr. Nelson Flores and others.

When I think of the concept of translanguaging, the word, "freedom," pops immediately into my head. This piece by Ileana Najarro in Edweek affirms that view.

-Angela Valenzuela

What Is Translanguaging and How Is It Used in the Classroom?

Getty

By Ileana Najarro — July 13, 2023 | Edweek

For years, research into the best instructional approaches for students identified as English learners has pointed to the concept of translanguaging.

Identified by bilingual education researcher Ofelia García, it’s both a skill set and a total shift in the way language is thought of, used, and taught in K-12 classrooms where multiple languages are honored and addressed, even as English remains the dominant language of instruction, said Marybelle Marrero-Colon, the associate director of professional development for the Center for Applied Linguistics.

Researchers are looking into how it can be applied to formal assessments, such as state standardized tests on which English learners might struggle to demonstrate their academic proficiency because they are tested in an unfamiliar language.

Here’s a look at what translanguaging means in the context of classroom instruction and how all educators, including monolingual English-speaking teachers, can cultivate spaces for translanguaging to occur.

What is the definition of translanguaging?

Translanguaging is the ability to move fluidly between languages and a pedagogical approach to teaching in which teachers support this ability.

In translanguaging, students are able to think in multiple languages simultaneously and use their home language as a vehicle to learn academic English.

A student could be reading an article about the solar system in English, but in their brain, they are also thinking and making connections in Spanish. They might annotate in Spanish or first write down reading comprehension responses in Spanish and then figure out how to provide the responses in English, said Marrero-Colon.

It’s all about encouraging students to access their full linguistic repertoires, said Emily Phillips Galloway, an assistant professor at the Peabody College of Education at Vanderbilt University.

Translanguaging is also multimodal. More research is underway, for instance, on hearing impaired translanguaging by students who are part of families with American sign language, Spanish sign language, and signs families create for themselves, said Maria Cieslak, the professional development content manager at the Center for Applied Linguistics.

How is translanguaging used in the classroom?

Teachers can engage in a variety of activities that deliberately encourage translanguaging, ranging from providing vocabulary in multiple languages to collaborative translation opportunities. The goal is to get students translanguaging as a practice that can be leveraged toward supporting literacy outcomes and engagement, as well as other academic endeavors.

For example, two students could be assigned to solve a word problem, and one might be stuck on a word in English. The two students can then use an equivalent word in their home language to make sense of what the word problem is asking of them, Phillips Galloway said.

Or in group activities, students can be prompted to share with the rest of the class how something taught in English would make sense in Spanish by highlighting similar and different grammatical structures between the two languages, Marrero-Colon said.

“When you translate, you don’t have to do it word for word. You’re really trying to capture the feeling of that text,” Marrero-Colon said.

Once teachers start doing these activities, research has found that students who have not spoken before start speaking and students who were not as engaged in text-comprehension activities suddenly are, she added. That’s occurring because they are being encouraged to use their home language in class to think about language use overall.

How is translanguaging different from translation?

Translanguaging extends beyond translation to something where students gain an understanding of how language functions and works.

Although translation activities are a way to engage in translanguaging, it’s not word-for-word translation. It’s about a student using the words and thoughts they have in their home language to make sense of English and then be able to respond in English, said Kia Johnson, the director of PreK–12 language and literacy at the Center for Applied Linguistics.

Translanguaging requires students to think about language components such as the placement of adjectives, what cognates are in various languages, and more in multiple languages at once, Phillips Galloway said.

Does translanguaging require bilingual teachers?

Teachers don’t have to speak the home languages of students to help them engage in translanguaging.

It does require teachers to be comfortable being a learner themselves as students teach them what they know about their own language. Some teachers may fear that students may engage in off-task behavior in languages the teachers don’t understand, but research has found that in such cases, teachers are still able to register what is going on and get students back on task, Phillips Galloway said.

She also said that teachers who work in states with laws requiring English-only instruction can and should still allow students to use other languages in the classroom to help them access academic content.

The key, Marrero-Colon said, is flexibility. For instance, a student may need to write an essay in English. They can instead start with building a PowerPoint primarily of images that convey a story or meaning. The teacher can then use the PowerPoint to help students come up with words and phrases, then move to sentences and paragraphs, and so on.

Does translanguaging just benefit English learners?

All students can benefit from a classroom welcoming of translanguaging because few use academic English at home, regardless of their home language.

For instance, Black students may be fluent in African American Vernacular English and can use translanguaging activities to engage in academic classroom English, Johnson said.

An example of English-only translanguaging is asking students to turn William Shakespeare’s sonnets into modern pop songs, because it is a use of language in different registers, or levels of formality, Phillips Galloway said.

Students are also more interested in acquiring more languages after hearing their peers use their home languages, which helps them succeed in an increasingly global society, she added.

Would translanguaging hinder a student’s ability to acquire English?

The more opportunities students have to use language, whether that’s English or not, breeds more language use, which is then associated with language learning.

“I think the mistake that we often make is that we don’t help students to make the connections between the linguistic resources that they bring in languages other than English,” Phillips Galloway said. “And in the course of doing that, we take a whole set of resources that could be used for comprehending texts as they read in English, or learn to write text in English, we take those resources off the table.”

More research has found that allowing students to participate in translanguaging helps English learners eventually outperform their monolingual peers because they become more flexible in thinking about and using language in academic contexts, Marrero-Colon said.

How can schools overall better encourage translanguaging?

Improved curriculum, professional development, and mindsets around the value of home languages can all help schools to encourage translanguaging and support students in the process.

Phillips Galloway is working with colleagues on a curriculum that better guides teachers in translanguaging activities since not all curricular materials recognize the concept.

Researchers at the Center for Applied Linguistics, including Cieslak, also work on professional development and policy discussions that help educators and policymakers alike understand how English learners bring with them linguistic assets that should be nurtured for overall academic success.

“It’s about understanding cultural identity, and my language is part of my identity,” Cieslak said. “And I’m going to naturally translanguage, whether you tell me I can or cannot.”

 

Literacy Statistics from BookSpring.org—What the Research Says

Friends, 

What is often confused as an issue of kids not having sufficient vocabulary is really a literacy issue that tracks back to them not having books that they own in their homes, reading aloud practices, getting read to earlier, having access to libraries and reading opportunities, as well as characters in fiction or in real life who reflect them.

I love how country singer, Dolly Parton's Imagination Library initiative that she founded in 1995 addresses these exact disparities of children having access to books. Specifically, it is a "book gifting program that mails free, high-quality books to children from birth to age five, no matter their family’s income." 

Thanks, Dolly. Such beautiful, empowering work and philanthropy.

To this, I would add that emergent bilingual students—otherwise referred to as, "English language learners"—are the ones often deemed as either not having sufficient vocabulary or being able to read. Well, such children do have sufficient vocabulary in their own home language such that what they need is well-staffed, well-designed bilingual education classrooms and programs with print-rich, culturally relevant curriculum and instruction in English and Spanish—or the child's other home language—that motivate them to become great readers. 

Expressed differently, what we need is Ethnic Studies in early childhood education which is exactly what we do at our Academia Cuauhtli Saturday school here in Austin, Texas.

One of our district's bilingual educator leaders who is also pursuing a doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction at UT, Patricia Nuñez adds in a recent Tweet that students are always ready for content instruction. It's not like you have to teach them English first before they can get enriching content. This kind of deficit thinking is so wrong-headed and injurious.

On the subject of racial equity with children and youth, do check out another another great 2020 resource by Paula Johnson at IDRA that I've posted to this blog titled, "Early Childhood Resources that explore Race Equity with Young Learners from Paula Johnson at IDRA."

I have told my grandchildren since birth, "readers are leaders," something I believe to be generally true. It at least encourages them. And they both LOVE to read. 

Sí se Puede!

-Angela Valenzuela

#ReadersAreLeaders

@dollyslibrary

 Literacy Statistics from BookSpring.org

• BookSpring’s Programs are Grounded in Theory and Research

A wealth of research provides descriptions of widespread reading failure, as well as promising evidence for the effectiveness of programs like those of of BookSpring, including books-for-ownership programs; reading aloud practices; anticipatory guidance from doctors; parent engagement outreach; and family enrichment events that motivate young children to become readers and learners for life.  Below are some selected references from credible sources with summaries of their research findings.  BookSpring has also developed a theory of change based on research and practice.  We aim to align all our programs and services around this basic model. Also check our Central Texas Reading Survey for recent localized data on reading behaviors, attitudes, and number of books in the home.  The good news is we have the knowledge and tools to fix this problem; we need your help of time and resources to reach the children in most need of assistance in the early years, when interventions can make the most difference.

The Problems of Low Literacy:

• Latino representation in new children’s books has increased — to 6% in 2020 — but still falls well short of matching the proportion of Latino kids living in the United States, which is 26%. The Annie E. Casey Foundation Kids Count Data Center (2020). 
• Nationally, only 35% of public school students were at or above Proficient in grade 4 reading. In Texas, it’s only 25%. National Assessment of Educational Progress. (2017).  U.S. Department of Education, Washington, DC.
• Across the nation only 47.8% of children between birth and five years are read to every day by their parents or other family members. Russ S, Perez V, Garro N, Klass P, Kuo AA, Gershun M, Halfon N, & Zuckerman B. (2007). Reading across thenation: A chartbook. Reach Out and Read National Center, Boston, MA.
• 37% of children arrive at kindergarten without the skills necessary for lifetime learning. Landry, S. H. (2005). Effective early childhood programs: Turning knowledge into action. Houston, TX: University of Texas, Health Science Center at Houston.
• Children from economically disadvantaged homes may know only one or two letters of the alphabet when entering kindergarten, while children in the middle class will know all 26. Lee, V. E. & Burkam, D. T. (2002). Inequality at the starting gate: Social background differences in achievement as children begin school. Economic Policy Institute, Washington, DC.
• 50% of youth with a history of substance abuse have reading problems. Bock, R. (1998). Why Children Succeed or Fail at Reading. Research from NICHD’s Program in Learning Disabilities. U.S. Department of Education, NCES, Washington, DC.
• 50% of children from low-income communities start first grade up to two years behind their peers. Brizius, J. A., & Foster S. A. (1993). Generation to generation: Realizing the promise of family literacy. High/Scope Press.

The Solutions of Early Literacy Interventions:

• Book giveaway programs promote children’s home literacy environment which results in more interest in reading and higher reading scores during early education. de Bondt, M., Willenberg, I. A., & Bus, A. G. (2020). Do book giveaway programs promote the home literacy environment and children’s literacy-related behavior and skills? Review of Educational Research, 90(3), 349-375.
• Higher reading exposure was 95% positively correlated with a “hub” region supporting semantic language processing in the brain, controlling for household income. Hutton, J. S., Horowitz-Kraus, T., Mendelsohn, A. L., DeWitt, T., & Holland, S. K. (2015). Home reading environment and brain activation in preschool children listening to stories. Pediatrics, 136(3), 466-478.
• Motivation to read can be both intrinsic and extrinsic, and the strength of interest in (or love of) reading can be measured from low to high.  More intrinsic motivation to read is positively correlated with more interest in reading in children. Katranci, M. (2015). Book reading motivation scale: Reliability and validity study. Educational Research and Reviews, 10(3), 300.
• Children growing up in homes with at least 20 books get 3 more years of schooling than children from bookless homes, independent of their parents’ education, occupation, and class. Evans, M. D., Kelley, J., Sikora, J., & Treiman, D. J. (2010). Family scholarly culture and educational success: Books and schooling in 27 nations. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 28(2), 171-197.
• By the age of 2, children who are read to regularly display greater language comprehension, larger vocabularies, and higher cognitive skills than their peers. Raikes, H., Pan, B.A., Luze, G.J., Tamis-LeMonda, C.S.,Brooks-Gunn, J., Constantine, J., Tarullo, L.B., Raikes, H.A., & Rodriguez, E. (2006). Mother-child bookreading in low-income families: Correlates and outcomes during the first three years of life. Child Development, 77(4).
• Creating a steady stream of new, age-appropriate books has been shown to nearly triple interest in reading within months. Harris, L. (2003). An assessment of the impact of First Book’s northeast program.
• Children who were read to at least three times a week by a family member were almost twice as likely to score in the top 25% in reading compared to children who were read to less than 3 times a week. Denton, K. & West, G.  (2002).  Children’s reading and mathematics achievement in kindergarten and first grade. U.S. Department of Education, NCES, Washington, DC.
• Findings show higher-than-average scores among students who reported more types of reading material at home. Donahue, P. L., A. D. Finnegan, & N. L. Lutkus. (2001).  The Nation’s report card: Fourth grade reading 2001.  U.S. Department of Education, NCES, Washington, DC.
• The most successful way to improve the reading achievement of low-income children is to increase their access to print. Newman, S., Brazelton, T. B., Zigler, E., Sherman, L. W., Bratton, W., Sanders, J., & Christeson, W. (2000). America’s Child Care Crisis: A Crime Prevention Tragedy.  U.S. Department of Education, ERIC, Washington, DC.

Millions of ELL Students Face Prospect of In-Person, Federal Testing During COVID-19

WIDA needs to take the loss here as it's unconscionable to subject this or any population at risk in the height of a pandemic that further happens to disproportionately impact the families of this very population.  What little useful information it may provide does not justify the risk. 

As per my previous post, what we really need is not a testing system that amounts to little more than checking a box off, but we need instead an assessment system that is authentic, formative and performance-based. Can one only begin to imagine the kind of "test-based curriculum" to which these children are getting exposed right now in order to prepare them for this test? How uninspiring and wrongheaded. 

Furthermore, let's be done with census testing altogether. We've done this for much too long in our country. You don't need a blood transfusion to know the health of the body; you only need a sample and even the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a matrix-sample test, that has long been considered the nation's report card—has been canceled this spring because it's too dangerous to administer, as follows:

“We are in full agreement with the decision by the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics to cease preparation for the NAEP 2021 assessments in reading and mathematics for grades 4 and 8, scheduled to start in January 2021, and to reschedule the assessment to 2022.

However in the middle of a pandemic, where people are sick and dying in staggering numbers, this is arguably irresponsible and discriminatory. Opting out is what I would do if my child were subjected to this. There's no penalty to the children for this anyway in the states that are doing this.

-Angela Valenzuela

#OptOut

Millions of ELL Students Face Prospect of In-Person, Federal Testing During COVID-19

In this Thursday, May 23, 2013 photo, students line up for recess at Jay W. Jeffers Elementary School in Las Vegas. More than 80 percent of the school's incoming kindergartners don’t speak English.

Julie Jacobson/AP

By Corey Mitchell — December 22, 2020 | Corrected: December 28, 2020

Corrected: An earlier version of this article incorrectly included Florida among the states that develop and administer their own English-proficiency exams. Florida uses the ACCESS exam, which is developed by WIDA, one of the nation’s largest ELL testing vendors.

The disruption to in-school learning caused by the global pandemic this year has hit the nation’s 5 million English-language learners especially hard.

These students often lack access to dependable internet and technology, have non-English-speaking parents who struggle to support their remote learning, and have lost crucial access to teachers and classmates who have in prior years helped them develop their language skills.

Now, millions face yet another predicament: being asked to return to schools to take federally required English-language-proficiency exams amid the national surge in coronavirus cases.

That’s because WIDA, one of the nation’s largest ELL testing vendors, has concerns about the validity of a take-home test and students’ access to technology and the internet.

“My job as a test director, is to say that the score you get from our assessment means the same thing that it meant last year, that gives you the same information so that you can make a choice and decision about a student’s proficiency,” said H. Gary Cook, the senior director of assessment for WIDA. “I have a really hard time understanding how we can get a score that’s comparable to the score that’s not remote.”

Advocates in at least two states, Colorado and Florida, say it is unfair and potentially dangerous to ask English-learners—most of whom are Latino, Asian, and Black—to return to school buildings while COVID-19 cases sweep through their communities.

In both states, groups have urged the state education commissioners to postpone the start of testing season, which begins next month, until things are safe or make the test voluntary for families who are not yet comfortable with their children returning to school. National organizations for English-learner educators are also urging states to postpone or aggressively seek testing waivers.

The reliance on in-person testing is “far too risky and potentially life threatening” and “raises serious discrimination concerns,” Jorge Garcia, the chairman and chief executive officer of the Colorado Association for Bilingual Education, wrote this month in a letter to Colorado state Education Commissioner Katy Anthes.

Despite the requests, the Colorado and Florida departments of education indicated this week they will proceed with testing. States run the risk of losing federal funding if they fail to enforce federal standardized testing requirements.

Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, states must use data from the exams to determine whether students are English proficient. Not offering the tests could hold back some students who are ready to exit English-learner status.

The push to delay or forego the English-proficiency testing is part of the larger debate this year over federal standardized testing requirements during the pandemic. Outgoing U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has declined to waive testing requirements for the 2020-21 school year after granting states a reprieve in the spring as schools shut down nationwide.

Taking Out the Guesswork

The English-proficiency exams are required by state and federal law for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. The scores indicate what level of English proficiency a student has reached and helps determine if students should stop receiving English-learner support services.

Determining whether ELL students still need support and when they no longer require it marks a critical juncture in their academic careers. Students who are deemed English proficient and pulled out of support services before they are ready can end up struggling in school. Taking longer to reclassifying students as English proficient could slow their academic growth and limit their access to higher-level courses that can prepare them for college and career opportunities.

States use the English-proficiency tests to take some of the guesswork out of the process.

Both states belong to the WIDA consortium, the organization that oversees the ACCESS for ELLs tests, which measure students’ English-proficiency in four domains—listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

WIDA, which provides the ACCESS tests to 36 states, several United States territories, and agencies such as the Bureau of Indian Education decided in September not to offer a remote option for the test. Altogether, the consortium tests 2.1 million students annually, slightly more than 40 percent of the nation’s English-learner enrollment.

The tests will not have remote options this year because WIDA and its member states were not confident that all students would be able to take the test in its current format, and that students would have equal access to technology at home to complete the exam, said Cook.

There were also concerns that English-learner students’ parents, some of whom are not proficient English speakers themselves, would be unable to help with setting up and proctoring the test, said Jonathan Gibson, the director of consortium and state relations department at WIDA.

For younger students, a remote test would have been especially difficult to carry out: the entire test for kindergarten students is paper-only and the writing test is paper-only for students in 1st through 3rd grade.

TESOL International Association, an organization for teachers who specialize in working with English-learners, has also raised questions about the validity of tests given this year, especially the speaking portions: with students wearing masks in class, it could be more difficult for teachers to hear and understand what students are saying.

Advocates in Colorado argued that the test results may yield little useful information, given the amount of time that many English-learners have been away from in-person schooling.

The English Language Proficiency Assessment for the 21st Century (ELPA21) consortium, which includes eight states, also will not offer a remote option for its English-proficiency test.

The consortium determined that remote testing was not a constructive use of “time given the pandemic circumstances,” Cathryn Still, the executive director of ELPA21, said in a statement provided to Education Week.

Advocates Push Officials to Tell Parents They Can Opt Out

While advocates in Colorado and Florida are pushing for a reprieve, many of the remaining states in the WIDA consortium will forge ahead with in-person testing, allowing for flexibility in the testing schedule by either delaying the start of testing or extending the period where students can take the exam. Testing has already begun in Montana and Department of Defense schools.

In response to concerns about health-and-safety protocols, WIDA developed guidelines on how to administer the ACCESS tests during the pandemic. While having data to gauge how students progressed or regressed is valuable, Cook acknowledged that requiring students to return to class does carry risks.

In Colorado and Florida, advocates are asking the states to communicate to parents that they can opt their children out of taking the test. While the state could face penalties for not offering the test, students cannot be punished for skipping the test.

Advocates asked in their letter to Florida state Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran to inform parents that “those students who elect not to take the tests will not be disciplined, punished, or otherwise sanctioned for opting out of the tests.”

Illinois is among the states that pushed back the start of testing in response to community concerns. The state’s Board of Education this week announced plans to delay the opening of its spring assessment window, ensuring that no students will take a federally required assessment, including ACCESS, until mid-March at the earliest. In previous years, the state testing window for ACCESS typically ran from mid-January through mid-February.

California, home to about 1.1 million English-learners, will offer remote and in-person testing options for its annual English-proficiency exam, the English Language Proficiency Assessment for California, also known as ELPAC. Most of California’s 6 million public school students are still learning from home—and some school districts have not set a timeline to resume in-person instruction. More than 40 percent of public school students in the state speak a language other than English at home.

Like California, the states of Arizona, Texas, and New York develop and administer their own English-proficiency exams. Officials there did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Powerful and courageous testimonio by Dr. José L. Medina | Joe: My Personal English Learner Story

Powerful and courageous testimonio by Dr. José L. Medina, Director of Dual Language and Bilingual Education at the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) in Washington, DC.

Tomorrow is my birthday and aside from good health and mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being, I only have two wishes. One, is to go and see Coco, the movie. I hear it's an intense, beautiful movie—a tear-jerker. 

The other is that all my friends and family read this compelling account that expresses in the clearest of terms, how and why assimilation to U.S. culture for many Mexican Americans and other language minorities is and has been a violent proposition. This is certainly so to the degree that it entails cultural and linguistic annihilation which happens to define so much of what passes for "education" today. 

Like Dr. Medina, I am also from West Texas and this story resonates on a really deep level. For me—and I think for the majority of most language minorities—the violence is mostly symbolic, beginning with the taking away and distortion, of our names and cultures. The accents in our written names also drop. Ángela and Angela were my childhood names, but in school it was just "Angela," anglicized, with no accent. I call this process of forced de-identification from one's culture, language, and community-based identities, "subtractive schooling," in my own work.

However, in Dr. Medina's case, it went beyond the symbolic to also consist of brutal and humiliating physical violence that for me harkens back to the forceful assimilation experience of the American Indians to Euro-American standards and values in the infamous Native American Boarding School experiment where many children died. Coined by Army Officer Richard Henry Pratt, "Kill the Indian, Save the Man," was a reigning motif and rationale for the perceived necessity of the schools themselves. 

Consider reading this historical account by scholar Ward Churchill of this terrifying and deeply shocking and saddening chapter in our history as a country. Another powerful text by David Wallace Adams that I have some of my students read is titled, Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928.

Crazily, this motif was the "benign" response during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to the actual killing of Indians which was policy and practice. Not surprisingly, then, many children literally died in the schools that held them in forced captivity—a logical, if horrific, outcome of stripping them of any and all vestiges of their "Indian-ness." 

Thankfully, Dr. José Medina survived schooling to tell his story. Today, he is a cultural and linguistic warrior in his position as Director of Dual Language and Bilingual Education at CAL. 

The takeaway from this story should never be, "Well, you made it Dr. Medina, so what's wrong with the system if it worked for you?" No, José, like myself, are the exceptions. The takeaway instead should be, "We need to stop harming and traumatizing children in our nation's assimilationist classrooms and opt through policy and practice for additive, late-exit bilingual—preferably, dual language— education, culturally relevant pedagogy, authentic caring, and Ethnic Studies. Ideally, all can work in concert to disrupt the corrosive effects of subtractive cultural assimilation. 

Dr. Medina also provides helpful guidance in this regard. Read on!

Sinceramente, Yours truly,

Ángela Valenzuela

Joe: My Personal English Learner Story

By Dual Language S...

December 18, 2017

By: Dr. José Medina, Director of Dual Language and Bilingual Education, Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, DC

My name is José, but when I was six years old, my first-grade teacher changed it to Joe. Her decision to do so, continues to impact my life daily - as a person, as an educator, and as an advocate for all students, but especially for those who like me, are looked down upon for not having English as a first language.
It started when I was kicked out of Kindergarten. My parents, in their early twenties and recently having moved to El Paso from Ciudad Juárez, took me to my local elementary escuela in one of the large school districts in the city. Because I only spoke español like my parents, and also, because I was a nervous child, I did not react positively to school. I kicked, I bit adults, I urinated on myself, and I would run out of the classroom daily. After several weeks, the principal informed my parents that I "had to mature" and, therefore, would need to stay home and be brought back as a first grader.

I guess I was afraid that I would never be enough if people knew my real name – if people knew that Spanish, not English, was the language closest to my heart.

At the age of six, I returned to the same school only to do the exact same thing as before. Once again, the school principal informed my padres that I could no longer attend the school. This was in 1977 and the U.S. Supreme Court Case, Lau vs. Nichols, had not yet fully made its way to the border town in Texas. I was a six-year old English learner without a school to attend.
My Godmother, mi madrina, informed my parents that they should enroll me in a local Catholic School because there, the nuns would be able to "fix" me. On the first day at the private school, I once again did the things that got me kicked out of public school. However, this time it was different. Una monja, a nun, who my parents understood to be the principal, had a gurney rolled into her office from the nurse's office. I was placed on the rolling bed, strapped in so that my arms and legs were not able to move, and I was rolled through the school hallways to my first-grade class.
Even as I remember this life-altering event, I can see my young Mamá and Papá with tears in their eyes, seeing their firstborn child tied and delivered to his classroom. My teacher introduced me to the rest of the class as the new student – Joe. So, I lay there, watching my parents escorted away from the classroom, urine-stained clothes on my body, and flat on my back, wishing that I was somewhere else…anywhere…but not in that classroom.

Continue reading to find out more of José's journey.... 

Days later, having decided that I no longer wanted to be tied to a gurney, I told myself that I had to learn English…that I had to "act" like the other students. I asked my parents if I should let my teacher know that my name was José. Mi Mamá me dijo, "haces lo que te diga la maestra." Do what the teacher tells you. So, I dutifully and without objection, became Joe.

In that moment, when my identity and name were taken from me, my life was forever altered. Spanish, my beautiful native language, la música de Juan Gabriel, my favorite telenovelas on the Televisa Network, and the TV show el Chavo del Ocho – were forbidden in my English world, in my school.
As you read this, some of you may be thinking, "but José, you made it; you are doing great for yourself." Stop. Realize. I am the exception, not the norm.
English learners today may no longer be tied to gurneys in a physical fashion, but many are still lying flat on their backs with their hands and legs bound by metaphorical straps. Some of you may even know teachers that are responsible for such situations. Perhaps, even you, have been the one tying language learners down without realizing it.
We are good people. We are educators. And, we became teachers because we wanted to help others have educational access. As we serve students who are adding English to their repertoire while in U.S. schools, we must remember the following three things:

• Value all that a student brings into our classroom. If an English learner enrolls in our school and is placed in our classroom, we should not say to others that the student "doesn't know a thing." Each language learner is a unique and awesome individual who is just waiting for us, their teacher, to create connections between that which they know and that which we want them to learn. Just because a student does not speak and/or understand English, it does not erase all that he/she brings into the classroom!
• Have an additive mindset about language learning. Our job is not to transition kids to English. The students' native tongue is not something to be exploited in order to ensure success on standardized assessments. We must instead, value our students' first language and culture as we strengthen connections between the native tongue and English simultaneously. English and other languages can co-exist in the mind and the heart of a student beautifully!
• We must learn, practice, and write our students' names correctly. My real name is not Joe. My true name is José. José has an accent over the letter "e" and if you don't place the accent when writing my name, you are diminishing my language and culture. María is not Mary. Françoise's name should not be changed to Frankie. Nuan is a beautiful name, so we must learn it. The name Akmal-Alam signifies a beautiful universe and does not deserve to be change to Alan. We learned how to pronounce the names Dostoyevsky and Schwarzennegger and we must now, also give value to the names of the students and families we serve!

I want you to know that I often think of my first-grade teacher. A part of me wants to be angry towards her, but I am not. Although I will never know her intent in changing my name to Joe, the name is now a part of me.
It took me decades, really not until my twenties and thirties, to slowly begin to take ownership of my birth name, my family background, my culture, and my language. I guess I was afraid that I would never be enough if people knew my real name – if people knew that Spanish, not English, was the language closest to my heart.
So, there are those that to this day call me Joe – and I graciously respond because that is the name that at the age of six was given to me by an educator. But, now that I am fully capable of owning ALL that I am, I prefer to introduce myself using my real name.
¡Hola, mi nombre es Dr. José Luis Medina Hernández Franco López Jr. Díaz-Cruz!


Dr. José L. Medina is the Director of Dual Language and Bilingual Education at the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) in Washington DC. In this role, Dr. Medina provides dual language technical assistance, professional development, and job-embedded support to dual language programs across the United States and globally. He is a former dual language school principal and has served as an administrator and educator at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Dr. Medina is one of the authors of the third edition of the widely-used Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education and also serves as the Director of the National Dual Language Forum. Dr. Medina can be reached via email at jmedina@cal.org or follow him on Twitter @josemedinajr89.

As school finance goes down in flames this legislative session (that you can read about here), we should be mindful of who is getting disproportionately harmed, namely, English language learners [ELLs], the majority of whom are Latinos/as.  And in very large numbers...!
According to this October 2, 2015 article written by Roy Johnson at IDRA, "They have the lowest graduation rate of all subgroups, at 71.5 percent statewide." That's far too many young people in our state without a high school diploma.  For a sense of perspective, check out this 2015-16 report by the Texas Education Agency titled, Enrollment in Texas Public Schools, 2015-16 - Texas Education Agency [pdf] which offers the following sobering statistics:

In 2015-16, 50.0 percent of students were identified as at risk of dropping out of school (Table 14 on page 24).
• The percentage of students participating in bilingual/ESL programs increased from 14.6 percent in 2005-06 to 18.3 percent in 2015-16, an increase of 47.3 percent (Table 14 on page 24 and Figure 8).
• The number of students identified as ELLs increased by 269,091, or 37.8 percent, between 2005-06 and 2015-16. In the 2015-16 school year, 18.5 percent of students were identified as ELLs, compared to 15.7 percent in 2005-06.
• The percentage of students served in special education programs decreased from 11.3 percent in 2005-06 to 8.7 percent in 2015-16.*
• Between 2005-06 and 2015-16, the number of students participating in Title I programs increased by 23.9 percent. In the 2015-16 school year, 64.8 percent of students were enrolled in Title I programs.**

* Do check out this policy brief by UT Masters student in Education Policy and Planning, Rob Walker, who brings much-needed attention to the 8.5 percent arbitrary cutoff in services for special education services that took place in 2004.  The analysis in fact reveals that, in effect, the state preyed on its sub-population of ELLs by not providing them with the special education services to which they were entitled.

**Title I is a federal program that provides resources to schools with high percentages of low socioeconomic students.

Hopefully, this will move more of us to do more for these children, our children, to obtain not just equitable school finance in our state, but also better monitoring of our programs serving special populations like English language learners in bilingual education and English as a Second language programs, as well as Special Education students.  

A couple of such worthy attempts with legislation that didn't get far this session—in part because we're too busy fighting the "show me your papers bill [SB4]" as well as the "bathroom bill [SB6]"—were by State Representative Diego Bernal with HB184, as well as by Senator Judith Zaffirini SB61.  

It's ridiculous and tragic that neither of these bills had much of a life this session.  This has got to change if Texas as a state is to prosper and if our ELL and Special Education children are to receive the quality education to which they are legally entitled.

Angela Valenzuela
@vlnzl

Johnson: Poor investment, higher dropout rates for Texas' English-learners

By Roy L. Johnson

Published 10:13 pm, Friday, October 2, 2015

• 

Photo: Gary Fountain, Freelance 

 

English-language learners have the lowest graduation rate of all subgroups, at 71.5 percent statewide.

All across Houston recently, our children and youth stepped back into school hallways, meeting their new teachers, sorting their supplies and looking ahead to what the year might bring.

But many will disappear by May. Some seniors who start this year by dressing up for graduation photos will not walk the stage in caps and gowns at the end of the year.

According to a new report by the Texas Education Agency, 88 percent of students in the class of 2014 graduated. In school districts across Harris County, graduation rates ranged from 79 percent to 95 percent. Across Houston districts, the rates range from 79 percent to 93 percent.

On the surface, since the rates are generally better than before, this sounds like fabulous news. And progress certainly should be celebrated.

But a deeper look shows a picture that is not as rosy, specifically for English language learners. They have the lowest graduation rate of all subgroups, at 71.5 percent statewide.

ELL students are one of the fastest-growing student groups in Texas with almost 1 million students, making up 18 percent of the school population. In the Houston area in 2014-15, ELLs are one in four students with 202,000 ELLs in Harris County and 198,000 ELLs in Houston alone.

To teach English while at the same time teaching math, science, and other subjects, schools provide instruction in bilingual education classes. Older students receive English as a second-language instruction.

The oftentimes poor quality of instructional programs for ELL students, particularly in middle and high school, has been a concern of educators, communities, parents and civil rights advocates for a number of years.

A decade ago, I served as an expert witness in a court case filed against the state for its poor monitoring of schools' ELL instruction. Texas relies on standardized test results in ways that merge data for students of all ages - elementary and secondary - and thus prevent targeted improvement efforts. So we can't tell which programs are working and which need improvement.

The late Senior U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice ordered the state to establish an effective monitoring system and a language program that would fulfill the requirements of the Equal Education Opportunity Act. Apparently unwilling or unable to take the steps necessary to ensure ELL students were effectively educated, the state appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which remanded the order.

Not surprisingly, the problem did not go away. As the numbers of ELL students grew, schools found themselves ill-equipped. Fewer than one in five elementary bilingual and ESL teachers in Texas are fully certified to teach ELL students. Schools with high concentrations of ELLs tend to have higher student-to-teacher ratios and are more likely to be property-poor schools. 

One year ago, Texas District Court Judge John Dietz ruled in the largest school finance case in Texas' history that the current system of education funding was "constitutionally inadequate, unsuitable and financially inefficient." The San Antonio-based nonprofit Intercultural Development Research Association conducted research and provided expert testimony finding that the funding system is inequitable and fails to provide the adequate funding for educating ELL and low-income students. Judge Dietz agreed.

His ruling was heard on appeal in September. Regardless of the final ruling months from now, federal policy requires schools to serve every ELL student.

The results of Texas' neglect are clear. ELL students in Harris County and the city of Houston are not graduating with comparable percentages as other student groups, and they are dropping out at higher rates.

In fact, the average longitudinal dropout rate for ELLs is more than twice that of all students. In Harris County, the all-student rate is 6.3 percent compared to 14.1 percent for ELLs. In the city of Houston, the all-student rate is 7.3 percent compared to 16.1 percent for ELLs.

In February, more than 80 education and community leaders, and experts in law and education research gathered to examine this issue and hear the results of research conducted by Dr. Oscar Jimenez-Castellanos, IDRA's inaugural José A. Cárdenas School Finance Fellow.

Participants were alarmed to hear from the research that no secondary schools in Texas are consistently exceeding academic benchmarks with ELLs. 

None. 

And those schools with highest ELL achievement spend significantly more general funds than other schools. Texas is significantly underfunding ELL education, and it shows.

Only 10 out of 613 secondary schools had a high proportion of ELL students passing all end-of-course exams, according to research by Dr. Jimenez-Castellanos.

While 56 percent of Texas students were considered college-ready in math and English language arts, only 8 percent of ELL students were considered ready.

This cannot go on. We cannot start filling our champagne glasses celebrating when our schools across the state are losing three out of 10 ELL students.

We would not be OK with only seven in 10 airplanes landing safely at their destination. We would not sit idly by if our electricity only worked seven out of 10 days. And we would not sit still if our banks lost $3 of $10 from our paychecks. And yet, the loss of hundreds of students hardly gets a second glance.

It doesn't have to be this way.

A few weeks ago, families from across the Texas Rio Grande Valley convened to encourage superintendents to set as the standard graduation plan one that gives students the opportunity to graduate college ready. Parents in the poorest parts of our state are calling for rigorous college-prep courses for their children. One high-poverty school district that serves a large ELL population has decided it's not OK to lose thousands of students and has taken steps that have cut its dropout rate in half. And they're not done.

Houston ISD itself has almost tripled the number of dual-language campuses in three years. And some Houston students made headlines when they joined other Texas teens in submitting an amicus brief calling for more school funding.

With greater attention to the quality of instructional programs for ELL students and to adequate and equitable funding for ELL education, we can secure educational opportunity for our all of students.
And all means all.

We must make sure every student is counted, because here in Houston, every student counts.

Johnson directs evaluation work at the Intercultural Development Research Association and is the lead author and researcher for IDRA's annual school attrition study.