Welcome to Cultural Connections Lab. I'm your host Dr. Kelly Forbes. We are here to talk with educational professionals around the world to impact and influence the education system as we focus on cultural connections and the education of multilingual, diverse students.
We're excited to have you join us today. We sincerely hope that you enjoy the show.
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Welcome listeners to another podcast episode with Cultural Connections Lab. I am your host, Dr. Kelly Forbes, and I am excited to be with a new friend that I am meeting today.
Her name is Andrea Bittner. She is a proud wife and mother of two beautiful daughters. She lives on the East Coast, just outside of Philadelphia.
She has worked with students in grades K through 12 through her 23 years in public education from all around the world. Her work as an English language teacher, reading specialist, literacy coach, presenter, and high school English teacher inspired her to continue to share the great news.
Learning a second language is an asset, not a handicap.
Her first book, Take Me Home, was published by Austin McCauley in July of 2021. She is also the co-author of Chip Baker's The Impact of Influence, Volume 3, and 100 No Nonsense Things All School Leaders Should Stop Doing.
She teaches EL's daily and travels the country inspiring and supporting teachers on how to confidently reach, teach, and communicate with multilingual students and families.
She also provides workshops to motivate immigrant and EL students. You can find Andrea at www.andriabittnerbooks.com.
That is www.andreabitnerbooks.com or on social media at andriabittnerbooks.com.
Welcome, Andrea, and thank you so much for being here. I am really, really excited to get to meet you today and to learn more about you and to learn from you.
How are you doing? Oh, thank you so much. I'm doing great. How are you?
I am doing fantastic. As I was just saying before we begin this episode recording, thank you for taking time on a Friday evening, which may be right before a holiday break or perhaps you may have a few days next week.
I don't know, but I just really appreciate you taking the time to be with us today and to share your passion, knowledge, and understanding with us.
Absolutely. We are almost to that holiday break. We have five more days to go, but who's counting?
I think every educator across the nation is always counting down to the next time. And the kids even more.
Next winter holiday break. Yeah, my kids have got their little, you know, their little calendar they're checking off and they know every day how many days are left.
Absolutely. And listeners, you know him well. This is our co-host today, Dr. Taylor Tribble, CEO and President of Edgeskills, the sponsor for this podcast.
So thank you so much for being here to co-host with us. And I'm really thankful to Dr. Tribble because he always is this bridge allowing me to network and connect with other amazing educators across the nation.
And he is again this bridge that I get to meet you. And I know that you and Dr. Tribble have only I think met just one time, had a conversation, but he was really inspired by your story.
And he reached out to me immediately. And so we wanted to make sure to invite you to be on the podcast. And again, thank you because we want to hear more about this.
So we really like to just talk about, you know, the role that culture plays in education, the role that culture plays in our families and ourselves and our leadership and what all of that looks like in the pre-K-12 system most specifically, but also in beyond, right?
And so I, whenever I got the phone call from Dr. Tribble, he was telling me a lot about your book, Take Me Home. And it really struck a lot of chords with me whenever I first got into education, it was as a newcomer teacher in middle school, sixth to eighth grade with seven countries and eight languages represented.
And it was an incredible experience. So I was able to imagine and envision a little bit about what this was like and was watching some videos of other students that you read the book to and they want you to write about them as well.
It was, it just seems really, really special. So is there anything that you want to share with how you and Dr. Tribble met and this story and all of these connections that we're making right now?
Sure. I mean, I've been, you know, a follower and admirer of the work that Dr. Tribble does and we met on social media and set up some time to connect and learn more about each other, which was fantastic.
And that was the first time that I had shared with him about our work and our mission and our goals, you know, moving forward with what we're doing with Take Me Home.
Take Me Home is a true story of 11 of my former students who give a firsthand account of what it was really like to become bilingual in America.
And it was, like you said, released in 2021 and we're really proud of the impact that it's making. It's been read by educators. It's been read by middle and high school students.
It's been part of PLCs and professional developments that I've done. And what it's really starting to do is shift perspective in a positive way on the diversity that our ELs bring to the table as they're coming into our schools.
Well, it's going to be read by me as well because I'm going to get a copy. I want to read this and I'm really excited to be able to read it but also remember back and make some of the connections that, of the experiences I had, and just those moments where you're able to learn so much from your students and how it really does change our trajectories as educators in the field.
And I imagine that you'll get to this, Andrea, if I didn't interject, you'd get to it anyway, but I remember distinctly your kind of description of what inspired you to write the book.
Sure.
Story about the family, do you mean sharing that?
Not at all. You know, so about 10 years ago, I worked with about 40 different high school students with about 25 different languages.
And they came from all walks of life. I had students who were adopted, I had exchange students, I had kids across the border, I had kids who had waited 10 years for a visa and came after their parents.
I had kids who had waited 10 years for a visa and came before their parents. And I had kids that had lived here. And so we had this diverse group of students walking in with all different proficiency levels and all different life experiences.
And no matter where they came from or what their previous history was, at the time we had, you know, four years or less, depending on when they arrived in our program at the high school level, to work with them.
And they were greeted with this huge classroom banner. And in my classroom, we had a banner and it said, education is opportunity. Education is freedom.
What's your plan? Because we knew that their only plan couldn't be, I'm going to return to my country or I'm going to return to the district I came from next door or the state that I just arrived from.
And their second plan couldn't be, I'm not going to be successful here because their parents and teachers, as we reminded them often, had worked so hard to give them this gift of becoming bilingual that we were not going to allow them to not go out into the world and use it.
And so at the time, as you know, we went through this program and we worked with all these awesome kids. I had one particular family I worked with, the Lopez family.
And I had taught all seven of their children. And there were all boys and one girl. And they happen to be from the country El Salvador. And I've been to Salvador myself three times to do some work with schools down there.
And so I knew this family, I knew the aunts, the uncles, the cousins, the kids, you know, over an extensive period of time. So we started with Sergio and then we had Jeffrey and Jeffrey from Las Vegas all the way down to Nancy.
And Nancy, like I said, was the only female in the family. So they all went through this program and graduated successfully with this mentality.
And about a year after I was finished teaching and working with that family, I was outside one day outside of my building and I looked outside and I saw a bunch of helicopters and I thought like, wow, I hope everything's okay.
There's a lot of helicopters outside today. And about an hour after I have that thought, my principal came down to get me to let me know that one of my students had been hit by the train.
And unfortunately that student was Nancy. And unfortunately she passed away that day. She had made a choice to wear a pair of headphones and walk along the inside of the train track.
And as she was walking along the inside of the train track, she was clipped from behind by the Acela. And so at that time, that threw our community and our students and our teachers and her parents, you know, into a massive sense of trauma.
And one of the...
I can only imagine.
Yeah, you know, and one of the most challenging parts of that day, in addition to what had happened, was that mom and dad were still learning English themselves.
And so when they received the call that something had happened, no one on the local force spoke Spanish. So they could kind of put together that something was wrong.
And they could kind of put together that something had happened to the one of the kids, but they didn't know which one it was.
So they went up to the tracks and they stood there for hours, waiting and calling until many of us could get there to assist them.
So in the coming weeks, we navigated immigration and trying to get her brother to be able to come back and bury his sister, which we were denied.
We navigated the Latino community and supporting her parents. Dad's a pastor in the city and mom worked alongside of him.
We navigated the school community, the funeral process, the language barriers, all those moving pieces.
And one of my additional jobs at that time was to speak at Nancy's funeral.
And so at the time I wrote this short poem and we called it Take Me Home.
And it was an homage to Nancy's crossing and experience in the U.S.
And so I kept that piece of paper with that poem on it out on my desk.
And I continued to work with these amazing kids.
And a few months later, I saw sitting there and I thought, you know, maybe somebody could be helped by part of this story.
Maybe something about it could really change their perspective.
And so I sent that piece of paper out on a whim.
And a few months later, this publisher gets back to me and they say, hey, Andrea, we really like your poem, but we don't want you to write a poem.
We want you to write a book and we're going to give you about six months to do it.
And if you come back with something that we like, we're going to take you on and publish it.
And I started to think to myself, well, I don't just want to tell her story.
I want to tell all their stories because they're so different.
And a lot of people make the assumption that our English language learners have the same experiences.
If you came from this country, it means you're X. If you came from this country, it means you're Y.
If you walk in and you don't say anything, it means you're a newcomer.
And I was hearing all of these experiences from my students themselves.
They would say things like, Ms. B, why is everybody asking me if I lived with lions?
I mean, I lived in Africa, but I went to a private boarding school where kids would say to me, why does everybody think I'm Mexican?
I'm not from Mexico. I'm from Colombia.
And so all of these conversations were happening and I saw an opportunity to go back and tell all of their stories.
And so I went back and interviewed 11 of my former English learners who are now in their late 20s, early 30s.
And I said to them, now that you're a young, successful, bilingual person out and living in the world and you can reflect back upon your school experience, what was that really like for you?
And so we had months of conversations and notes and all kinds of recordings.
And what we did was create Take Me Home.
And so we've written each chapter through the eyes of each of those students.
It is Nancy's included as well. I went back and interviewed her parents.
And we are also proud of the fact that it's written in English and it repeats in Spanish all within the same book.
And it's making a huge impact on the world and giving people perspective on what it's really like to become bilingual here.
So that's my long-winded answer.
Libraries too.
That is so beautiful.
Yeah, the long-winded answer is what we're here for today.
Thank you for sharing and thank you for committing time and effort to that work.
I should have asked you before you came today if you happen to have that poem accessible.
Is it something that you'd feel comfortable?
I do.
Is it something you can read to us here on the show?
We actually reprinted it right in the back of the book. So it is there.
Yeah, I'd love it if you would share that with us.
Sure.
Yeah, me too. That's really, really kind.
It's the first time someone asked me to do that. I can do that. Okay.
All right.
I'm going to read you the next one.
Yeah.
That's the first question I always admired.
57 hours of riding in the car,
two days of walking.
It didn't seem very far.
It's time to go through.
Mommy whispered.
I love you.
I took a moment to think about everything we survived.
Without showers,
zero toys and no car to drive.
sun, with the comfort of soft raindrops, new friends, and thoughts of our loved ones.
As that flag appeared closer and my new life was to be born, Mommy bent over and announced,
we'll see Papa in the morn.
I smiled and thought of my Papa that I loved.
I had never met him, the man I was most proud of.
Twenty-one thousand dollars was saved to bring us here.
He mailed us every penny over the last ten years.
Waiting for us.
Yes, he was.
Waiting for us.
With eyes full of hugs.
Apparence, the guide, messaged.
Our phones were on silent.
It was time to go through our final moment.
My ten-year-old heart pounded as fast as it could, held onto Mommy's hand like I promised
I would.
We strolled onto the welcoming land and walked a bit more, picked up by a van, a bit unsure.
Buenos noches, Papi explained as we pulled up to his place.
Mommy sobbed tears of joy they could finally embrace.
I looked around at this new life of mine.
No language, no traditions, not sure of what I would find.
This ten-year waiting period that we had endured made some people think my adventure is to
be ignored.
My hope is that one day I will speak the English language I love and gain an education I seek.
I miss my country, my family, and my school.
This new place you call America has very different rules.
Please respect, accept, and admire the young person that I am, for my journey began with
the same ideas, similar to those of President Abraham.
A chance to meet friends, spread love and grow, a chance to join your world and share
what I know, that America is the home of the brave, the land of the free, and my Mommy,
Papa and I can finally be a family.
That's it.
Oh my gosh, that is so beautiful.
Thank you.
Wow, thank you so much.
What a beautiful tribute to Nancy and her family and so many students that do have stories.
Thank you.
To share.
Thank you.
I'm really touched by that.
It's heavy.
Yeah, it's really, really heavy.
But I'm sure you stay in touch with that family today.
All the time.
What are they doing now?
I'm teaching their children.
That's so incredible.
I've come full circle.
I'm in year 24 heading into and I've got some of the young people's in the books, children
now.
Wow.
What has been your biggest takeaway from all of this as an educator and what were the themes
that you found learning from your students who I always believe and I've said this before
and I love this, but they are our best professors.
Absolutely.
Our students.
Yes.
One theme that came through the conversations I had with our young people was their first
experience was to let people know that lack of language never equals lack of intelligence.
In my district in particular, right outside of Philadelphia, our young students that are
ELs or we could say ELs, English learners, they become the leaders of their families
pretty quickly because they have the opportunity to become more proficient at English than
their parents do necessarily because they're being educated for free.
With that in mind, they had a lot of experiences where people made a lot of assumption about
their ability based on the fact that they were newcomers.
Something I always talk to teachers about when I talk to them is lack of language never
equals lack of intelligence.
It's just that they don't have the word for it quite yet.
They know the concept.
Having that mantra, I think is important to remember.
The other piece that we put together from our conversations is that being an English
learner is not a condition and it's not even a transition.
It's an expansion.
It's an expansion of skills.
I really hope that people start to realize that our learners are coming to us with a
handful of skills and we have a great opportunity and their parents are counting on us to lead
them through one of the most difficult chapters of their lives to expand those skills and
get them ready to be what I call global leaders.
Yes, that's so wonderful.
It's so true that our students are not empty vessels whenever they come.
They have so many funds of knowledge.
They have so many experiences.
We may not have the word necessarily in one language but that doesn't mean that we are
less than by any means.
I saw on your LinkedIn though and I'm sure that many teachers, many educators out there
listening right now have maybe at one time or another felt the same sentiment.
Have you ever heard your teaching team say that they were struggling on how they reach
and teach their ELL students and families or what to do with the new ELL student as
they are already overwhelmed?
Have you ever worried that your ELL student needs someone to share with them and to help
them realize just how amazing they are?
All the time.
All the time, right?
The English language world, right?
People always say, the first assumption is, oh Andrea, you must speak 31 different languages
and we laugh because we have 31 different languages represented in our history.
Isn't that funny?
Sure.
People do assume that, don't they?
Yes.
Yes, you're right.
I always smile and I say no, but just like you've been trained to teach math or you've
been trained, I'm also a reading specialist.
I was trained to be a reading specialist as well.
In your training, you learn what lens you need to shift your teaching in.
So as an ELL teacher, it's really important that we team up with our content area teachers
to start to help them with all of those struggles.
They are very natural struggles.
If you've never worked with ELLs before and there are more and more coming, as we can
see across the country, most of them now are born here, then chances are you're going to
start to have more of that need in your classroom.
So how do you team up?
Well, you start off by asking a whole lot of questions, right?
I always say I want the movie and not the snapshot.
So when you're working with an English learner, the first thing teachers need to do is meet
with their ELL teacher because the ELL teacher is the root of information about that student's
background.
Are they literate in their first language?
Did they go to school?
Are they coming from a state over, a block over, or a different country?
Are they with their families?
What communication languages do their parents prefer?
I always say to teachers, let's sit down together.
Let's call whoever it is they're here with, mom, dad, aunts, uncles, grandparents, et
cetera.
Have a conversation in their parents' preferred language, which by the way, not all parents
prefer their first language.
Some of them prefer English.
Some of them might prefer French.
Some of them might prefer both, right?
So let's get to the root.
The parents are the root of their children.
Let's get to the parents first and talk to them and find out what information we can
about that child.
And then we want to make a decision on whether or not we need to screen them for ELL support.
And so starting to put together all the pieces of the puzzle to make decisions for their
instructional planning, I think is step one.
Once teachers feel like they have that information, then it's like, okay, we can use can do descriptors.
We can start to talk about what accommodations will be successful in the classroom so that
the student can be successful throughout the day.
Because the truth of the matter is 75% of the day ELL students aren't with their ELL
teacher.
They're interacting with everybody else in the building.
And so that's why it's so important that we team up to make sure everybody in the building
knows that that student is there.
Andrea, a lot of our guests like ourselves are from metropolitan areas, but we oftentimes
work with school districts in rural areas.
Can you have any insights into that step one, getting to know the student?
How might you recommend districts go about it?
Or have you seen any new unique methods in rural districts that actually they care about
the student and want to want to help them out, but maybe within the district, they don't
have the resources for translation or anything like that?
How might you recommend modifying what you were talking about with step one for a district
that doesn't have a ELL specialist or maybe not have the resources to translate within
the district?
So there are some great resources out there that you can use and some are free and some
are not to gain information from your students parents.
Some of them include, for example, if you're a district and you want to meet with that
student's family or gain more information, for example, in our district, once we received
that home language survey that indicates that a student is speaking another language at
home, our follow up immediately is a Google translatable email because we wanted to learn
more about what language looks like in their home.
So we ask questions like, does your child speak with you another language at home?
Are you gifting them with that opportunity or do they just hear you and dad speak a different
language and they haven't learned it?
Or do they just use that language when they travel in the summers or did you fill out
the form wrong?
So what does that look like in your house?
And using that Google doc and allowing that translation feature to be on it allows the
parents to put it in the language they prefer and email more information back to you.
So that's one way immediately that you can start to gather more information with that
email.
If people feel like they may be uncomfortable and asking a family what language they prefer,
I always offer to schools this template.
I say to my parents and I do this all the time, hi, I've been notified in our school
system that your child speaks a different language.
I think that's fantastic.
Thank you for giving them that gift.
I would love to know what language you prefer school communication to come home in.
That's it.
And usually they'll come back to you with what they prefer.
A second option that's free is called talking points.
If people are not familiar with this, it's an awesome access.
It's wonderful.
We use it all the time.
It's free.
It is documentation.
You put in mom's number, you put in the language they prefer, you send a message in their first
language, they respond to you.
It comes back to you in English.
You receive a notification in your email.
There's a message for you in talking points.
I have students from, like I said, all over the world.
So it's really great.
And people can use it with English as well.
You can put English as their preferred language.
But it's nice because it goes directly to their phone.
And so it's a text messaging service.
If you're looking for something the district can purchase, or maybe a few districts could
get together and maybe purchase one license, right?
If you're in a rural community and you have limited funding, using your Title III funding
can sometimes be challenging.
Maybe you can kind of pull together.
But we use language-based services and ProPIO 1.
Language-based services is amazing.
It is 163 languages available 24 hours a day, seven days a week with live interpreters.
So when Mrs. Vo comes into the office in the morning, because your office is your front
line who works with the parents very often, and they say, Mrs. B, please come down to
the office.
Ms. Vo needs to meet with you.
By the time I get to the office, I've already dialed the 800 number, have the live Vietnamese
interpreter on the line, and I'm ready to have a proactive conversation.
So I would suggest checking into that, as well as ProPIO 1.
I like ProPIO 1.
We use it as well in our district because, A, it has a Zoom option, so you can have a
live interpreter join you for Zoom and conference calls, or B, they have written translation.
And so those are four resources.
Two others you could use for students are the Pocket Talkers, which people can purchase
on Amazon for like 100 or maybe less dollars, and those are really great for students to
use to have conversations.
And a free app is called SayHi, S-A-Y-H-I, again, for verbal conversation.
It also allows you to take a picture of a document and it will immediately translate
it into the student's first language, which is a win-win if they're literate in that first
language.
Or C, students can type their first language into it and it will speak to you in English.
So there's a lot of things out there.
I just think schools have to start to be committed to investigating what's available.
Communication is of the utmost importance, correct?
So if we're not able to communicate with them in a language in which they can understand,
then it's worth the communication.
Thank you for sharing those.
Yeah, specific examples I think are definitely helpful.
And also I think sometimes there's a stigma around using Google Translate or things like
that because it's not always accurate, which is absolutely true.
It's not always accurate, but there are times when you have no other option.
And so get those examples of free or even options that cost are, I'm sure, very helpful
and appreciated to people from school districts that listen in.
I believe that the parents, though, and the guardians that we work with are always so
appreciative though of any effort that is made.
So of course we need to communicate with the utmost integrity and making sure that everything
is correct as possible.
But I do encourage everyone, you just go to the links end to make sure that you can communicate
in a way.
And if you start that, the parents can really help us understand, just like you were explaining,
the best way of communication.
And because we're both bringing assets to the table, we'll be able to communicate.
We can work through anything together.
I couldn't agree more.
And something else I think is important to add to that conversation is I highly discourage
utilizing the student to translate for their parents.
And I highly discourage.
Oh, thank you for saying that.
I highly discourage it.
And I'll tell you why, you don't want to use the student.
You don't want to go grab that friend down the hallway.
You don't want to require them to bring in a neighbor.
And you don't want to grab that teacher and pull them out of class to help out for a few
minutes because as a parent myself of two teenage girls, there is nothing more disempowering
as a parent than walking into a place where your child spends almost all of their time
every day and not being able to be given the platform to share the most information comfortably.
Because there could be things that you don't want your child to know.
And here they are translating for you.
Or there could be things that you don't want their sibling to know about their brother
or sister or even themselves.
There could be things that you don't feel comfortable sharing because of a neighbor
that's in your neighborhood.
So you have to invest in these platforms that are out there to give parents the opportunity
to share the most information with you.
And I think that's the best way to establish a relationship of confidence.
And we will be right back.
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And now back to the show.
In all of this, in your experience, what is the role that culture has played in your classroom
and your teaching, but also in the communication that we're talking about right now?
Since you have the experience with so many different cultures and backgrounds and languages.
Yes.
I mean, I think that recognizing the cultural piece for students is extremely important.
And it gives validation to what they've known their whole life.
It gives validation and encouragement to the fact that they're becoming bilingual learners.
And it shows the family that you value where they are, where they're coming from, and where
they're headed.
So, you know, we do a lot of things to establish that rapport within our building.
Some quick examples for one thing I'm really excited about is what my principal did, which
was he actually investigated all of the different places.
Not only our EL students are from, but all of our students are from in the building.
And we have beautiful flags that adorn the hallways from all of the countries around
the world that our students represent.
And above each country's flag, he has the name of the country.
And so as you walk the halls, you see that.
I can't tell you how excited our kids were to see that expression of acceptance.
I can only imagine.
They were like, Miss B, oh my God, did you see Dr. You know, someone stole a flag, you
know, and I'm like, yeah, they're like, that's my flag.
Yeah, I know.
You know, and so that's really great.
You know, some other things that we do, you know, to promote, you know, that connection
and culture across our district is through family engagement, of course, but we do four
times a year, district wide EL community experiences.
So I was just on a trip last week, we took a hundred students from grades four to 12
to a local establishment.
And it is awesome to see our high school kids leading our middle and elementary kids and
all speaking Arabic together.
And our elementary kids realizing that there are older students than them who also speak
French and our kids that are speaking Cambodian Khmer getting together and just this wonderful
connection of cultures for our students.
So they don't feel that isolated and they do feel pride, you know, and excitement and
see a future with that binocular thinking of, oh, when I get older, I could be just
like him.
I can be just like her, you know, so those cultural pieces are important.
We also have our guidance counselor sends out every month.
Here are the upcoming holidays that students may be participating in throughout the building.
So you can be aware of when they talk to you about, you know, different things coming up
that this is what they value and are participating in.
So I could go on and on about the cultural piece, but I just think that it's great to
offer concrete examples to people of what they could do to show it.
No a thousand percent.
And thank you for sharing all of that.
And I want to celebrate, I do not know you're the leader of your building, but I want to
celebrate the principal for taking the time and really wanting to celebrate the cultures,
the backgrounds, the flags, the representation, the identity, and to celebrate these students
that are represented in the school.
And that's great exposure for, you know, for other students that otherwise wouldn't have
it.
So what a great opportunity for everyone and to create a truly interconnected and inclusive
environment for all the students.
Yes.
That's really so exciting.
So speaking of principals though, what are your recommendations for leaders?
Because I mean, I feel like you and I probably have a lot in common in the aspect of like
as a teacher, as the educator, just very passionate, wanted to have advocacy and allyship and try
to break down any barriers and really just be there to help uplift the voices of the
students and these families so that way they can be represented well in the education system.
And I feel like you have that same drive and that same passion and that excitement as well.
So I'm glad to share that with you.
But what would you recommend for leaders, whether they be site leaders or district leaders?
Because from my experiences, I see that they obviously have a lot of influence and how
we implement curriculum, curricula, how we implement policies, how we implement our Title
One, I total three nights, et cetera, and things like that.
What recommendations do you have for our awesome leaders out there that want to do even better
whenever they are serving a very multicultural, multilingualistic population?
You know, I have a couple of ideas.
I think that first of all, it's really important to start to establish a system, not only within
your school, but within your district that is more proactive and less reactive to English
learners coming into it.
Because right now what we're seeing is a lot of schools that are really unsure about what
to do.
And I mean everybody from your office team to your social workers to your guidance counselors
to your educators to your maintenance team to your crossing guards.
Everyone has to become aware of how to proactively interact with our English language learners
and their families.
And that starts off by making sure that everybody in the building knows who those students are.
And so I encourage school leaders to give your EL teachers the platform to meet with
your educators.
What I did this year was 20 minute meetings just in the beginning of the year, not as
a one and done, but just as a starting point to say, here are your students in your grade
level and first by asking your teachers, do you want to meet individually?
Do you want to meet as a team?
Do you want to meet on Zoom?
Do you want to meet in person?
What does that look like?
Because you have to establish that collaborative piece between your EL teachers and classroom
teachers.
So leaders have to give them the opportunity to have that time and to meet and have those
conversations.
That way you start off with letting everybody know who your students are.
And from there you can build throughout the year.
And what I call what I call it, I just came up with this.
I call it my triple ace method.
And what it includes is assess, accommodate, communicate, and evaluate.
And so how are you assessing your EL students?
What does your system look like when they're notified that an EL family has come into the
district?
Have your frontline people been trained in those communication tools to get the most
information from them?
Are your EL teachers, whatever, we're a WIDA state, so we're using the WIDA screener, but
whatever screeners you're using to assess them.
From there it's accommodation, right?
After assess is accommodate.
Are you providing professional development for your teachers and how to best accommodate
for your English learners?
Because what I've seen lately, especially federally and statewide, is that the shift
on the limelight on our English learners is increasing.
And the regulations are starting to really come down on are you providing family information
in the languages they prefer?
Are your teachers providing the accommodations that are required, not recommended?
Because a student cannot fail these classes without documentation that those accommodations
were made by both the EL teacher and the language teacher.
And with that in mind, getting the idea across to school leaders that all teachers are teachers
of language.
Because those teachers, those students are learning language in all of your classes,
not just with me every day.
And so really just starting as a leader to establish those relationships and creating
that time and platform is important.
The third piece is communicate.
We've talked a lot about that today, but not only communicating with translation tools,
but are you providing family engagement opportunities for your students throughout the year?
And I always call it the four Fs.
As a school leader, family, food, fun, and free.
They are the four things that they are what I think, and I've worked with every kind of
student.
I worked with EL's Title I's.
I've worked with average students, gifted students, whatever the labels say.
But the point is that if you can invite the whole family, don't require childcare.
If you make the event free, if you make it fun, and if you make it based on food, and
only tell people they need to get to their home school, because people can usually get
to their school, even if the event is somewhere else.
So providing that transportation from their home school, those four Fs will help you reach
a lot of success with engagement.
And the last piece is evaluate.
How are you evaluating your EL students and their progress throughout the year?
How are you evaluating their state scores?
How are you looking at them as a singular group within your assessments to gauge their
successes?
So those are the things I think as a leader, the assess, the accommodate, the communicate,
and evaluate that I think is important to consider along with those PD opportunities.
What a great template for leaders to use.
So thank you.
That's really, really amazing.
Yes.
Sorry.
I was just going to say, in regard to assessments, keeping track of progress throughout the school
year, we all know that every state requires a language proficiency assessment.
So that's a given that that's going to be done.
But what do you do and what do you recommend in between those 12 months annual assessments?
How do you track progress?
What recommendations do you have there?
As a district, we have a variety of progress monitoring assessments that we use throughout
the year.
As a department, we use a company for our curriculum because that's really important
that your EL teachers have a curriculum.
And so the curriculum that we use is called VISTA or VISTA, VISTA Higher Learning, V-I-S-T-A.
And what we like about it is there are assessments built into it that allow us to progress monitor
them based on each unit that we're teaching.
And so it's got reading skills, writing skills, listening skills, speaking skills.
And it's something that we are using this year, but we're finding a lot of success with
it.
So I guess, you know, I don't think there's one assessment that is going to be, you know,
some size fits all.
But I do think it's important to make sure that in whatever curriculum you have purchased
for your EL teachers.
And I can tell you that that's a really massive challenge as I'm traveling the country and
meeting with not only content teachers, but EL teachers as well.
Some districts have not committed to purchasing EL curriculums for their staff.
And so as a leader, that's something you need to have because those things should be built
into it.
In addition to that, you know, we use different things in our district.
We're in Orton-Gillingham.
So we have reading assessments.
We use Benchmark Advanced.
We've got assessments there.
We've got math assessments.
IXL has a diagnostic assessment that can be used.
So just really looking into your curriculum, I think, or whatever your district is using
is important because nowadays, almost every curriculum has some type of EL supports built
into it that you should be purchasing for your teachers to use.
It's an advantage today, I mean, Kelly, when you started, when I started in the early 2000s
teaching that we had to do it all ourselves, hodgepodge, cutting up paper, clipping things
out.
Yeah, I was going to say, it really is so important, though, to remember, like even
because I love how you were just talking about how everyone really needs to be playing an
active role in understanding the students that we're serving, right?
And so, you know, speaking to the assessments, you know, even for our general education teachers
to be implementing a listening, speaking, reading, writing portion of an assessment,
even whether it be an algebra class or biology class, really does help whenever we are connecting,
whether it be a WIDA standard or another language assessment standard, by implementing that
cognitive academic language proficiency, right?
And trying to build upon the asset that the child brings, as well as ensuring that we
are finding other ways to be able to monitor academic language proficiency and that progress
in correlation with that.
So I think it's, it is really important to sit back and look during your PLC process
or whatever that, whatever that is in your, in your building, but to have those conversations
and have them very holistic conversations.
You know, we often label a school site if it is a dual language, one way, two way immersion
school because we have a certain program in there.
But really all of our schools, whenever we have students like this are automatically
bilingual schools.
So, so, so we should already be able to be considering about their, their bilingualism,
multilingualism and literacy, as well as their high academic achievement that's on grade
level and beyond, but also that sociocultural competencies and having all of that be a through
line in what we do.
Yeah.
And so I just think, you know, whenever, whenever regarding assessments to keeping, keeping
those language domains, as well as that meta linguistic awareness, but again, that sociocultural
competence piece, I think is so good for all of our districts serving diverse populations.
I couldn't agree more.
That's perfectly said.
That's why he's the host.
Cause he says things perfectly.
Andrea, do you mind circling back to your book and Les Kelly, you've got something to
continue along that line.
I'm just thinking, I'm curious to know how educators effectively utilize your book kind
of as talking points as a way to really delve into their own background and get to know
them.
How have you like, what, what have districts done in utilizing your book as a springboard
for conversation and maybe even to help them produce writing or other academic pieces.
Even of the students as well that have read it.
They have.
Yes.
And I, and I receive emails all the time.
Um, it's pretty cool across the country from PLC of educators that are reading the book
and, and really delving into what their assumptions were before, um, and how their assumptions
are changing and their perspective is shifting based on the experiences because in take me
home, we really made an effort to hit almost every continent and hit almost every experience.
And we also included the experience of someone who was born here because we thought that
was a really important perspective as well.
So I think what is really causing educators to be challenged by is what were your assumptions
about English learners before you read this book?
How have they changed by reading these experiences and what will you do moving forward to be
more proactive when you have new ELS coming into your classrooms?
So I think that that's been really successful.
The book seems to have a reaction that's moving a lot of people and inspiring a lot of people.
Um, and so we're really proud of that as well.
And it's really showing people about the two things we talked about earlier, which is that
lack of language never equals lack of intelligence.
And when you meet an English language learner and their family for the first time to please
treat that time in their life like an asset and not a handicap, because that's really
what our kids are looking for.
I love it.
I want to ask a question again, just because I'm really curious.
How was it's bring a friend day?
Oh, so fun.
So fun.
I saw that when I watched the video and I thought, okay, I really can't wait to talk
to her later because I want to ask that sounds like such a fun thing.
So it's bring a friend day.
And that kind of goes back to what we were talking about before with the idea of cultural
connection, right?
So a lot of our students have friends throughout the building that start to get really curious
about what happens in Ms. B's room.
And so they'll say, so kids will come in all the time and they'll say, I can speak like
three words in Spanish.
Can I join your program?
And we always laugh and I'm like, you can't come every day, but you can come on bring
a friend day.
And they laugh, but it is a great opportunity for a lot of reasons.
It gives our EL students the opportunity to showcase the work that they're doing in the
safety of our classroom.
It gives our newcomers a platform to have conversations and invite friends to the classroom
where they may not have been as forthcoming to have them out in the general areas of the
building.
It buffers their confidence and it lets kids see that the world is a lot bigger than just
the small town that they live in that are not EL students.
And it lets me as a teacher get to know other kids, because I know all the kids on my caseload
are inside now, but the opportunity to meet other kids is cool too.
So they really, really enjoy the opportunity.
They come to the class, each EL student gets to invite one friend.
We do reading, writing, speaking, and listening activities as we would in any other day.
We take photos at the end.
We did some fun stuff with props and then I post those pictures in the classroom so they
feel like it's their home now too.
And so it's a very special day.
It's a special invitation that the other students in the building get, but they really are doing
well with it.
And it builds a positive rapport in the building about our program.
It's really cool.
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Logistically, how does that work from, like they want to invite a friend.
That means I assume they're going to be missing a class.
How do you, if somebody is interested in doing this, how do you go about that logistically?
I can say that I feel like I have a pretty strong relationship with the educators in
my building and a positive rapport.
And they value that opportunity for our kids just as much as I do.
And so when it's time for that bring a friend day, it's once a marking period, it's for
30 minutes and our teachers say, yeah, go ahead.
Because it's a great opportunity.
They value as well as I do to let our kids connect and bolster the confidence of our
EL students.
I'm just wondering from a communication standpoint, how does that like, how do they know?
I mean, how do they know that the day is coming?
Like when does the communication happen?
And then how do you know, how do we know, how do you know, well, this, this kid's bringing
this kid?
I mean, like, I'm just wondering behind the scenes, how does it, how does that happen
before the actual day?
So basically I'll send people are going to want to copy and paste this.
I'm sure I send an email, I send an email out for our team and I say, I'm going to host
bring a friend day, it's going to be, you know, on December, what was it?
December 12th or something, December 13th.
And during this day, each of our students is allowed to bring one friend from your classroom.
I don't make the kids sign up with me ahead of time as to who's coming.
I just know that every one of my kids is going to be walking in with someone.
And so they just come in, you know, with that student.
And usually they'll just tell the teacher because they'll talk about it well ahead of
time.
It's very prize day.
So they'll say, you know, who am I going to bring?
And the kids are begging them, you know, I want to come this time.
And so usually they just tell their teachers, like, you know, I'm bringing so and so today
and they say, okay, great.
And so we have a set EL schedule for the week and it's always the same.
So that's not an issue because they know when the kids come down or when I push in, et cetera.
So that's the day.
Like it's going to be on this day and they're going to be allowed to bring a friend and
we're going to have a great time.
We keep it simple.
You are such a dynamic educator.
You've got to keep it simple.
Just keep it simple.
I am absolutely positive that you not only have a great rapport with the staff and with
the teachers, the other great educational professionals in your building, but also with
your students.
You just are an amazing person and I've been so happy to get to spend this time with you
and get to know you more.
And I'm really, really energized and just even encouraged to do even more.
And I just really want to salute you and say thank you for your service as an amazing educator
and a great, great leader in this field of bilingual, multilingual education.
Thank you so much.
You are so great.
I'll write back at you.
Is there...
Oh, I appreciate it.
Is there anything that you would like to share with us in closing?
Anything special or important with all of our listeners or any great celebration or
anything at all?
Yes.
I feel like I'm really lucky because I get to teach English language learners daily.
And at the same time, I also get to travel the country and help teachers around the country
who are really struggling with how to best reach, teach and connect with our kids.
And I just did a presentation a short time ago that was really well received.
And it's great when teachers come up to you and say, thank you so much, like you inspired
me or thank you so much.
I feel like I know what to do now.
I do a presentation called What to Ask when an EL joins your class.
And teachers walk away feeling like, oh, I know the 10 essential things I should be asking
now so I can feel successful.
And so if I can just help one more teacher or one more administrator or one more district
follow some of the things that I've learned in my career so far, then I feel like I'm
helping the world and doing justice and being a voice for all of these great families and
kids.
You're making such a positive impact in the lives of so many people.
And I just applaud you.
Thank you so much for all that you do genuinely.
And thank you for being here today.
Dr. Tribble, any last words from?
I would ask if Andrea, I know you do travel the country.
If any of our listeners are wanting to get in touch with you, either to ask more about
the book or just to be in touch to see what you might be able to do to help support them
in their school district, how would you recommend they get in touch with you?
There are probably two great ways to get in touch with me.
The first one is to go to my website, andreabittnerbooks.com.
And there's a gut in touch form there.
And you can also take a look at all the professional development opportunities and more about our
mission and work.
So checking out that website is the first way.
I'm also on LinkedIn.
If you would like to reach out via LinkedIn, you can find me at Andrea Bittner as well.
Perfect.
And we will make sure to have all those links posted.
Yes, thank you.
Because we will have those links posted as well in the description.
So for all the listeners, if you need it, they are right there for you and you heard
it here.
Well, hey, thank you again so much.
I'm really glad that we were able to spend this time together.
It's going to be a great Friday evening here just because I was able to benefit from this
time together.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you so much to our amazing guest, Andrea Bittner.
We will have her links and information in the bottom for you all, like I had said.
And just again, a big shout out to you and all the things that you are doing.
Thank you so much to Dr. Tribble.
The best co-host all in the world.
I appreciate you so much.
And to our great producer, Michael Verholt.
Thank you for everything.
Thank you, Edge of Skills for sponsoring this and to all of our educators and listeners
out there.
We love you.
We keep encouraging you and we support you.
Thank you so much and hope you have a great rest of your day.
Adios.
Thank you for joining us today.
Don't forget to like, follow and subscribe.
Adios.