Dual Language Programs: Cultural Identity and Equity with Ensemble Learning's Katherine Hamilton

Dual language programs are growing as the value of linguistic diversity is seen as a strength to be leveraged, not a challenge to be overcome. Peek into the inner workings of the dual language program with Katherine Hamilton, the Senior Vice President of Programs at Ensemble Learning. Discover how these programs not only boost academic performance but also nurture bilingualism, biliteracy, and a strong sense of cultural identity. We'll explore key instructional practices, such as strategic language separation and the promotion of oracy, that help students excel both academically and socially.

Dive into the complex world of dual language education as we tackle significant challenges like the shortage of certified bilingual teachers and the need for culturally relevant instructional materials. Learn about groundbreaking initiatives by the English Learner Success Forum and Texas-based programs that are paving the way for better teacher certification and curriculum resources. Katherine Hamilton shares her expertise and highlights the importance of celebrating multilingualism and multiculturalism in our schools.

Hear success stories and get inspired by their effective strategies, such as early bilingual programs and structured schedules. Understand how leadership and high expectations play crucial roles in fostering a supportive classroom culture. We also emphasize the importance of equity, ensuring that dual language programs effectively serve emergent bilingual students. Tune in to learn about the valuable resources provided by SEAL in California and how you can connect with Ensemble for ongoing support. Don't miss this engaging episode packed with actionable insights for educators, parents, and anyone passionate about the future of multilingual education.
Jeff Zwiers: Overhauling Learning for Multilingual Students
Zaretta Hammond: Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain

Chapters

• 0:34 Dual Language Program Background
• 1:15 Katherine Hamilton Introduction
• 1:56 Supporting Multilingual Learners and Key Benefits
• 4:42 Effective Instruction Practices
• 7:33 Strategies for Celebrating Multilingualism and Multiculturalism
• 10:27 Curricula Design-Integrate Content Instruction Across Both Languages Effectively
• 12:31 Overcoming Obstacles in Program Implementation
• 20:14 Successful School Transition Story
• 26:46 No Dual Language Program? Tips & Resources
• 28:35 Wrap Up and Call to Action

Transcript

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 0:09

Welcome to the righter side of education, research, innovation and resources. I'm your host, r Lisa Hassler, here to enlighten and brighten the classrooms in America through focused conversation on important topics in education. In each episode, I discuss problems we as teachers and parents are facing and what people are doing in their communities to fix it. What are the variables and how can we duplicate it to maximize student outcomes? Today's topic is on effective instructional practices for multilingual learners.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 0:39

Dual language education provides instruction in both English and a target language, offering academic content in two languages. This model supports academic achievement, enhances cognitive skills and fosters cultural awareness. Research shows that students in dual-language programs often achieve superior outcomes and there's a growing movement in the US to embrace these models. For instance, texas now mandates dual language programs in schools with significant populations of emergent bilinguals. This shift highlights the value of linguistic diversity as a strength to be leveraged, not a challenge to be overcome. Joining me today to discuss effective multilingual learner instruction is Katherine Hamilton, the Senior Vice President of Programs at Ensemble Learning. Katherine brings a wealth of experience in promoting equity and excellence for multilingual learners. She also serves as a charter board chair, collaborating with educational leaders and teachers to enhance achievement in mathematics and beyond. With a master's degree in education from Stanford University and a bachelor's degree in economics from Yale University, katherine is well-equipped to provide valuable insights on this important topic. Welcome, catherine, it's so nice to have you on today.

Katherine Hamilton: 1:51

Thanks for having me. Excited to talk about our multilingual learners.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 1:55

Yeah, so how do dual language programs support multilingual learners and what are the key benefits?

Katherine Hamilton: 2:01

What's really wonderful about dual language programs is that they build on the assets and the funds of knowledge and obviously the language skills that students have to then develop that bilingualism, that biliteracy. There's actually really great research out there. Thomas and Collier did like a really seminal study following multilingual learners over kind of the course of their education and what our hunch was. But what their research really showed is that not only do students in dual language programs like develop and acquire academic English, but they actually end up outperforming their English only peers even in English language tests. And we really believe and the research shows, that it's because you are dipping into their language skills in their first language and you are helping them build connections, kind of build that schema between the two languages. So then they develop that grasp of language very, very strongly.

Katherine Hamilton: 3:06

And on top of that, the cultural benefits, the sense of belonging. If you speak another language and you go to a school and the overt or maybe implicit messages are only English is important here, you know it really hurts your sense of belonging. But if you go to a school that says, wow, you are coming in speaking Spanish or speaking Russian or speaking Chinese and we're going to help you continue to build that and we're going to help you build this academic English. Your sense of belonging is much stronger and you know we see those benefits also in parent engagement and so just all these factors that support students to learn. You know all language, all subjects. We really get supported so strongly in dual language programs.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 3:55

Yeah, when I would have a student that English was their second language, I was always so excited to talk to them and their parents about. I understand that we're learning how to read and all the comprehension and the fluency and the vocabulary, but please don't stop learning your original language. Don't put that on the back burner. Please read those books at home to your child in that home language, because being able to foster both even though I had noticed that the English might come a little bit slower or wasn't as quick, at the end it doesn't really matter, because it just was a lag of a few months and then they really just caught right up, and so it was a wonderful benefit to be able to still keep that home language flourishing, and the parents are always really happy to hear that. So what effective instructional practices can teachers use, then, to help multilingual learners succeed in dual language programs?

Katherine Hamilton: 4:50

There are a couple of things I really think of across the bat as, like these are the key pieces, and one of those actually is just that strategic separation of languages and ensuring that you are hitting the percentage of time that you spend in each language, to give that time to practice, to learn, to acquire vocabulary, and so it's really a lot of it that planning and designing your day to ensure that you're teaching in the appropriate language of instruction and then also having those visual cues for students so they know that language of instruction, and then also having those visual cues for students so they know that language of instruction. A lot of models use like red and blue. Some of our partner schools use like the colors of maybe they're kind of like their district colors. So we have a partner district who uses blue and green, and so everything in one language is blue, including everything written. Sometimes even the teacher will put on like a hat or a scarf when they're speaking that language and instructing in that language, and then everything in the other language is that other color green, red and that really helps students separately develop those languages and then really strategically have these moments of bridging and these moments where you're saying you know, here's what's happening in each language and it's maybe discussing phonics and the different sounds that maybe a letter would say, or discussing things like different sentence structure where does the adjective go in each language and really comparing those languages, bringing them together.

Katherine Hamilton: 6:30

The second piece that we really dive into immediately when we're doing teacher professional learning, we're doing coaching, is oracy and the importance of just really really giving a lot of time and space for students to speak each language in not just formal ways but really a lot of informal but structured ways, and so ways for them to access practice lower the effective filter so they're practicing with peers and then helping them when they maybe are sharing out to the full class or a more formal way. And when we do these oracy practices, often it might be with a read aloud, maybe text-based, but it's really saying if we want students to be able to speak this target language, whatever language of instruction is, how are we making the content really accessible? How are we providing a lot of images, total physical response, how are we providing language or sentence frames, Just a lot of ways to make it accessible for students to really dive right in and just practice, practice, practice that language with their oracy.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 7:32

Nice. So what strategies do you recommend for teachers that honors and celebrates the multilingualism and the multiculturalism within the classroom?

Katherine Hamilton: 7:42

I think there are a couple of layers of this, because honoring the multilingualism should really be central in a dual language classroom, because that's what we're doing and we're really celebrating students becoming bilingual, bicultural, having that high academic achievement in both languages, and so it should really be central. And one of the things that we can really do is be mindful of, like within the classroom, what are the things that we are celebrating. We do a lot of work in Texas that still has a lot of their state standardized testing is English and it's about that English proficiency and so being really mindful that you're not just celebrating performance or improvement in English proficiency, but you're not just celebrating performance or improvement in English proficiency, but you're really measuring, assessing and celebrating student growth in both of those languages. The other piece that we really encourage schools to do is to take that celebration of culture and of language out of the classroom and to the whole school. Even if the whole school is not dual language immersion classrooms, even parts of it, are really like bringing that into the hallways, bringing it to the front of the school, bringing it to assemblies and saying we are a bilingual, bicultural or multilingual, multicultural school and we're going to celebrate those things Just like to your point around engaging with parents and encouraging them to participate in their native language they might be acquiring English as well if they're more recent immigrants but really honoring families to speak the language that is best for them and support their student academically in whatever language they want and sharing the research with them.

Katherine Hamilton: 9:23

And support their student academically in whatever language they want and sharing the research with them and saying actually being multilingual is a superpower and it will help you in all of your academics. We have to also be cognizant that Spanish is not one language, that there are many, there are regional phrases, there are dialects, and so even within our language of instruction might be in Spanish for a certain block of the day, but even inviting student input of you know how is this said in your home or where your grandparents live and even bringing in and honoring those different regional dialects, regional phrases and welcoming those into a classroom, because we don't want to set and be like this is academic Spanish and this is the only right. Spanish Language is as valuable as it is used for people and we really want to honor that. So those are a few ways we talk about celebrating and honoring multilingualism and multiculturalism.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 10:26

So how can schools design curricula then that integrates content instruction across both languages effectively?

Katherine Hamilton: 10:33

Yeah, we're in a really interesting time when you look at published high-quality instructional materials that there's not a lot out there that a school can adopt. That's standards, aligned, language aligned, given kind of your strategic separation of languages and your language allocation. And so it's really thinking about what are the standards for English language arts, spanish language arts, what are those standards? We're looking at what's the targeted language of instruction and really stacking the standards, saying overall, what is it that we're learning? And starting from those standards and then layering on in a dual language program also really culturally responsive texts. Because if we're teaching in a dual language classroom but all of the texts are classic American, you know, or English, british, european texts, we're not actually capturing that whole piece of in all the goals of bilingual education with that bicultural work.

Katherine Hamilton: 11:36

And so it's the standards, it's culturally relevant, meaningful text, yeah. And then it's really looking at those themes. When you have that strategic separation of language, then when you're bridging across your languages, what are those themes that are coming out that are reflected in both the standards? We're really excited. The English Learner Success Forum is a nonprofit that looks at curriculum that's effective for multilingual learners and they're doing some really great like advocacy and support work to try to ensure that some high quality dual language curriculum hits the market, you know, sometime soon. Because when you can have really strong, high quality instructional materials and a teacher can really focus on delivering those and differentiating and supporting the students in their classroom, they're not having to reinvent the wheel with the standards independently.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 12:31

Yeah, absolutely, because I could see where that would be. A very big obstacle to overcome is if you want to be able to have a program like that, but then you don't really know how to begin when it comes to curriculum, unless a teacher ends up adapting that, which is just an extra burden. So you may not get a lot of candidates taking that position. But aside from the curriculum, what are some challenges that schools might face when transitioning to a dual language instruction and how can they overcome these obstacles?

Katherine Hamilton: 13:00

We're seeing two big challenges kind of across the field. One is mirroring the overall challenge of a teacher shortage and teachers leaving the classroom and when you, you know, throw an additional requirement of a teacher being bilingual and then passing additional assessments or getting additional classes, depending on the state requirements, we really see a shortage of certified bilingual teachers. We're actually doing some work within a grant that we have in Texas to pay for the teachers tests, because it can add up for teachers to take all those exams and then provide mentorship for them to be prepared for the exams, and so we're seeing an increase, some additional certified teachers, and so there's hope there. We just we need to get more people in the pipeline and more people excited about teaching in that that dual language setting.

Katherine Hamilton: 13:56

A second big thing that we are seeing is concern among families about the value of dual language education.

Katherine Hamilton: 14:04

I think because of society, because of bias, both implicit and overt bias, there are many immigrant families who really want to set their children up for success and see English as a pathway for that, and so for many families their belief is like I don't care about the Spanish, I don't care about the native language, I just want them to learn English because here in the United States that's going to set them up for success.

Katherine Hamilton: 14:32

So it's really sharing with those families the value and the benefit it's having those conversations like you had, of saying actually you speaking Spanish, you reading in Spanish, you using this native and home language, is really valuable. And here's why and here's what the research says. And having them have to step outside of maybe the negative experiences they had in school and show them a promise of something you know more positive, of course. The third as I said that that curriculum is really challenging. Until I think we have some really great resources, it can be challenging. For example, in California we don't see a lot of schools currently shifting to dual language programs. It's either like historically they've been a dual language school because they have a great curriculum set up that maybe they've refined over time, but actually making that transition can be challenging.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 15:27

Do you see that schools go to like one classroom at a time or, you know, are schools going where they're like campus wide? What do you usually see?

Katherine Hamilton: 15:37

Well, we're currently partnering with a public school network in Dallas and they actually took a subset of their schools based on the population, based on the emergent bilingual population kind of around their schools.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 15:51

Okay.

Katherine Hamilton: 15:51

And then they're also rolling it out one grade level at a time. And so those students can kind of grow upwards and then they can hire each year and work on the curriculum like all those things kind of, each year. And so that's the rollout we often see the dual language is a component of the school. It's not every classroom is dual language. It's usually one, maybe two classrooms per grade level and then there tends to be a non-dual language option as well.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 16:25

Do you see that Spanish is more prevalent? What other languages are schools going to?

Katherine Hamilton: 16:31

In our Texas work they're all Spanish-English dual language. I live in Los Angeles and what's really interesting, there are just a lot of different neighborhood pockets of like cultural communities and so there are a lot of Korean English dual immersion and so really organically within the community where there's a need and a desire, we see those other languages. Obviously, you know, with staffing there's a challenge if you have a less prevalent language and really finding those educators that are committed and prepared to serve, but it is great to have such a variety and we do get to see that in more multicultural areas.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 17:22

So there are layers of challenges, but definitely doable, right Doable and worth the challenge when you get it launched.

Katherine Hamilton: 17:30

absolutely worth it.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 17:31

Yes, and so are these schools that are going to these dual language programs. They're going out of necessity and need, or is it because they're just saying you know what? I really don't have another language that's prevalent, but what I would love to do is just create a dual language immersion program to where maybe my English speaking students are going to be immersed in dual teaching of Spanish as well. Do any schools do that?

Katherine Hamilton: 17:58

of Spanish as well? Do any schools do that? Yeah, I'll use a local example. The Pasadena Unified School District, just kind of right outside of Los Angeles, has shifted a lot of their schools to dual language programs and part of that is just providing different opportunities and enrichment in their public schools, and so those are more two-way programs, meaning that you have about half of the students coming in you know, knowing Spanish and about half the students coming in knowing English, and then there's a real exchange, you know, between the students and in the instruction, with the goal of those students being bilingual, bicultural.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 18:31

Yeah.

Katherine Hamilton: 18:31

So in Texas they actually have a mandate. If you have, I believe, 20 or more emergent bilingual or multilingual students, you have to provide a dual language program, and so that's why we're seeing such a growth in Texas, why a lot of our dual language work is in Texas. But the thing we do want to be really cautious of as these programs grow is that the foundation of them is providing an equitable educational opportunity for emergent bilingual students, and so we do want to be cautious, and while we believe being bilingual is something wonderful for everyone, we want to focus more on providing that opportunity for emergent bilingual students to be in these bilingual programs, versus for all students at this point, just because of the prevalence of the program. So we just want to be cautious about that equity challenge that we do face.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 19:28

Right, focusing on the equity. First, my son was actually enrolled in one in kindergarten, english speaker but it was Spanish as well and his cousin was his teacher and they would offer the content through both languages and he really flourished and loved it. And then we ended up moving. So it's so sad that the school district that we went to did not offer something like that, but in our particular one it was a totally separate building and it was one kindergarten, one first grade and one second grade class.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 19:55

And you had to start at the kindergarten level and then you would work your way up through it and then you would graduate and then go on to the other elementary school. But I was very impressed by that, and that was like 25 years ago, and so to think that there was something along those lines then I'm hopeful that this can be a little bit more mainstream, because it definitely was wonderful for him. So can you share a specific example of a school's successful transition to dual language instruction and the impact it had on their multilingual learners?

Katherine Hamilton: 20:23

Yeah, I'll give a shout out to Maynard School District. It's right outside of Austin and they've put dual language into all of their schools. Nice, and a few things really stand out to me as like what has led to the success. One is just the fantastic leader at their district, miss Erica Galindo. She has a passion, has a focus, she's just incredibly strong in her leadership for dual language and saying you know, this is what we are doing and this is the way we're moving forward with it, these are the supports we're going to provide, and so where we see the transition work really well is when you have that partnership between a district leader and then the school leaders and both being very on board and moving in the same direction and what they've really done there that's been successful is said.

Katherine Hamilton: 21:14

You know, yes, there are a lot of ideas and theories around dual language, but we're going to get really clear about what dual language looks like at Mainer ISD. Here are our colors for our strategic separation of language, here are our schedules and just providing some of those baseline. This is the mainer way that then the district and the schools are aligned on. And then they've also been really thoughtful about that roll up again where students start early.

Katherine Hamilton: 21:43

We supported in the last couple of years a pre-K bilingual program and so starting really early with students and working with them to support their literacy in Spanish but then also helping them begin to develop that biliteracy with English. And now they have pushed those pre-K programs actually back out to the elementary schools so that all of those students have an opportunity, all those families, to start at that pre-K level and really that commitment starting young and then rolling up into all their elementary classrooms. They just continue to pour into coaching of teachers, professional learning for teachers, support for principals who are monitoring and leading this with school walkthroughs, and so I think that their transition and really adoption of dual language. I put a lot on their leadership and that amount of support that they put towards it. Dual language is a lot to launch and I think sometimes it can be easy to be like, oh great, we're going to get a great teacher and they're going to run it. But really understanding the vision at a district and the vision at a school helps those teachers really flourish.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 22:56

It makes so much sense for the pre-K because we are starting them early with letter recognition and colors and shapes and things like that. Keep pushing it down, lower, lower, lower. So it just makes sense that you would want to start at the beginning of their language development.

Katherine Hamilton: 23:10

And also from the beginning of their schooling, they see that who they are wholly is valued.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 23:16

Yes.

Katherine Hamilton: 23:16

I'm coming to school speaking Spanish and that's valued and it's not. Oh, I have to only speak English at school. And my younger son, he's two, and at his preschool they use Spanish and English very interchangeably and it's just so natural. It's like, yes, this is how we speak in Los Angeles, like in a very multicultural place.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 23:39

So what strategies and advice can you offer to teachers who have non-native English speakers in their classrooms but they don't have access to a dual immersion program?

Katherine Hamilton: 23:49

Yeah, I mean, so many of our partnerships are in schools that don't have those programs, and it's actually where I come from. I was a high school math teacher in the Northeast San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. About 99% of my students students of color, many of them, you know, bilingual or at least speaking a lot of Spanish, and so the biggest thing that I really think about, first and foremost, is that that culture. What's the culture in your classroom? Are you developing those warm relationships? And then are you setting those high expectations and holding students to those high expectations and ensuring you don't have any implicit bias? It's a very easy thought to have of.

Katherine Hamilton: 24:33

If I see a student struggling with English, then in my head I might say, oh, they're also going to struggle with the math and they're also going to struggle, you know, with the history concepts.

Katherine Hamilton: 24:42

And we have to really decouple at times, a student's English language proficiency with their content knowledge and make sure that we as teachers aren't holding any of those biases that don't make us bad people but are very natural biases to have, and kind of along those same lines, I think it's being really strategic about what's the academic English language that students need to access to work within your content and then to meet the content learning goal that you have, and so really being explicit about their content and the English that goes with their content, and how do I really support students in building both of those? How do I provide those structured student talk opportunities? How do I give feedback? How do I provide those structured student talk opportunities? How do I give feedback? How do I provide opportunities for students to write and just really interact with the language within your content? A lot we're not going to. You know, students aren't going to be as successful as they can be, and so that's the thinking I really encourage for teachers. But, more than anything, if you are a first year teacher, the most important thing is to think about the relationships and the expectations you're setting for your students.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 26:02

Right, Just keeping that equity piece. Just because they may struggle in the language, does it mean that they're not capable of doing high quality work and master concepts outside of the language or even in the language? And I think that that's very true of all students where you just want to make sure that you always hold a high bar because they go to where you expect them.

Katherine Hamilton: 26:22

Yeah Well, and I'll say you know, you made me think that it's also not just for our multilingual learners. It's many of our students are learning academic English. So when we break it down and we think of language in a way for our multilingual learners, it's good for all students because they all need to develop that language.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 26:44

Absolutely.

Katherine Hamilton: 26:44

So I love what you're sharing.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 26:46

Where could teachers or parents go to be able to learn more about dual language immersion programs? Or maybe they've got a classroom and they need to have a little bit of resources to say I don't really know how to approach this. Where could they go for that?

Katherine Hamilton: 27:01

I will put a plug for our work at Ensemble Learning. We are a national nonprofit really getting to this laser focus on equity for multilingual learners, and so you can visit our website at ensemble learningorg and we do complimentary calls with educators to support and kind of help. You point you in the right direction. I will say, if you're a teacher and you're like looking for some great tools and some research that makes a lot of sense, very hands on the work of Jeff Zweres, especially in. He does a lot of work in math, but he does a lot of sense, very hands-on the work of Jeff Zwiers, especially in. He does a lot of work in math but he does a lot of general work around student academic talk, and so it's Z-W-I-E-R-S. Jeff Zwiers is just a wonderful resource that we go to a lot.

Katherine Hamilton: 27:48

I would also say Zaretta Hammond's work for any of these cultural pieces. Her research and work is what we use in a lot of our professional learning as well. And if you're in California or not, seal S-E-A-L is doing some really wonderful work around dual language, especially in early learning, and they're just a great resource. They have a lot of videos that are always really helpful, and so those are a few things that I turn to. And yeah, I do invite people to come. You know, reach out to Ensemble, because we I always like invite people into our family of like. We all care about equity for multilingual learners, and so if you want to be a part of that like, connect with us, and we love to share resources.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 28:35

That's excellent. Thank you so much for all of that, and thank you for joining us today to discuss effective instructional practices for multilingual learners.

Katherine Hamilton: 28:44

Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 28:46

Let's strengthen our educational environments to ensure multilingual learners have equal opportunities to succeed, support effective practices that help them learn academic English and grade-level content, while celebrating their languages and cultures. If you have a story about what's working in your schools that you'd like to share, you can email me at lisa@ drlisarhassler. com, or visit my website at www. drlisarhassler. com and send me a message. If you like this podcast, subscribe and tell a friend. The more people that know, the bigger impact it will have. And if you find value to the content in this podcast, consider becoming a supporter by clicking on the supporter link in the show notes. It is the mission of this podcast to shine light on the good in education so that it spreads, affecting positive change. So let's keep working together to find solutions that focus on our children's success.