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Welcome to our National Literacy Month series of podcasts, presented in partnership between the Be Podcast Network and Reading Is Fundamental.
Today’s guests, Margarita Espino Calderón and Lisa Tartaglia, are co-authors of Cultivating Competence in English Learners: Integrating Social-Emotional Learning With Language and Literacy.
Dr. Calderón, born and raised in Juárez, is a Professor Emerita/Senior Research Scientist at Johns Hopkins University. Her research and development projects have been funded by US Department of Education, National Institutes of Health, US Department of Labor, and State Offices of Education. One of her empirical studies “The Bilingual Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (BCIRC)” is featured in the What Works Clearinghouse.
Ms. Tartaglia is a high school assistant principal with Loudoun County Public Schools with over 20 years of public school experience. She has been a classroom teacher, reading specialist, and coach at the elementary and high school levels. She is also a Senior Associate for Margarita Calderón and Associates, and provides training on instructional strategies for ELLs, language and literacy, instructional coaching, and Social Emotional Learning (SEL).
We discuss:
- “Laymen’s definition of SEL”
- Identifying the English Learners and multilingual learners in our schools
- How the core tenets of the CASEL framework apply to English learners’ relevant needs
- Common reasons why English Learners’ needs aren’t met
- Why it’s critical for core content teachers to engage with these strategies
- Schoolwide culture shift to SEL — where to start?
- Assist English learners and multilingual learners in developing their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills
Find Cultivating Competence in English Learners from Solution Tree or wherever you get your books.
Visit https://bepodcast.network to learn about all our shows.
Learn more about Reading Is Fundamental at www.rif.org
About the host
Ross Romano is a co-founder of the Be Podcast Network and CEO of September Strategies, a coaching and consulting firm that helps organizations and high-performing leaders in the K-12 education industry communicate their vision and make strategic decisions that lead to long-term success. Connect on Twitter @RossBRomano or LinkedIn
Creators & Guests
Host
Guest
What is The Authority Podcast — Expert Insights and Fresh Ideas for Education Leaders?
Are you looking for proven ideas to increase your influence, hire and develop an excellent staff, build a stronger culture, lead meaningful change, and form a strong foundation for learning and leadership success? This is the podcast for you.
Whether you're a leader to seeks to refine your command of core educational strategies, learn new management techniques from those who have used them at some of the world's largest corporations, gain fresh perspectives on personal development or student success from practitioners across fields, or a little bit of everything, you'll find powerful content on The Authority.
Join leadership coach, storytelling strategist, and edtech advisor Ross Romano as he interviews the prominent education authors you already admire, up-and-coming voices, and experts from the worlds of business, personal development, and beyond — including Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Amazon bestsellers — to take a deep dive into their wealth of practical insights.
Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Welcome everybody to the Authority Podcast here on the Be Podcast Network. Thanks as always for being a part of our show. I'm excited to bring you this conversation, which is a part of our National Literacy Month campaign, a partnership between the Be Podcast Network and Reading is Fundamental.
to host a number of productive conversations across our network of podcasts about developing kids reading and literacy skills for life. We're talking to a number of different experts and practitioners and authors all about all the various things we want to know and do in order to help our kids become strong readers.
My guests today are Margarita Calderon and Lisa Tartaglia. Dr. Calderon is born and raised in [00:01:00] Juarez. She is a Professor Emerita and Senior Research Scientist at Johns Hopkins University, who has had research and development projects that have been funded by the U. S. Department of Education, National Institutes of Health, U.
S. Department of Labor. and State Offices of Education. One of her empirical studies, the Bilingual Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition, is featured in the What Works Clearinghouse and also the Carnegie Corporation of New York funded her five year study to develop expediting comprehension for English language learners.
There's also much, much more, but that gives a great context for the type of expertise we have here today for this conversation. And my other guest, Lisa Tartaglia, is a High School Assistant Principal with Loudoun County Public Schools in Virginia. She has over 20 years of public school experience as a classroom teacher, reading specialist, and coach at the elementary and high school levels, and is also a senior associate with Margarita Calderon Associates, and provides training on instructional strategies for English language learners, language and [00:02:00] literacy, instructional coaching, and social emotional learning.
They have collaborated on a book called Cultivating Competence in English Learners, Integrating Social Emotional Learning with Language and Literacy. Welcome to the show.
Lisa Tartaglia: Thank you.
Margarita Calderon: Yes, thank you. Glad to be here.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Now that I did all the hard work of the introduction and of filling in all your impressive backgrounds here I'm going to kick it over to the two of you, especially to lay the foundation here. For a lot of what we're going to talk about in this conversation I want to make sure that we're not making assumptions about that all of our listeners know all of these different terms we're using, or that have the same understanding of them, especially because we hope and believe that they're correct.
That we may have a lot of new listeners during this series who are interested in literacy and reading from a variety of backgrounds and who may not be immersed in this edu speak and these, these you know, different acronyms [00:03:00] that we talk about. And so a couple of them that I think are really important here are, you know, we have the social emotional learning, the SEL piece, and then also the definition of English learners and multilingual learners, right?
So let's start with the social emotional learning, SEL. You know, what's sort of a layman's definition of that that's not relying on these terms we use inside schools, but something that just lets us. It's either a parent or, you know, or somebody else who's, who's involved in education in a different type of role, understand, like, this is what we're talking about when we're discussing this and talking about how we're supporting students in this way Lisa, maybe I'll have you give us this definition and then and then we'll, we'll go from there.
Lisa Tartaglia: So, the way that we define this book we use a lot based on the CASEL competencies, and they are all the different ways that students are kind of building on working on their [00:04:00] emotional intelligence. So, the five competencies are self awareness. self management, social awareness, responsible decision making, and relationship skills.
And so when we're talking about social emotional learning, we are finding ways to be very intentional about having those students develop those skills and those competencies. So the basis of our book is taking that and combining it with literacy strategies and things that you do in the classroom to help develop those competencies.
You want to add to that, Margarita?
Margarita Calderon: I, I think what's important is that there are ways of addressing all these competencies when teachers are teaching things like vocabulary, reading, reading comprehension, writing, all those things. Things that make make it so difficult for English learners to learn everything all at once. Being an English learner [00:05:00] myself I know what students are going through.
And also teaching ESL, I know what teachers are going through. And as, as a parent as well. So we all want strategies that are integrated into our daily practice. Thanks. It's not separating and teaching social emotional learning skills separately from what the teacher will be presenting in a lesson, but rather being integrated into every lesson, everything that happens throughout the day.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. And then what another term that has It's been popular a lot in conversations is life skills, right? It's developing social skills. It's emotional regulation. It's learning how to adapt and function within a community, decision making, self management, self awareness, as you mentioned, Lisa, and that's [00:06:00] something that I think people understand they want, they want kids to learn that and, and it gives a good foundation for understanding why that's so critical in teaching and learning.
And how about the definition of students when we're talking about students who are English learners and multilingual learners, especially if, you know, if we're going to have differences between those how is that defined in schools so that our listeners understand what we're referring to there?
Margarita Calderon: Sure. If you, if we can think of multilingual learners as an umbrella for a lot of terms that different schools like to use. For instance, in Texas, they call them emergent bilinguals. California likes multilingual learners. The official term from the U. S. Department of Education and U. S. Department of Justice is still English learners.
And so on paperwork, [00:07:00] all the schools will use English learners, but there's so many different terms. We might hear long term L's. These are students that have been in schools since kindergarten, first grade. They are now in middle school or high school, and they're still English learners, they're still labeled as English learners because they haven't been able to pass the, those tests that help them to exit out of that status, so that's one term.
I think schools now will be hearing a lot about newcomers as the country is having newcomers from throughout the world. Almost every country now New York has 200 and some languages. School districts in Kansas and other places have 20 languages at least, and so the term multilingual learners is [00:08:00] the one that perhaps is most appropriate nowadays. (ad here)
Ross Romano: Yeah, and we you know, the book is written it seems primarily for these core content teachers across the Into the subject areas. And I think that's a great place to go next with our conversation and talking about how critically important it is for teachers in different subject areas your general education teachers to engage with these strategies with this discussion of what we're talking about here, because you know, it's the literacy and the language skills that are the, The opportunity and the, you know, the, the doorway into being able to access everything that's happening in all subject areas.
Right. And that oftentimes. There's these overlooked or hidden challenges with [00:09:00] language that appear to be some type of, you know, deficit in math, for example, right? But it has nothing to do with the student's understanding of math necessarily, but it's that the classroom discourse is Leaving them behind, and they're having trouble keeping up with what's being discussed, and then it looks like, oh, well, they're struggling with math, but all these kind of things that, and, and in schools where not necessarily the teachers and all those subject areas are traditionally specifically trained in multilingual learners, it's important that We addressed that.
So let's talk about that a little bit and and discuss even why you designed this book around those core content teachers and what is typically [00:10:00] you know, where are the areas? for improvement in schools as far as the fact that, of course, we can be doing better here in understanding how to make sure that our multilingual learners are getting the proper instruction and and what are some of those pieces that we want to start putting into place.
Margarita, you can start here and then Lisa, you can, you can add from there. Yeah.
Margarita Calderon: Okay, again thinking of numbers, it appears that there are very few ESL teachers, teachers who are specialists in teaching English as a second language, whereas before you could have one ESL teacher in a secondary school, in a high school, and this teacher would go from classroom to classroom to help the students.
But now there's so many students. And one lonely ESL teacher, or even a [00:11:00] handful. Now high schools have 10, 20 ESL teachers, and it's still not enough. And we can't expect the teachers, even if they pull the students out for 30 minutes a day to teach them English, to be able to learn the English for government, for biology.
For algebra, as you mentioned, a lot of the students that are coming from other countries know so much more algebra, geometry, than the students in our current schools. Yet, now that the curriculum is calling more for Written problems, where the problems are written in textbooks or the students themselves have to take formulas and write them out.
They can't do that, and so they're, they're not achieving at grade level or in the content, even though they might even know the content. [00:12:00] So language is definitely one of those issues that we need to deal with today.
Lisa Tartaglia: And to add on to that we need the secondaries and middle school and elementary school teachers to all be prepared to receive these students like Margarita said because it can't fall on the backs of the few, you know, ESL teachers, and we know pulling them out and putting them in like sheltered classes is difficult.
Not, they're, it's not appropriate. They are not learning the language as quickly. So they really do need to be, those newcomers need to be placed in classes right away and speaking English from the very beginning. So by preparing the teachers with strategies especially literacy strategies, that's helping make the, curriculum accessible to those students when they come in. So it's so important that we get all content teachers on the same page so they're ready to receive these students and help them. And so that with this book kind of, you know, especially I've been in high school, I've been in elementary school, and that's the [00:13:00] one thing I'm seeing is that the Teachers are not prepared to do that.
And they're like, well, the EL teacher can do that. The SL teacher can do that. And no, we all need to take responsibility for this and learn the strategies and make it more accessible.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Are there common reasons why, you know, in, in evaluation, right, if we find that in a given school, classroom, or just for an individual student that we have, you know, an English learner, a multilingual learner whose needs aren't really being met? Most common reasons why that's happening in Modern schools, you know, you referenced Margarita, right, then there's many more multilingual learners in our schools. Part of that also is that they're the languages and backgrounds that they come from are really diverse. It's not that we have a lot of students who are all. You know, their first language is the same. [00:14:00] There could be dozens of them. So even what it takes to be able to teach those students the English, English language and to help them learn, you know, we have a lot of different starting points and and also like, you know, it could be possible that some of the more older or traditional approaches to that have, you know, a deficit orientation, right?
Which sometimes is a, you know, a particular thing that happens here in the U. S., but I'm sure it happens other places as well, where a student having a different language background is, is viewed negatively versus as a strength, right? And but there are a lot of. Practical realities of what it needs to be equipped to, to best educate every student and understand their, you know, that they all have the capability to, to really learn well in these different subject areas, but [00:15:00] we have to meet them where they are.
But I guess for what it would look like for every school to be totally doing this, the way that we would like for it to be done. But. as contrasted maybe with what the more common realities are. Are there a few things that stand out as, okay, these are the most common areas where we're just not quite getting there?
Margarita Calderon: Sure, I'll start I've had the wonderful experiences with the schools that were able to meet these challenges. New York City schools a middle school who went from a very low performing because they had about 90 percent of English learners to highest performing in the school district. Because all the teachers were, first of all, teaching vocabulary at the beginning of the period [00:16:00] before students actually read biology or, or any of the other subjects.
And then there were strategies that have to do with reading. I'm so happy to hear that this is, you know, the literacy uh, month, I guess, or it should be a whole literacy year, because one of the things that is missing in most middle school, high school classrooms is teaching, reading strategies, not, not how to teach.
Read, but rather, what are some reading strategies that a biology teacher can present to the students so that they can manage going into a text, being able to comprehend sufficiently as they work with a peer peer reading, partner reading has been shown to have the biggest effect size in so many research projects, [00:17:00] particularly for English language learners.
And if all the content teachers would just espouse the partner reading aspect of this, and and let them read with a partner, there are specific strategies, you can imagine, there's a whole book on this, but there are specific strategies that we have seen core content teachers take on. And that's when not only the.
English language learners, but as you know from the NAEP scores, Every single student now needs to re connect, re learn how to read, how to develop comprehension skills. And so, So we have found that the strategies we have in this book also help all the [00:18:00] students in the classroom. And so we have schools, not just the one in New York, but in so many places in Virginia, Alabama County, Hawaii, that.
Have all their core content teachers go through an extensive and intensive professional development on how to teach vocabulary, how to teach reading, and how to teach writing to English language learners. And all other students, because every student can benefit from this. And we share that, we share that with the different chapters in the book.
Lisa Tartaglia: Yeah. And to add to that, also the discourse piece, when you said what was some area that we could see you know, in working with a lot of different secondary teachers there's a lot of teacher talk, right? There's a lot of, you know, Teaching, and then the students go read, and then the students go write.
And the one piece that we miss a lot is [00:19:00] that, that discourse, that talking piece, where they get to discuss it with their peers. So we have a lot of things embedded in this book of like, sentence starters, and ways for students to engage with each other, and talk about what they're learning, because that helps them process that.
So that would be one area, you know, especially those multilingual learners that, you know, you know, putting them in intentional partnerships, like Margarita said, for partner reading. But also for talking about their text, summarizing writing together, things like that, because that will help them that.
And that's where we bring that SEL piece in, right? Like they're learning from each other and working together with each other. Well,
Ross Romano: Also by the, before we move into this next section, one thing I do want to mention for listeners is as we talk more about these strategies, You'll probably, you know, make your own connections to how many of these are going to be helpful to all students. Right? And, and it's not, they're not exclusively beneficial to multilingual learners.
I don't want to pull a [00:20:00] hamstring mentioning that every single time we, so we'll just mention it now and reference that and that'll be clear as we go on. But this book. You know, certainly is, is written about supporting English learners. So we want to really talk about that specifically and, and not.
You know, need to feel like everything needs to be generalized. But Lisa, in your, in your definition earlier of social and emotional learning, you referenced CASEL. CASEL is the Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning. That's the, you know, the organization that is really the lead in promoting SEL, in evaluating curriculum products around SEL, right?
And, and really organizing a lot of educational efforts around it. How do the core tenets of that framework apply to the relevant needs of English learners when we think about the, you know, the [00:21:00] specific things that make English learners unique, the things we need to be doing to make sure. That we're properly engaging them in the classroom.
How do those tenets of SEL help to facilitate that?
Lisa Tartaglia: I think we have a model in our book where we have all the literacy pieces of like cogs on a wheel, like they're different parts of like a wheel. And we have SEL as kind of the oil or the, you know, the thing that makes them move, makes them all go together and work in harmony. It's like if you just did reading in the class, but the students just read by themselves, they're not going to get the same benefit as if when they're reading with a partner, because now they have someone helping them.
They're working together, they're working towards something. When they work in a group in some of the activities and strategies that we have in here. They're learning how to make decisions together as a team. They're working on those relationship skills. That's all aiding in them learning English.
They're [00:22:00] talking more and, and then, you know, for all students just to be able to talk about their content, to understand it more. So it all really kind of goes together and helps those other things function.
Ross Romano: I imagine that it also, when the, you know, entire class is engaged in their social emotional learning, that it's, it's creating a better learning environment for, Multilingual students, because we also have students who aren't multilingual, like, they're, they're on the same page as far as that. There's more more supportive learning and, and that, and, you know, it's that kind of also part of the thought behind why this is an effective, why this is one of the lead things that you're talking about in the book, right?
That, that it's not, it's not, I mean, it's in the title. It's,
Lisa Tartaglia: Yeah.
Ross Romano: It's woven throughout everything, but that it's, it's about that, that learning environment, [00:23:00] right?
Lisa Tartaglia: Yes, it makes a space for the students. Go ahead, Margarita.
Margarita Calderon: No, I was going to say, maybe, maybe we could give you an example with vocabulary, because vocabulary is the first thing that we want teachers to, to do a lot of in order to enhance the discourse, then they need vocabulary. So, vocabulary starts out with pre teaching a few words, maybe four or five words.
And the teacher, step number one, will ask the students to repeat a word three times. Let's say, for instance, a word like primarily due to. That's a phrase. But it's, it's a, it's a, it's considered a word because students need to learn this. This isn't a science text. And so when they come to this word, It connects several concepts, so they need to know that word.
So a teacher selects that word to pre [00:24:00] teach. In step number one, the students are to repeat it three times after the teacher. Well, in elementary school, it's a, you know, the kids love to repeat the word. They enjoy it, and they'll play with it. But think of high school students. What? Me? Repeat three times?
Why do I have to do this? And so their attitude has to change, right? But they also have to be mindful of the fact that this is something important that they need to do. And so their interpersonal skills, their attitude, willingness to try, willingness to accept feedback from the teacher, from their partner, to help each other.
to learn how to work together with a partner. All of those are social emotional skills. As well as during those pre teaching of words, [00:25:00] there are several other pieces that the teacher does. In one minute, the teacher will describe the word, give an example, define it, and Therefore, in step number six, the student and the partner get together and use that word in their own examples.
We call it ping pong style because each one does an example and then the other one gives an example. And so let me be a little more concrete. So for example, if the board was primarily due to, and the teacher says, okay, everybody use this, um, stem and finish it off, okay, with your partner. So, Margarita would start with something like, I am really happy, primarily due [00:26:00] to the beautiful day we have today.
And then, Lisa, your turn.
Lisa Tartaglia: I'm, I'm very hungry primarily due to me working through lunch today.
Margarita Calderon: And I'm excited primarily due to this book that we finished together and so on and so on and so forth. And so while we're doing that, while we're doing this back and forth, back and forth, the other thing that we're doing is developing listening skills. I need to listen to what Lisa says. She needs to listen to me.
We're, we're furthering our speaking skills. But I think most importantly, the cognitive skills, keeping information that the teacher gave us very, very quickly in one minute, keeping it in our mind, getting that working memory to really work, and then using the new information. [00:27:00] Translating that new information into our own examples that we can play with, have fun with our partners, but we're practicing for a whole minute.
Ross Romano: Yeah, it strikes me. I mean, I just. I just recorded a conversation for an episode that I will probably be published when this one does the publish around the same time, but with Jennifer McCarty Plucker about her book, Inspiring Lifelong Readers, and talk about competence, confidence and engagement, right?
And reading. And one of the things it was making me think about is like, that's sort of the default order, competence, competence, engagement, and, you know, and they're different things. And, and of course your, your competence in your learning, whatever it is, let's talk about reading, right? The better you are as a reader, the more confident you are, and then you're more inclined to be engaged in that in school.
But how do we also, Make the reverse true. [00:28:00] How can we, you know, start with engagement and confidence so that you're confident you can become more competent, right? And not only have it be, we're only confident if we're already good at something. And if we're not, then we end. But all of that, I think, also relates to this, of https: otter.
ai You know, the SEL approach, right? And the students understanding one another and dialogue and having more confidence in their place within that learning community and feeling like they belong there and like there is a focus and support in place to make sure that they're learning and that they can feel engaged with what's going on and not have those hidden factors of disengagement be overlooked any longer, right?
The, the different things that are happening, that the T there, there are not the things that the teacher is doing, but if my classmate asks [00:29:00] a question and teacher gives an answer and I didn't really understand the question, then like I'm missing an important part of. Whatever was happening here or and, and those are things that it's easy to miss if you're not paying specific intention to it, right?
And to say you know, and, and and there's a lot of other, other pieces to that, but that, I think it's all part of becoming a more skilled learner in reading or any other subject area, you know, whether it's with your language skills or your math skills or your knowledge of history or science or, or whatever has to happen.
come from a foundation of feeling like I'm where I'm supposed to be. I'm confident this is the place where I'm going to learn what I want to learn. I'm confident that when I show [00:30:00] up that there seems to be a plan in place to help me learn, right? And that it's not You know, just something I'm going to have to totally figure out on my own.
And again you know, there's a lot of, we talk so much about student engagement, and I think sometimes it is presented as, you know, a mystery, and okay, well, or it's just something that is isolated, like, okay, how do we take these students and make them more engaged? And like, it's isolated from educator engagement.
Understanding, well, you know, when our educators are more engaged in what they're doing, that rubs off on students. Or when there's clear strategies that demonstrate that there's care and attention being put into this, then I'm more engaged because I feel like there's, you know, there's a plan for me. Or what are the things that are actively [00:31:00] Disengaging, right, that it's not just unengaged or engaged, but it's like, no, we've actually created the opposite effect because we have shown you that you should not be engaged.
And it's much, you know, that's difficult to recover from, anyway, all that to say that I, I feel as though there, there could be a component of the efficacy of these strategies that just in their explicit implementation and in the demonstration and the conversation with students about teaching and learning that can really support That engagement and that willingness to confidently step into the classroom learning environment before even getting into whether the strategies actually work on their own, right?
But just setting the context for effective learning, right?
Margarita Calderon: [00:32:00] Yes, and that's what every chapter does. Before vocabulary, here are the things that you can mention to the students. Here are the social norms. These are the protocols. These are the routines that we're going to do. And then when the students move into reading, They stay with their partners so they're feeling comfortable.
There is that sense of belonging. There's a sense of confidence and Lisa's not going to get mad at me if I make a mistake. It's okay. I can take risks because it's a safety net that the teacher has built for us, for every pair of students. that they're, that the teacher has they experience this comfort and the fact that now it's okay to be me.
It's okay to make mistakes that I have someone who can give me feedback, [00:33:00] or I can give my partner feedback. We're working together, we're in this together, and we have goals, and we're going to reach those goals because we're, our attitudes are changing, and every time something doesn't quite go right, then we, we have some other social norms some tips for the teachers what if this happens?
Well, here's something that you can do. But we lay it out not just for vocabulary, but I think it comes very strong in the reading section. What do we do about reading? How do we create that climate of that will lead to success and achievement? If the students are reading, that means that they're going to be writing really well.
What happens with writing is that they typically do not have, first of all, enough language, [00:34:00] not enough vocabulary, but not enough content, because since they didn't have the language, they didn't understand what they were reading, therefore, they don't have the subject, the topic, the concepts to write about. Many teachers want them to jump right into writing, but it has to go in sequence. Vocabulary means that every teacher since kindergarten has taught three to five thousand words per year. Every single year. By the end of elementary, the students should have mastered 25, 000 words. By the end of high school, if the students are going to go to college and do well in life, 50, 000 words.
Mastery in their verbal repertoires of 50, 000 words. There's a lot more words going on in their heads, but the verbal repertoire, as Lisa was [00:35:00] saying, the discourse is what's really important. If teachers do not take time out to let the students dialogue, talk to each other, process the information that they've been reading, process the information the teacher was presenting, or even a video.
You know, sometimes they show videos and then they jump right into something else. Students need to process this information. They need to articulate the words, the new type of sentence structures that they're learning for every single subject.
Ross Romano: Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's. The nature of schools and the nature of the workforce and the nature of the world is you have to be able to show what you know, right? And language and skills are a huge part of that is being able to demonstrate. Okay. I do know this. And here's how I can convey that. And that's why [00:36:00] we, we certainly shouldn't overlook it.
You know, Lisa, I think it's fair to say that, you know, This doesn't really work if it's only being done by a couple of teachers in a couple of classrooms, right? Where, where do you start with the school wide culture shift to these SEL practices and making this happen?
Lisa Tartaglia: Yep. So in the last chapter, we do talk about a whole school approach, and it's very important to, to bring the whole school together for the training, the administrators, the coaches, everyone on board. So we're all one, you know, using, you know, similar strategies. We have the same goals. And so when students go from class to class, they're seeing the same things, you know, in a way, like they're, they're, they know what to anticipate.
They'll be learning vocabulary that they will be reading, that they will be talking about their content and they will be writing. And so like Margarita said about the vocabulary building, think about if every teacher [00:37:00] in a secondary school had taught vocabulary in every block, like think about how many more words those students are learning.
So really the best way to do this is a whole school approach and kind of holding each other accountable and creating that culture and climate that students feel safe. They're able to take risks. They feel valued. The whole school's building on their strengths. So the, we, when we do this PD with schools, we do suggest a whole school approach and then we come in and coach as well.
So we'll watch the teachers use some of the strategies, provide feedback and support for them so they're not just left on their own to like, Oh yes, great. I learned this in PD and then. They forget how to do it or they don't use it correctly. So, that those the whole school involved and the coaching piece is really the best way to do this and get everyone on the same page.
Ross Romano: Yeah. And, and Margarita, I think a lot of times, I mean, certainly over the [00:38:00] years, especially when it comes to the SEL in particular, although there's other types of school initiatives and approaches and things that, that fit into this, the gap between interest and implementation comes down to time and where do I, when do I do this?
How, you know, how do we really do this? We you know, Things have, I mean, the past decade has been I think a whirlwind of different things happening with respect to SEL but, you know, 10 years ago, it was like 97 percent of school leaders said they were somewhat or very You Interested in making it happen, but maybe 20 percent were really doing it with a, with a clear plan.
And then that increased and, you know, but for, for those who think, well, this seems great, but it's daunting. How do they navigate through the challenges of making it happen and see. Being it as practical and [00:39:00] doable and and then doing it,
Margarita Calderon: But it's through the Comprehensive Professional Development, as Lisa said. By comprehensive, I don't mean just a one shot workshop and here it is, go do it, that's it. It, it actually takes a whole day just to do vocabulary and to show the teachers where the cell strategies are integrated into vocabulary.
Another day for reading. And how that could be organized. Another day for writing, another day for lesson designs, to go back and look at the lessons. And then we bring the coaches, the instructional coaches, who are going to and who have also gone through the training, but they do one more day just to look at the observation protocols.
So how do I observe teachers now? I used to observe teachers with this observation checklist that the school [00:40:00] district gave me, but now this is different. This is a whole different approach. We're looking at real instruction. We're looking at how students are becoming engaged. what the students are doing, and so now they have to go through this training on how to observe in a classroom and how to give feedback to teachers.
But also the administrators, because the administrators also have their checklist, and they're used to evaluating teachers in a certain way. We get more and more requests from administration that say, to help them distinguish the difference between the way that they used to evaluate teachers and the way that they now have to observe and evaluate teachers with either a handful of English learners or 50 percent of their classroom are English learners.
And so [00:41:00] they also have to go through the first phase of training with the teachers and the coaches and then their own session on how to go about doing this because they all realize that this is helping this school. I also do a lot of work with the Department of Justice, the Office of Civil Rights, and we had a whole state, a whole school district that was doing fairly well until Thousands of newcomers arrived and now it's like going back.
Okay, so now what do we do? Because 60 percent of our teachers had never ever had an English learner before and now we're being scrutinized. We don't know what to do and so how do we go about making sure that teachers transfer? [00:42:00] the skills from what they learn in the training session into the classroom and that transfer also goes into the classroom.
all their students academic achievement. So it's complicated, yes and that's why so many school districts still are not in the mindset. They need a little bit of SEL. They don't have the mindset of what it takes. and how we, we can support teachers. We forget that teachers also need SEL and they're, you know, they, there's so much that is always imposed on them.
I'm a big advocate of teachers and how You know, they, they have to do the flavor of the month. Oh, this is a great workshop. Let's do it this month. Oh no, I saw something else in this conference. Let's do this workshop. And [00:43:00] so there's bits and pieces. Sometimes they even contradict each other. And so. A plan that will remain for two, three years is what we have seen in schools where positive change comes about and where all students are really achieving. (ad here)
Ross Romano: you know So as we are getting toward the end of our conversation, I'd love maybe each of you can give me one One example here that you want to call out of how the school or the classroom looks different Once we have committed to this, once we committed to the NCL, and once we're using that to enable, you know, better teaching and learning, helping learners develop their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, all the things that are now happening or are now possible that I'm, I would observe if I walked [00:44:00] through and said, Oh, wow, last time it looked, you know, this was different.
Lisa, how about you give us one and then Margarita, you can give yours.
Lisa Tartaglia: So I guess for me, if I walked into a classroom and saw multilingual learners in the class, and I didn't know any different. Like, I just saw groups of students working together, reading together, writing together, doing vocabulary, and the teacher more facilitating, walking around, observing, seeing them you know what, I was an elementary teacher first, so it was very natural for me to do that, and so then switching gears and going to high school, it's not as natural, and it's not something that we typically see in secondary, it's more kind of teaching from the front of the room But in a, in a classroom that would embrace this, the teacher would be moving around, supporting the students adhere a lot of positivity.
We'd see norms on the wall, norms for engaging, you know, in agreements that they've made adhere a lot of vocabulary, sentence [00:45:00] stems and frames on desks to help the students to be able to communicate with each other. I just see a very positive environment
Ross Romano: Yeah,
Margarita Calderon: Mm hmm. Well, I'm, I'm seeing also this happen in dual language schools. These are schools where, Two languages are taught 50 percent of the day is taught in one language and 50 percent is taught in English. And I see the same thing happening. Just what Lisa said, the teachers are no longer the sage on stage rather they are facilitating the learning as students work in pairs.
Triads, or, or Quads, and they're interacting, they're, they're owning their language and their literacy skills. They're coming up with some fantastic projects. for, for STEM, even in the elementary schools, and in middle schools, they're [00:46:00] doing all of this in two languages. By the time they finish high school, they have earned what is now called a seal of biliteracy, where there's this beautiful seal that they are given on, on graduation day, which means that now they, they have attained academic achievement, academic language.
Languages in two languages, which is fantastic because, you know, that's what you know, our country is headed for. That's what we need. A lot of bilingualism, trying multiple languages, and because that's where we're headed. That is the trend. It's coming up from elementary to middle school and moving into high school.
So, so that's what I'm seeing and that's what I'm loving.
Ross Romano: Well, listeners, the book is called Cultivating Competence in English [00:47:00] Learners. You can find it from Solution Tree or wherever you get your books. We'll put the links in the description. to that below. You can learn a lot more there. We've only really scratched the surface here, so there's plenty more in there about strategies and approaches to really bring a lot of these ideas to reality in your school.
Also, please do subscribe if you've not already to The Authority for more author interviews like this one. We'll continue our series here. for National Literacy Month, and Partnership for Reading is Fundamental, so we'll have more conversations focused on reading and literacy from a variety of angles, and you can go to bpodcast.
network. to see conversations on our other shows. There's going to be many, many more episodes covering literacy. So if you're interested in that topic, or if you want to hear from more interviews with authors on education, leadership, personal development, and more, we'll have that here. You can also learn more about Reading is Fundamental, our partner here at [00:48:00] rif.
org. So a lot more there. You can learn more about our guests here. The links are to those are below as well. And I really want to thank both of you, Margarita and Lisa, for being here.
Margarita Calderon: Thank
Lisa Tartaglia: for having us.