Authored by Andrea Smith, Education Consultant SIG Leader

Can social emotional learning (SEL) have an impact on English Language Acquisition (ELA)?  Factors such as home environment, teacher quality, and student readiness are known to determine ELA outcomes. There is a scientific basis for possibly including SEL standards in English Language Plans (ELP), however, in order to make specific implications for using SEL in the actual planning for English Language Learners in the classroom, more research is needed on data-driven methods of developing inclusive environments where all students feel their assets are valuable and that their culture is considered. In the Social Emotional Learning Guidance Standards from Virginia Department of Education (VASELGS), five areas are identified: Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, Social Management, Relationship Skills, and Decision Making and can be used to determine their relationship with language acquisition. Additionally, these standards are definitely worthy of considering when collaborating with homeroom teachers, other staff members and stakeholders. 

For more information check out the VASELGS @ Virginia Social Emotional Learning Guidance Standards. Videos from the Virginia Department of Education on Social Emotional Learning for all populations can be found @ Social Emotional Wellness Video Quick Guides - Virginia CLC (vastudentservices-clc.org).

Authored by Dr. Juvenal E. Abrego, Administration SIG Leader

Math has always been a challenging subject for many students. For English Learners, math becomes more than a challenge; it is a puzzle so difficult to decipher that it causes students to quickly experience a desire to give up. The complexity of the aforementioned lies in the lack of experiences, opportunities or exposure to help ELL students understand that Math is not difficult, but rather magical.  Danielle, a math coach in VA, challenged her third, fourth and fifth grade students to develop powerful tools to transform math challenges into fun adventures. Students began by checking on their own magic tricks, which were aligned with their basic math computation skills. Once students had self-assessed their ability to add, subtract, divide or multiply; they proceeded to use small group time to quickly accelerate their math computation skills to obtain magic wands that would give them the power to develop additional tricks.

EL students were excited to show Danielle all their tricks. Some of them came up with their own flash cards, mnemonic devices and other tools that they used to demonstrate how they were quickly building their super power to be math wizards. The powerful aspect of Danielle’s math coaching story lies in the experience that she set up for her students to see math as a fun game. For EL students, Danielle’s approach is not just a fun opportunity to learn math, but a way to capitalize in day to day collaboration with peers. It also gave students their own agency to find resources that could help them remediate their weaknesses in such a way that they could continue to face additional math challenges with the certainty that they can and will be able to become successful in math if they think of each math concept as a trick to grow their power. In learning English, confidence is key. The story of Danielle’s students reminds educators that English learners are not limited by language, but rather by the opportunities that their teachers may deny to them when they don’t believe in the power of meaningful learning.

Authored by Hali Massey, Adult Education SIG Leader

The definition of numeracy is “the ability to confidently interact with and engage in the mathematical demands of everyday life in the home, workplace, and community” (Ciancone, 1996). Numeracy tasks occur regularly in everyday life, and it is important for adult English language learners to have the language and context in order to engage with these tasks (Ginsburget al, 2006). In addition, the US uses several systems that are most likely new to recent immigrants, refugees, or new Americans, such as the Imperial System of measurement, monetary values, western calendars, etc., so numeracy in the adult ESOL classroom helps to orient English language learners to these systems and measurements that they will encounter in the United States. 

Examples of numeracy include: 

• Using quantitative data to express facts and opinions, such as comparing prices or sales or analyzing statistics to make decisions or form opinions. 

• Calculating percentages, such as when shopping and calculating sale percentages and when trying to calculate how much tax is owed or how much tip to leave.

• Measuring items, such as knowing how much medication to take and measuring ingredients when cooking.  

Some strategies for incorporating numeracy into the adult ESOL classroom include: 

• Incorporate numeracy into classroom texts, videos, vocabulary, tasks, and discussions by aligning ESOL content with numeracy objectives: ESOL instructors can look at their curriculum or course materials to see where numeracy aligns with their content. This ensures that numeracy objectives will be contextualized within the already established classroom curriculum. See the following examples:

• Use graphics or images to represent statistics or situations that allow for numeracy discussions/activities: ESOL instructors can use graphics or images to engage learners in conversations that support learners in developing metalinguistic and metacognitive skills for processing numeracy situations in their everyday lives (Ciancone, 1996). For examples of instructional materials for this strategy, please see the members only resource section on the VATESOL website.

• Assess how learners are using or need to use numeracy skills in their everyday lives and build off of those situations or problems. (Ciancone, 1996)

In addition, these are some best practices to follow when incorporating numeracy into the adult ESOL classroom. (Ciancone, 1996)

• Ensure that numeracy activities are interactive, collaborative, and relevant to the everyday lives of your learners. 

• Encourage the focus to be on thought process and not on wrong or right answers and acknowledge various ways of thinking and reaching conclusions. 

• Scaffold with visual representations such as images, graphs, charts, drawings, etc.

• Integrate numeracy into the adult ESOL classroom from the beginning; meaning that all levels of proficiency are engaging in numeracy activities.  

References: 

Ciancone, T. (1996) Numeracy in the Adult ESL Classroom. Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL). https://www.cal.org/adultesl/resources/digests/numeracy-in-the-adult-esl-class ro om.php#:~:text=Numeracy%20is%20the%20ability%20to,opinions%20and%20to%20analyze%20situations. 

Authored by Victoria Pierson, VATESOL Vice President

It sounds intimidating... submitting a proposal to present at a conference. We’re here to demystify the process and encourage you to submit a proposal for VATESOL’s upcoming conference this fall.

First, let's break down the submission form. If it’s your first time considering a presentation at a conference, the submission form may seem overwhelming. Don’t worry… it’s really just three main sections of information:

• Presenter Information: Share your contact information with us so that we can notify you if your proposal is accepted and credit you in our program! However, our proposal review process is fully anonymous - board members won’t be able to see your name on your submission until after all proposals have been reviewed and accepted or denied.
• Presentation Type & Target Audience: Help us see where your presentation will fit within the organization of the conference. The Target Audience and Topic Emphasis fields are included in our program as a way for participants to easily locate sessions that may be most relevant to their current field or area of interest.
• Presentation Details: Share with us the title, summary, and abstract of your proposed presentation. The title and summary will be printed in the conference program for participants, while the abstract is for our proposal reviewers to learn more about what you are proposing to present. Don’t stress… You aren’t expected to write a doctoral dissertation here! Just give us a clear and descriptive overview of your presentation: What information will you share? What will a participant walk away with after hearing your presentation? Be sure not to include any identifying information (like your school division, university, or hometown) in the abstract.

Top Tips for Writing Your Proposal:

1. Start with the theme. Past VATESOL board member Marie Rose-McCully shared:

3. Consider the audience. Past VATESOL president, Jana Moore, wrote:

“What makes a great proposal is what the listener will get out of it. I don't want to go and listen to a speaker talk because they believe they are fabulous. I want to hear people talk about research or things they are doing in the classroom, and how it can be tweaked for my own purposes, or how that impacts what I'm doing. You can read a certain level of enthusiasm in proposals, and outstanding ones are those that ‘pop.’”

That's it! Remember, what makes a great conference is a diverse group of presenters and presentations. We are looking for proposals from all stakeholders: K-12 teachers, administrators, adult educators, teacher educators, professors and university-level instructors, students... anyone who has something to contribute to our conversation!

Authored by Kathryn Manning, K-12 SIG Leader

How to Start your Own PLC…with another district

For small-incidence districts where you may be the sole ELL teacher or go a whole week without seeing your fellow ELL team members, collaborating with ELL teams outside of your district may provide a fresh new perspective and spark ideas for how to improve your setting’s LIEP model.

Step 1: Identify a District to Partner with

When it comes to attending conferences, part of the excitement after hearing the keynote speaker’s presentation and perusing vendors is reuniting and catching up with that conference buddy you always run into at VATESOL conferences.  What if you didn’t have to wait until the next conference to catch up and could instead create something new and exciting now?

After attending a consortium conference last fall, I reached out to another district’s team that presented on how to create in-house ELL-specific professional development and training to support content teachers in collaborating with ELL teachers.  Although unable to attend their presentation, entitled Smarter Together: Developing Teacher Expertise, I found that this team of Staunton City ELL teachers and an Executive Director of Instruction were more than happy to not only share their program model, but also major findings.

Step 2: Meet Virtually or In-Person to Establish Goals and Purpose for Meeting

After corresponding via e-mail a few times, we decided an in-person meeting would be best to exchange ideas and our own experiences with collaboration.  I pitched the idea to one of my content area coteachers, who quickly expressed interest in being a part of our growing motley crew.  Getting a group of educators together for a Friday after-school meeting is no easy feat, but we made it happen with the help of a shared interest in improving our district’s collaboration and PD model.  Our first meeting centered on how to create a system for change through staff ELL training: starting a pilot study, using Title III funds, collecting data to show progress, and how to encourage reflection among teachers as they try out and adopt new strategies for supporting English learners—quite the productive agenda even as we hit start on our teacher weekend modes!    

Step 3: Keep It Going

Almost three months later and our ELL cross-district PLC is still going strong.  Although our meeting setting has shifted from city hall to local coffee shops, we still bring a desire to grow and increase our knowledge base as educators. On top of improving teacher expertise, we have also added a book study to our agenda list as we dive into Andrea Honigsfeld’s Co-Planning: Five Essential Practices to Integrate Curriculum and Instruction for English Learners.  Like many ELL educators, we still vent about ACCESS testing and how to support our coworkers in being more intentional about supporting ELs in the classroom. However, I find that with new faces and ideas we also bring a dynamic energy that keeps us moving forward and excited for the positive change we can enact in our individual settings.  Stay tuned–we’re not done yet!

Authored by Isra Nikoolkan, VATESOL Blog Editor

Andrea is an ELL Specialist at Orange Elementary School in Orange, VA. She currently serves on the Minority Advisory Committee for the Superintendent and is a member of the Orange County Youth Commission. She has been working in education, diversity, and inclusion for over 20 years serving as an ESL Instructor at both Montgomery College in Maryland and at Howard University in Washington, DC. Andrea and her family lived in Ghana, West Africa for five years where she served as an Educational Consultant for a nonprofit organization while homeschooling three of her four children. She has an advanced yoga certification and specializes in social emotional health as it relates to anxiety, trauma and racial justice. She received her Bachelor’s degree from Bowie State University and is currently a graduate student at Miami University.

Andrea looks forward to serving in her role on the VATESOL board as Education Consultant SIG.

Authored by Isra Nikoolkan, VATESOL Blog Editor

Dr. Abrego Meneses holds a  Bachelor of Arts in Bilingual Education from the National University of Panama, a Master's Degree in TESOL and a  Master of Arts in English Education and writing. He obtained his Education Specialist Degree in School Leadership from Virginia Tech and his Doctor of Education in Executive Leadership, Planning and Policy from the College of William and Mary. Dr. Abrego Meneses is the principal of Cardinal Elementary School in Richmond, VA,  the largest Elementary school in RPS with the highest number of ELL students in the state of VA. Dr. Abrego has been an educator for 22 years. He began his career as an ESL teacher in the Republic of Panama. He coordinated ESL and Migrant School programs in South Carolina. Dr. Abrego Meneses has been a foreign language and IB teacher at the middle, high and college levels. He has taught ESL at the elementary, middle and high school levels. He has served as a school level administrator for over 8 years. 

Juvenal looks forward to serving in his role on the VATESOL board as Administration SIG.

Authored by Hali Massey, VATESOL Adult Education SIG Leader

When planning for adult English language instruction, it is important to consider how to make classroom materials and activities relevant to the real lives of learners. Given that we live in a world that is dominated by technology, it is inevitable that learners will be asked to use different forms of technology in English. When navigating life in the United States, multilingual learners will need to be able to perform tasks using the internet, digital tools, smartphones, laptops, etc. Depending on their prior exposure to technology and using technology for specific purposes, these skills and tasks may be new to learners. 

Because adult ESOL curricula are typically thematic units that focus on various aspects of adult life in the United States, we can analyze our curriculum to look for areas where digital literacy instruction, materials, and activities would benefit our learners and enhance our instruction. 

Examples of aligning digital literacy skills to adult ESOL curriculum include: 

Instructional practices for integrating digital literacy into the adult ESOL classroom: 

• Orientation: Spend time orienting learners to digital platforms and tools in the classroom, in-person, and in their home language(s) whenever possible.

• Explicit instruction: Explicitly teach tools and vocabulary needed to engage in digital literacy skills - use images and realia to scaffold understanding.

• Familiar tools: Start with tools and platforms that learners have experience using or at least exposure to.

• Authentic tasks and skills: Utilize authentic digital tasks and skills in the classroom that mimic those that learners need in the real world.

For resources that assist with integrating digital literacy into the adult English language classroom, please see the members only resource section on the VATESOL website.

Authored by, Laura Lewis, VATESOL President

End of January into March is the time when K-12 ESOL teachers throughout Virginia are stressing about the WIDA Access test. I know I have been since November when I put together my testing schedule. Have new students entered our school since then, of course! Did I schedule one of my testing days on a county PD day when we will not have students, of course! Luckily, I did come across some of my most valued resources that I have cultivated over the years to help me administer this test. Some are .pdf's pulled from the WIDA site--like the test administrator script-- and one is a wonderful powerpoint on the "Why" and "What" behind the Access test that you can share with your school building or district. Full disclosure I am not sure where I got this powerpoint. To have access to these resources go to Members' Area section of our website. Good luck with your testing season!

Authored by Katya Koubek, VATESOL Teacher Education SIG Leader

As we are slowly emerging from a three-year pandemic, the topic of social-emotional learning continues to play an important role in the TESOL field. No matter where we teach, many educators and students have experienced the effect of the pandemic, especially on their mental health. In many schools, mindfulness has become an essential topic of educators’ professional development. In an overview of top 8 TESOL PD topics from the 2022 year, Dr. Laura Baecher has revealed the topics of mindfulness and overcoming teacher burnout as part of this list. 

As a teacher educator, I remember attending a virtual TESOL 2021 conference in which Dr. Janet Zadina discussed the pandemic brain and science behind optimal learning. As a result of her mindfulness practices with her virtual audience, I learned the techniques to help my students and myself rewire our brains and mitigate anxiety, which in the long run can help with a more positive outlook on life. These techniques adaptable to other educational contexts outside of higher education include the following steps: 

1. Play 60-beat instrumental music as students come to class and have it on during the next mindfulness steps. YouTube is an excellent free source for such music, especially coffee shop jazz..

2. Ask students to sit straight with feet down on the floor and one hand on their chest and the other on the stomach to do some breathing techniques. Encourage them to close or partially close their eyes to practice the 4-7-8 breathing technique (four seconds inhale through one’s nose, 7 second to hold one’s breath, and 8 seconds exhale through one’s mouth). Repeat this technique 6 times. This technique is suitable for adults, but not for younger children. In addition, if students cannot hold their breath or have heart problems, encourage them to breathe naturally instead.

3. Switch to natural breathing for an additional minute or two. Continue to sit straight with partially closed or fully closed eyes.

4. The final step involves gratitude where students write down three gratitude notes. By varying these gratitude notes, students help rewire their brains to mitigate their anxiety and stress, which in the long run will improve their sleep, health, and learning in general. While these gratitude notes are private, students are encouraged to share them with the whole class if desired.

As someone who has been practicing mindfulness in all my undergraduate and graduate courses, I can attest that students perceive them as beneficial to their learning and overall health based on survey results gathered over several years (Koubek, 2021, 2022). By teaching our students mindfulness techniques, we can help our students develop better coping mechanisms to deal with the effects of the pandemic and have a brighter outlook on their lives. 

References

Baecher, L. (2022, December 27). Top 8 PD topics for English language teachers in 2022. TESOL blog. 

Koubek, E. (2021). (Re)Imagining remote teaching and learning: Meeting students where they are. In J. Davis & C. Irish (Eds.), Lessons from the pivot: Higher education’s response to the pandemic. https://scholar.umw.edu/education/11/

Koubek, E. (2022). Enacting an ethic of care as a TESOL teacher educator. In M. Shoffner and A. Webb (Eds.), Reconstructing care in teacher education after COVID-19. Routledge.

Zadina, J. (2021, March). The pandemic brain: Science and strategies for optimal learning. Keynote. Virtual TESOL Convention.