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 to another podcast episode with myself, Dr. Kelly Forbes. We are so excited to have you here with us for an episode of Cultural Connections Lab with two amazing educators, researchers, people who are in this field of dual language education, multilingual education.
We have a fantastic guest today, and they are the authors of Dual Language Tandem Teaching. We have today Dr. Elizabeth Howard as well as Shara Simpson. And I am excited to have them with us today.
We are going to be learning so much from them, but a little bit about them. They have their new book that I just mentioned, and every single chapter starts a little story, so I'm going to introduce them with a story that they have.
When we were working together as Tandem Teachers, we were in different places in our knowledge and understanding of dual language educational practices with different strengths and challenges.
As an established researcher and lead author of the GP3 and other resources for dual language education teachers, and with many years of experience preparing pre-service and in-service teachers to work effectively with multilingual learners, Liz was well-versed in best practices in dual language instruction.
However, she had never worked as a dual language education teacher and had never had the opportunity to implement those strategies in that context. As we all know, understanding something and being able to do it are two different things.
Shara, on the other hand, was new to dual language education and was much less familiar with these instructional strategies. She had heard of a few of them, but that was about it. Luckily, as a kindergarten teacher, some of her background in early childhood education coincided with
best practices in dual language education, movement, visuals, concrete activities, repetition. She was using some of the strategies intuitively and had acquired further knowledge through her own practitioner research to discover what the students needed and what worked well and what didn't.
They planned together twice a week and also had a lot of exposure to one another's teaching because they shared the same classroom, so they were able to talk about best practices and try them out together to see how the students responded.
With so many instructional frameworks for multilingual learners and their busy schedule for planning and delivering instruction, they focused on the things that mattered most for helping their students, namely strategies for helping them understand and engage with the content
regardless of language of instruction, approaches for fostering language and literacy abilities in both languages, and ways to make connections across languages and enable students to use all of their languages to be resources to foster their learning.
Over time, they worked to build consistency with how these strategies were being used in both classrooms, and they saw the beneficial results in their students with growing comprehension, language proficiency, cross linguistic awareness, and confidence.
Since then, Shara had participated in many professional development activities including book studies, professional institutes, and attending and presenting at conferences.
She's also remained in the classroom and actually founded her own dual language education school, which is named Outside the Box, located in Brasilita, Costa Rica.
And she also continued her professional inquiry and her knowledge of best practices in dual language education instruction has explained it considerably.
This has taken her experience in the classroom back to her university teaching and dual language education research, both of which have been greatly enhanced by the experience that they have had and of course they've been working together ever since on developing the ideas that you're going to read in this book whenever you purchase it.
So a big welcome. Gracias por todo and thank you to Shara Simpson and Liz Howard for being here today.
How are you all doing? We're great. Thanks so much for having us. We're really excited. Today's our first launch into podcast. We've never done this before, so we're really excited and a little nervous too.
Well, that's what I heard. I heard that you had one earlier that you'd never been on any podcast before. You had one earlier today and now you have one right now. You're jumping in. You're doing immersion on your own.
That's right. Yeah, podcast immersion. Yeah, podcast immersion.
Wait, listeners, I'm a little background. I was just explaining to them that I'm so fortunate and blessed to have just a little over a year ago this last May have completed my dissertation and my doctorate and I have both of these amazing authors and researchers embedded as well into my research.
So it's really exciting to be able to be on this side of it to sit back and to have this master class with both of you. And so we're really, really thrilled to have you here today.
And like I said, I was just, you know, standing early. I was so excited because I thought these two amazing stars in the field of building dual language education are actually going to be here. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you again.
Yeah, thank you for having us. Kelly. Thanks for having us.
So just just to start off a little bit before we dive into to this chapter two and have this conversation centered around dual language education and some of the great research that we discussed or that you all discussed here in chapter two, I can't wait to dive into that.
But would you all mind sharing just a little bit about who are you all before we necessarily got into here? What was your path to even I know that my path was just a very unique path to to get into the field of education in general. So what is your path of getting to where you are right now?
You want me to start, Liz? I can start and share my path. It's a little bit unorthodox, but I think in in general, I was born to be a teacher. That's just in my blood and who I am from very early on. I think I was teaching line dance lessons when I was 10 years old.
And I've never stopped teaching ever since in some shape or fashion. I've been teaching and it's I come from a long line of teachers. My mom's a teacher. My grandmother's both are teachers, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends all in education. So that was just destined to happen.
But when I went to college, of course, I was pretty stubborn and I said, No, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to be a teacher. I'm going to walk a totally different line. And I wanted to be a doctor.
But things change and happen. And halfway through my college career, I changed and decided, Yes, indeed, I knew need to be a teacher. I did get a degree in early childhood education.
And I started teaching right away out of college, but then abruptly stopped and became a totally different thing. I was in property management and helping with our family business and kind of closed the chapter on teaching.
And so I thought until we moved to Costa Rica eight years later, and I wanted to meet some people. So I started subbing at a school in Costa Rica and then fell in love with the dual language program and taught there for eight years, which is where I met Liz.
And then, as you mentioned, I started my own program. So I kind of left, got back in. And when I did jump in, I jumped in full steam ahead in dual language and just thought that it was just such an amazing form of teaching. And I think, you know, my love of learning and my love of teaching and my love of learning Spanish all kind of put together this beautiful package.
And I met Liz at a school where I was teaching kindergarten, and she came for a sabbatical. So I'll let her hop in and kind of share where where we meet there. But she can can tell you about her journey.
Excellent. Thank you.
Well, you know, we definitely have some some things in common. I did never work in property management, but but I also come from a long line of teachers. My mom was a teacher and my grandfather was superintendent of schools and Cheyenne, Wyoming. And there's in fact, going to elementary school named after him. So we're proud descendants of Jesse going superintendent of Cheyenne many years ago.
So but so I had a long line of educators and like share. I also was determined to not be a teacher. And, you know, definitely did not major in education in college. I majored in Spanish. I always loved languages and and saw that in my future and traveling.
And and in fact, I went to the Peace Corps right after graduation the day after graduation. I got my Peace Corps notification letter and six weeks later, I was on a plane to Costa Rica. So that was my original connection to Costa Rica. I was in the Peace Corps there right after college and lived there for two and a half years and absolutely fell in love with the country and stayed in touch with I lived in a lovely small town, dairy farming community and you know, absolutely fell in love with the people there and they became lifelong friends that I stayed in touch with.
You know, to this day. So when I had a sabbatical, but so during that time, I taught that was my job. I was an adult education, not because I knew anything about education, but because I spoke Spanish reasonably well. And that was a program that required people who had a high level of Spanish proficiency because you had to work with Ministry of Education officials and they wanted people who had more proficiency. So they trained us in the background and and the pedagogy was very Paulo Ferre, very for you know, very, very important.
For you know, in the forefront of the education that we got and and Costa Rica had a very established program for promoting adult education, basically like a GED kind of a program. There are a lot of people, especially in rural communities and especially the women who hadn't had the chance to go to school and especially secondary education because they were working in the farms or it was too far from school or the women just simply weren't allowed to go during that time.
So this was a real benefit to the communities and Costa Rica had a wonderful and they still do, I think, you know, a very well established program. And so I just kind of fit into that system where I taught English. I was the you know, the English counterpart teacher in my community. And I also traveled around to a lot of communities. I had a motorcycle and traveled around to three different school districts, which you know, it's hard for a lot of people to believe, especially my children, I think that I ever rode a motorcycle.
But but I did and and traveled around to lots of communities, met lots of lovely people and teachers and and worked with them on developing these adult ed programs. So I really fell in love with it. I didn't think I would be a teacher, but you know, kind of like share. I was always in my blood. And as soon as I started doing it, I just loved it and realized, okay, this is what I'm going to do.
But so when I got back to the States, I didn't I didn't have a teaching certification. I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to pursue it. I started looking into programs and found out about bilingual teaching in California. And my best friend from the Peace Corps happened to be from California.
And so we decided to become roommates and both get teaching jobs. And and so that embarked my my career in transitional bilingual education at the time, you know, there weren't dual language programs in the district where I was working. They were they were very, very new. This was in the very early 90s.
And so I started in transitional bilingual programs and then pursued a teaching certification while I was doing that. And while I was teaching, especially in the second school where I taught, I had a population of many students who came from Spanish speaking families and were Spanish dominant.
But I also had about a third of my class who were English dominant and really English monolingual. And I was a third grade teacher in that situation. And I thought that these kids had been in a bilingual program. I had I hadn't ever heard the term dual language.
But I had the impression that that the kids who were from English dominant homes had still been in these bilingual classes and that they would all be bilingual. So the first day of school, you know, the kids were sitting in front of me on the carpet.
I started speaking Spanish and I saw, you know, like a third of the class are into elbow each other and like, look at each other saying, you know, they're mouthing to each other like, what is she saying?
What you know what she's saying? And I stopped and I said, raise your hand if this is your first time in a bilingual classroom and all those English dominant kids raise their hands.
And I was like, oh, oh, OK, this is not what I thought I was coming in into. And so, you know, just definitely changed.
You know, teachers, we always think on our feet. Right. And so just kind of quickly thinking on my feet and changing how I taught.
But it definitely opened my eyes to like, this would be great if these kids were in the program from the very beginning and other teachers in the school were having the same idea.
And the school actually had us go on a field trip to a very well established dual language program in Sonoma County called Cali Calmecac, which was amazing.
It just it totally blew me away to just see this program was a 90 10 program and it was just so well run and to see all the kids, you know, working in both languages and from different language backgrounds, different racial ethnic backgrounds, different socioeconomic backgrounds,
seeing them all come together and learning in two languages. I just thought this is it. This is what I love. You know, this is beautiful.
And, you know, really, it just sold me. So I ended up moving away from California at that time. I was sort of at a transitional point and I thought I'll apply to a doctoral program.
And if I get in, I'll, you know, I guess I'll go. And if I don't, then I would I would apply to that school. That's what I was thinking was my other option.
And I got in and, you know, got some financial aid, some scholarship, too. And, you know, so I ended up moving back east to go to go graduate school.
So but I stayed in dual language. I started doing some research with dual language. And ever since that time, I've just been very invested in the dual language world.
That is an incredible pathway for both of you. And so some some fun facts. I wasn't going to be an educator. I was going to be a dancing bilingual veteran.
I was going to be like that was that was the whole thing. And I was working on a Royal Caribbean cruise line as a singer and a dancer. And then I got off and I had a little like six months in between.
And I got a permanent job as a substitute teacher for a Spanish teacher. And then it went back on the cruise ship, finished that contract, came back and that's never became a newcomer teacher.
And it was they were advertising for a bilingual teacher. And it was the same way I do. I don't have my degree in education. It was in Spanish. And since then, I've received a master's in doctorate through education.
But so I started as a newcomer teacher and there were seven countries and eight languages represented in the classroom. And that's whenever I started wanting to know more about you should be able to do more with just English.
Like what about their language? So I had all these thoughts, but I didn't know why I was having these thoughts or any of the research behind it. And so luckily, that was kind of my pathway to get to where to where I am today.
But three of us right here not going to be in education. Now we're in education. And the other fun fact is that when I was the principal of a of a one way immersion school, we had students that would go to a radio for four months or four weeks.
And they would come to our school. And then another group would go to Spain, Madrid, Spain for eight weeks. And there's a good one come. So they applied in fourth grade and would go in fifth grade. So I was able to go and visit them in Costa Rica and in India.
But I also whenever I was majoring in Spanish, lived in Costa Rica for a while. That's why I was like, oh, I was called me.
What a connection. Yeah, yeah. And where did you live? In San Jose. Oh, nice. Yeah, I loved it so much over there.
I was teaching and dancing. That's why I called my grandparents and I said, hey, I think I'm gonna let my plane go tomorrow and not get one. And they said, okay.
And I just say, wow, that's awesome. Yeah, it was really great. Well, I just I love these connections that we have. There's been some other educators as well that weren't necessarily going to get into education.
But I think whenever it's in your blood and part of who you are, you can't help but just be attracted to it. And it draws you in. Definitely. And so I'm thankful. I'm thankful that you all answered the call for sure.
So as we jump into this, I really want to just tell everyone again, listeners, if you have not already seen or heard about dual language tandem teaching from Alaska's press, we will have the link in the bio as well as other ways to get in contact with our amazing guests today.
But I would really recommend getting this because, of course, it's focused on dual language education. But you can really consider what dual language education practices look like overall in any classrooms, because we have many, many classrooms, many, many schools, many, many schools.
Many, many schools, many districts that regardless of the name that they have, they're still bilingual, multilingual schools. I've been doing some work, fortunately, in one school and 51 percent of the students are bilingual.
And I think 49 percent are identified as as EL students, a multilingual English learner student. But regardless, that's half of the population of that building is bilingual. So the school, therefore, in my opinion, this is a bilingual school. This is a multilingual school.
And so you may not have that program in place, but you have practices. And so going over and reading through the chapter two, I loved the topic because I get questions like this all the time.
There are so many amazing frameworks. There are so many different quote unquote programs that people might call them. But things like teaching learning cycle, trans-languaging unit planning, literacy square, SIOP, TWIOP, C6, biliteracy unit framework, counterbalanced instruction.
I won't lie. I feel pretty versed in this field. And there were some things I was learning, which is great because I always want to keep learning. But it's so true. And I know that educators sometimes, especially when they don't have the background in multilingual
education, language learning versus language acquisition, language or as in the book as well as being discussed, we are not just learning about language, but we're learning through language. Right. And then we are also learning language and learning about language.
And you do some great, great conversation throughout this that just really kind of clarifies what those main roots are. I want to give you guys a chance if you could explain. We have some veteran teachers for sure that I know are listening.
And I know we have some brand new teachers that are thinking, what am I supposed to do right now? What is your advice for them whenever they do have so many frameworks coming at them? What does that teacher need to know or that principal need to know?
Right. Right. Well, that was sort of where we started and kind of going back to that original story about the two of us that I had a background. I had I've been a professor at the University of Connecticut for many years.
And so I've trained a lot of cohorts of bilingual teachers and ESL teachers and classroom teachers who work with multilingual learners. And so I've used a lot of these different frameworks in my classes and I was familiar with them.
And so it was really fun coming into the classroom with Shara and having the chance to work with them and really use them as a teacher.
And but then pull from them because I did have a background in many of them. I was able to kind of pull from them.
And Shara was new to them because she was saying she was new to dual language. That was really her just her second year of working in dual language. She didn't have a background in it before.
So it was helpful to kind of think about these what we ended up calling the common roots as a way both for me to synthesize, you know, since I was kind of working from multiple ones that I had familiar familiarity with.
So on my end, I was kind of synthesizing across them. And on Shara's end, it was right.
Introducing kind of the key ideas from them and kind of helping her see just like the main points and not getting caught up in the weeds of, you know, this is associated with the Psyop or this is associated with GLAD.
But kind of trying to focus on the big ideas. So that's really where the idea came from.
And since then, we found it helpful working with the teachers in the schools that we've worked with and in our book to think about it that same way.
That's why we came up with that metaphor. We said, like, you know, there's this beautiful garden of all these different instructional frameworks and they are all beautiful.
I mean, I love them all. They're all great. We've worked. We use them a lot. I use them a lot in my teaching at the university and we use them in the classroom.
You know, they think very highly of all of them, but it can be overwhelming, you know, for a new teacher to be like, oh, you know, I don't know which one to pick or an administrator who might know.
Oftentimes, our administrators don't have backgrounds in the bilingual education and maybe aren't as familiar with these frameworks.
And they might go to a conference and hear about one and think, oh, OK, we should all switch.
We should stop doing this one and start doing this one because this is the one everyone's doing now.
This is the new exciting one. Or, you know, or there might be tensions.
You know, we've talked to some principals who have said like there are really, you know, disagreements, strong disagreements and tensions in their school because some people feel very strongly about one framework.
Some people feel very strongly about another one. And they're sort of at odds with one another about which one is the so-called right one to use.
So, you know, we use this metaphor as a way to say, like, let's just really think about what's under the surface.
Let's let's look below all of these frameworks to what are their common roots and think about it that way.
And that way we can sort of agree that regardless of which framework we're using or if we're borrowing from multiple frameworks like I was doing,
that at the end of the day, we're really always focusing on these common roots that they all have in common.
And that's how we can have consensus about it.
And we cannot get so worried about like using the right one or the best one that we're, you know, at the end of the day, they're really all trying to accomplish the same thing.
And if we kind of keep our eyes on that, it can help us to focus and to have conversations with one another and with people who are not in dual language.
You know, we call these the effective, the common roots of soil of effective instruction for multilingual learners across programs.
So we also think it's a great way to have conversations and to have a common language across all of the program models in a district.
You know, most districts don't only have dual language programs.
They usually have other programs either because they have other multilingual learners who don't speak the language of the dual language program.
And so they're not a good fit or they have more dual language multilingual learners and their dual language programs can can register and can enroll.
And so often, you know, often it's the case, you see multiple different program models in the district.
So our thinking is that this is a way also to have that common language.
And even if, you know, for example, the dual language program is using literacy squared or teaching for by literacy, because I think that's what's better in their context.
And the English monolingual shelter programs are using the SIOP.
We can still say, OK, well, we're going to use these different frameworks, but let's look at how we have these common roots.
And we're really all doing the same things across our program models.
I think that that is it's really nice.
And reading it, it's just very easy to understand.
So even if you're not well versed in this field, particularly of multilingual, bilingual, duolingual education, you can read through this and really understand, hey, there are these practices.
And again, just to let all the listeners know these the five roots are content, language integration, comprehensible input, comprehensible output, background knowledge and middle linguistic and cross linguistic awareness.
Those are things that students need all the time, even if it's just English only, even if it's today and they're learning about Shakespeare, they still need some cross linguistic connections between Shakespearean English and what that looks like and what that meant versus what that is today to make those connections.
So these are practices that are going to be great for everyone.
But in my opinion, it's oxygen for a multilingual learners.
These are things that we have to have to be able to survive and to make these connections so we can acquire language, learn language and acquire content and speak on that level that we're required and needed to speak in the education system.
For, of course, the funding of assessments and things like that, but really on this side of it's because this is like a moral imperative to be able to really stop and reflect upon our pedagogical practices and how do we make them culturally sustaining in such a way that really helps all of the students,
not the ones that were, you know, departmentalized into Title III, or had to go to that ELD classroom. But I always love this and I think that you all might have something similar in this story but I wasn't supposed to be bilingual, bicultural and biliterate.
I grew up in an English only speaking home. No one else in my family speaks Spanish. It was Senora Atkins, 15 years old, at Metro where I went to school, who got me into language who, you know, inspired me to want to major in Spanish that allowed me to meet my salsa partner from Cali, Colombia.
And, you know, to learn salsa calenya and like the cumbia and what that dance even means and the slavery connection behind it. I mean, my whole world, the point is, has it been opened up only because of language.
And that has therefore connected to so much with culture. So, it's just a great, great, the classroom is a great place to create that ecosystem where we can share our culture, share our languages, and having these roots be at the forefront of our mind.
It's going to help all the students learn, and then also share more about each other.
Yeah, and for us it was like really helpful to say like if we just focus on these things.
Another big component is that we all have scripted curriculum, or given curriculum that we have to use and we're, you know, we're our hands are tied in that sense but if we just focus on the roots so we tried to create something that could say like just check these boxes, even if you're
handed this curriculum and even if you're told this is what you have to do, pull it, you know, make sure you're meeting the common roots and soil, because we think that that's like going to take it up a step right they might give you what you have to do but if you can
implement these as well then you're really going to be able to support all your learners. Yeah, yeah, no it's, it's, it's, and it's needed. Again, overall, I mean, the majority of our classrooms, and I'm currently right now in Oklahoma and people don't always expect
to be in Oklahoma to be as multicultural and diverse as it is. And so I think it's just exciting to consider what this looks like, you know, in all of our classrooms, even if the majority of the students and there are monolingual English only speakers,
it's not exposure, but I think is also just so important and helps us in our very multicultural diverse, you know society world and community.
You know, going back and building on that, going back to what you were saying about the importance of culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogy, that that is we just want to, you know, mention that that's the soil that we talk about when we talk about the
common roots and soil below the surface. So we have those five common roots that you that you mentioned that really cut across all those different frameworks that are that are in that garden.
But we say that they all need to be planted in that soil of culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogy in order to take root and really flourish and help the kids develop and grow and achieve in all the ways that we want them to.
So, you know, having that affirming stance and doing, you know, we're real advocates for place based learning, project based learning, doing a lot of activities in the community. You see that in the book.
You see a lot of examples of the kids and us going out into the community doing activities in the community and bringing community members into the classroom as well.
And so, you know, that's it doesn't take till you're 15 with Senora Gomez. It doesn't you don't have to wait till you're 15 to get those connections.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, at least with the younger age.
But really making it like, you know, opening up the walls like share a school's name outside the box, like really getting outside the four walls of the school, you know, whatever many walls are in there.
But the four walls of the classroom and and really, you know, experiencing the community, taking our learning out into the community and inviting a lot of different community members with a lot of different expertise into the classroom to really show how much that's valued and cultivated.
And so it's not just a narrow, you know, even if we are using that scripted curriculum that we really can enrich it in a lot of ways by bringing in community members and going out into the community and thinking about how we can expand it.
Yeah, for sure. And it is difficult whenever teachers are given the script and I've been in schools before they have this good and they always ask me those questions. Well, how do I do this? And I've already have this to do.
And so we really sit down and evaluate ways in which they could do it. But we always start with students first. Who's represented in your classroom? Who's there? What assets are they already bringing? What family members can come in and read part of the script?
I mean, what can you do to bring that in? But I love how you were just talking about also going out into the community and being a part of it. And if we're not out in the community and being a part of it, well, then we're very easily a problem in it.
We need to be very active and engaged in the communities where we live and also where we're serving. But I love also in the book talking about that, it was under the background knowledge. And I think this was at the school in Costa Rica outside of the box, which is so funny because I always say if there's a box, get me out of it.
I want to be outside the box all the time if possible. So whenever I read the name, I was like, this is the perfect name for a school outside the box.
But I loved learning about the field trip that you took to help build background knowledge. Can you expand a little bit upon that? And why was that? Why is that experience so important? Because it's much more than what we do typically in the classroom.
And it doesn't have to necessarily not everyone has access, maybe to some of these opportunities. But there are virtual possibilities, there are ways to actually get out into the community, but to really go on a trip to leave the classroom to touch the chicken that I saw in the picture, be ever part of it and to build that background knowledge through common experiences and common scenarios and situations.
So I think it was fantastic and I would love to hear more about what that was like and what you all learned from that and have continued to learn from that experience as well as with the kids.
Yeah, well that wasn't an original thought that comes from teacher by literacy. They always say take the field trip first and we take that to heart.
Yeah, and instead of culminating with this beautiful experience after learning, just start there. Start with the experience and build that background knowledge. And so we do that often. Actually, we're really fortunate and take lots of field trips at my school, but we live in a community where we have access to a lot of great things.
You know, I live by the beach. We're right super into nature and so we get out there in the community all the time to the grocery store, to the across the street, to the beach or to the park. But we consider those key pieces of in starting a unit because that's where kids have that firsthand experience.
We take tons of pictures. We make sure that they are used later on when we're introducing new vocabulary. Remember when we were over at the beach the other day and we were looking, you know, digging into the sand like that. This is what this is.
Just using those experiences to help our kids. And I think when Liz and I had the experience together, we were going across the street to a farm.
Once a week we had the dedicated space for it, but we didn't always go to the farm. Sometimes the kids would go to the farm with Liz, sometimes they would go with me and sometimes we stayed in the classroom and conducted research or drew pictures or read stories.
But for us it's just, you know, you build background knowledge but you also have opportunities for comprehensible input and comprehensible output, metalinguistic and cross, all those other roots also come into play when you are having those experiences because it's just so much easier to access all of those components when you have hands-on real life experiences.
So for us it's just a given that you are out into the community. You're exposed to more people, different ways of speaking and how to engage. So for us it's just a key component of how we teach.
And we will be right back.
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And now, back to the show.
I remember one time I was fortunate to teach in a classroom that had windows. Not every classroom has windows.
But I was so fortunate to be in a classroom in the basement that still had windows. So it was nice.
The newcomer classroom and it was sixth through eighth grade. And I remember teaching a math lesson and Liliana looked outside and it started snowing.
And so we just stopped the lesson right there because I knew that many of the students in that classroom had never, they don't come from a part of the world that ever has snow.
So we ran outside. It was such a big deal. And I just, but I remember Liliana running outside and just like slipping off the stair and falling immediately.
And I thought, oh, and then she just started laughing and got up and it was no big deal. And we all laughed.
And we were very much a family in our classroom because it was just us. Like we were, you know, it was just us, really.
But it's in those moments right there where math needed to stop for a minute. We could get back to math anytime.
But this was such a big learning moment. But it's the fact that like it wasn't just seeing the snow or a video of the snow or it being cold in the room and you, you know, act like it was snowing.
I mean, you got to touch the snow, taste the snow, feel the snow, fall on the snow, be wet, get that, you know, that stain on your jeans that you had.
I mean, it was that whole experience. But that right there was a bigger learning moment than anything I was doing the moment before.
For sure. And you know, the other thing that a lot of listeners may feel like that's not, you know, they don't relate because they're not across the street from the beach in Rosalito, Costa Rica.
But, you know, that's okay.
I want to be. I want to be.
Yeah. Well, the thing is, though, some field trips can just be walking around the building.
You know, we did that when we were studying angles and lines and shapes and things like that.
So you can literally make your field trip to the cafeteria. But when you call it a field trip and you you say we're going to go do this and we're going to see this and you walk outside that classroom,
even if it's just to the cafeteria or around the building, those experiences can be valuable, too.
I don't want anybody to think like, oh, I can't do that because I don't have the beach across the street. You can make it a field trip and have those experiences and capitalize on the exposure of the field trip first, even if it's just just right outside the four walls.
Yeah, I always encourage educators do whatever you would want to do to make it fun.
Even whenever I was a principal, for example, I would try to do anything to make what we had to do fun just because sometimes you just have to go through things.
You just have to sit through it and just do it. But why can't we make it as most fun as possible, the most exciting, whatever that looks like.
And so we would typically do a lot of things, you know, put in quote outside the box. And we got the same end result at the end. But we had such a good time doing it.
And so if teachers say, yeah, definitely. I mean, we have a lot where you can just like you said, go outside of our buildings.
But then at the same time, though, there are community partners, there are local areas wherever you are that would most likely be incredibly willing and accepting to having a teacher and their students come and participate in something.
But even like I love going outside and doing geometry with real life objects right there. That's so much more fun than the worksheet.
Absolutely. Yeah. And that's and you know, that that's exactly right about the community partners being so willing. I mean, we I also taught in the first grade classroom at that at the school, which outside the box is share a school now.
And we taught at a different school when we met. But at that school, I also taught first grade. And for that unit for social studies, we were doing a unit on community businesses.
We were doing entrepreneurs, you know, the kids chose at the end of the of the school year, the kids all got to choose.
We did a lot of thematic units in the last one, the kids got to choose. So this class was very entrepreneurial and they chose to do a unit on entrepreneurship.
So we were visiting a lot of local businesses. But, you know, so it was very easy.
Like we just walked outside the door of the school and we just literally walked every, you know, a couple of days would go walk to a different business.
And the business owners were very happy to invite us in. And we had a little graphic organizer that we had created together that asked.
So we would have like some interview questions and be able to ask them and compare and contrast to cost answers. But it wasn't like we had to hire a bus and get raise money.
And, you know, it just it was free. We just walked out the door and we just we just went to the businesses that were in that in right near the school.
And that's that's how we selected them. You know, we weren't sampling all the different kind of businesses.
We just were like, OK, where can we walk? Where can we just and just have this last for 45 minutes or an hour?
Because we don't want it to be a full day field that's going to interfere with all the other classes. We just want to make this very bounded.
And so it's it's definitely very possible to do that.
And, you know, likewise, in the in the kindergarten classroom, we did a unit on community helpers and Sherry's continued to do that in her new school.
And it's great. You know, they're so welcome. We we had the police come and visit firefighters and Sherry's had, you know, medical workers come.
And sometimes we would go and visit them in their place of work. But a lot of times they would come to us and the kids just love it and they love it.
It's a great, great opportunity to have them come into the classroom and to talk about what they do and to create those community connections.
I think it's such a great partnership, though, because one, it really brings everything to life.
But two, it allows schools to know what the community needs and it allows the community to understand what the schools are doing to work together in that aspect.
But apart from all of that, just for any student, but specifically a language learner, that creates opportunity for a lot of language use through listening, speaking, reading and writing.
And then therefore allows for those opportunities in the moment in real life to meet to make those cross linguistic connections.
Sometimes I think just all of this is so important. Just coming to life.
I remember one time I was talking with the principal and she said, it's kind of like back to the snow scenario, watching a video or, you know, seeing something about the ocean is just as good as going to the ocean.
And I said, unless you've been to the ocean, I guess, because whenever you and like, no, the video is not going to cut it.
Like the experience being at the ocean is vastly different than just watching it.
Especially in Paraiso de Costa Rica. I mean, it's just so beautiful over there, for sure.
So if you are wanting to go on a field trip, I do recommend Costa Rica for sure.
It's a great place for a vacation.
Yeah, set up some study abroad programs. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I actually have set up a study abroad program as well at the University of Connecticut, but for university students, for preservice teachers to go back to the school where we taught and to do their own study abroad kind of program there.
So it works for the older students as well.
Yeah. Well, I really feel passionately that and it's not necessarily 100% doable, but I just recommend everyone to go travel.
But I just feel like whenever you go through a college or university, it would be very nice if people could go travel somewhere to study.
It doesn't necessarily have to be language, but just to just to break your own barrier of where you are, you know, currently wherever that may be.
But to cross the border to go somewhere and not at the all inclusive resort, you know, not not not as a not as a as a tourist to escape, but more as a traveler to experience, you know, for sure.
And to really get to be there is a big difference for for sure.
One question I want to know. So that I it's always been this dream of mine one day to open up a dual language education school also. And so whenever I was reading about yours, I was really enticed.
And so a friend of mine said you need to write it down for it to happen. So I wrote it down on a post to note and I've had it and I always think about it.
And I often jokingly said because I love Costa Rica so much went and didn't come back and ended up coming back later and I was going to do it in Costa Rica. And then so all of a sudden here this out of the box school pops up and I'm like, this is really so it's really incredible.
And so I want to say Felicia Lanes again. It's it's a wonderful that you have been able to experience this and to live to live this in its fullest.
I am single status but I said, oh, they went you have to go visit jealousy. It's amazing. Yes.
Hey, I'll see you soon. Don't you don't have to tell me twice. I will definitely come.
Our doors are always open.
That would be fantastic. But I always thought it'd be really, really great to not just be able to go and you know, either as a professor as a presenter as collaborator to discuss these great things that we see that you have in the book right here, but to also be able to say,
if you wanted to see it and live and living color, come here and look at this what it looks like. Can you tell us about the great things that are in this book because sometimes people think that sounds great in theory, but an application it doesn't always work.
Now, I know better. I know that you to know better I've been fortunate to experience that it works.
But for anyone out there that just says, hey, I am going to read this book, and I do want to do comprehensible input and output I want all the roots and I want to do cultural and whatever and but how do I do.
Can you tell us how this really works for real. Yeah, it works for real it's not easy, but it does work for real and I think one of the things that's been really helpful to my staff as we've developed our curriculum and our program is to focus on these
things that are in the book and soil keep it simple understand the, the why behind the how our book gives a lot of those examples I tried to take pictures I'm not great at it actually listen are trying to do better at trying to remember like to take pictures and
remember these, these great things that are happening but really for us what it boils down to is trying to make sure that all of our lessons activities and units are exactly what we were just talking about like completely about the experience hands on interdisciplinary
and units like for us that's really important that the kids experience is the way that they're learning so we do take lots of field trips we build our units and all of our reading and all of our literacy components come from the science and social studies concepts
and so we make sure that if we're teaching about, you know, we just did a unit on the universe and earth and space that we were making sure we're taking pictures of the moon every night and then bringing them the next day and making charts and putting them on the wall
and that everything is relative and meaningful that the kids believe in what they're doing as having super like value. Right. So for us it's about community connections like we were just talking about that all of our projects have an end goal that we're going to
be either presenting to the school community to the greater community with our families or the larger community of Rosalito so that's an important feature.
We want to make sure that everything, you know, again has that like connection with the literacy that we're reading so we have songs and poems I sing all the time. My kids, why are you singing that like, because you'll remember it better.
There's a song to it then you're going to remember it and I still have kids, you know, my fifth graders will sing you know the color songs because they remember me singing them to them.
All those years ago so I think just kind of like weaving all of these, these common roots and soil into our daily practices. We created a checklist. So when we build our units.
We have like a, it's actually in the book where you can say like, does this lesson have comprehensive input or output does it have building background, are we meeting all of these.
What can we add, and then we reflect on it so my team reflects all the time on how units went how lessons went, and to make sure oh you know I feel like we need to add more so next year it just gets better because it never really stops.
It's not like we can just say like one and done this unit's amazing it's your, your dynamics in your classroom are going to change or demographics are going to change from year to year and you can just always keep evolving and I think that's a key part of it too is just to recognize
that we're really finished. Even though we've got something built and that's great we can always reflect and do better and serve our students better because you know from year to year they're going to have different backgrounds and experiences and, and levels of language
and levels of where they are in the academic so for us that's important and also differentiation is just a key component to not just for for language but for academics as well so we try to make sure that we're just through the hands on things that makes it much easier.
Right. So when you're doing centers and games and lots of different things you can vary it much easier.
I don't know that's a lot. I don't know if I'm really answering your question.
And what's what's really great is that you also have a little note for administrators all the time, and I really appreciate those notes to administrators because sometimes the lead.
Sometimes this is not all the time but sometimes the leaders don't understand the dual language program, but the teachers do, and the leader was put there for another reason so I think it's fantastic that there was some notes like saying hey, you know, and then
there's a central reminder to teachers speaking of differentiation, differentiation, and listen to me, differentiation, that start where you are.
You know, don't try to jump into the deep and yet just start where you are in all this takes time so I feel like we need grace and compassion for ourselves.
We need to be able to have grace and compassion for leaders with you know some reminders in those open communication, but also whether you be a veteran teacher or you might be a brand new emergency certified adjunct teacher put in this classroom right
now simply because you are by the. Yeah, that was right. Which doesn't mean that you know everything about the pedagogy but they say that was me, that's me.
You speak Spanish you're bilingual, go in here and I didn't even know what bilingual teacher meant until I thought oh it's newcomer teacher and it's not just finished and and and.
So, anyway, to the point it's really fantastic to be able to have one, the permission from from you all in this book to say start wherever you need to start but also yeah and I think also, you know, teachers need a little bit of credit because they're doing great
work already. Yes, and this is not to say teachers exactly it they're already doing right things like listed like I was already just bad nature doing some best practices without really knowing that was dual language best practices but I think that's you take
a self check and say like what am I where are my strengths and what can I improve on and then that's the one you focus on, you know, we don't want everybody to feel like they have to, you know, take all of this at one time you can you can say I'm really great at
comprehensive output. How can I improve on building background knowledge you know and let that be my focus until it becomes second nature. Right. And then it's just like how you do. And that's kind of how we tell people all the time is like, do a little evaluation on yourself, do a little
self check, see what you're really great at and then focus on one and just do that until you can do it with your eyes closed and then move on to a different one right. That is key that is key I did not know either. I'm sorry I didn't know either I was doing project based learning I just knew I'd show business right.
So I just know business like show business so make it engaging and project based and I was like, oh that's project based learning. Exactly I mean that's that's you know for many people it really is just giving labels to what they already do you know for some people it's brand new information and it you know it really is new practice but for many people it's just giving labels and categories to things that they do to create some intentionality around it and to create some shared vocabulary some shared language and shared practices.
About it and and and building on that too you know another feature of this tool that we that we have in the book and we also have online companion documents that we're just about to release this week we've been working really hard on them when the podcast comes out. Yeah for sure they should be right on our we speak it into our TANM teachers dot com website.
They'll there's one for administrators there's a companion document specifically for administrators and then one for teachers so it's designed to kind of facilitate book study or you know just using the book and breaking things down a little bit more.
But and the tool that shares talking about is in there we have that you know the co planning tool and part of what's important about that is like share was saying kind of going through and and what you were asking about before like how do I actually do this how you know okay it worked for you and how does it work for me.
So that's what we suggest is that you you know you might pick one to start with especially if this is new for you we don't want you to get overwhelmed and just start by looking at the curriculum that you're already using and just go through kind of an audit of it do a review of that and not the whole curriculum just you know tomorrow's lesson or you know what upcoming lesson for next week and just ask yourself okay if we're going to focus on comprehensible output because that's often one that we work with on schools because that's often often times comprehensible input there is stronger on they know to use visuals and multimedia and to speak more slowly and to be able to do that.
But they don't necessarily give kids opportunities to speak themselves or write themselves often descriptive curricula don't prompt them to do it they often prompt them to do a whole group instruction without a lot of opportunities for you know we're only one child right response.
And so you know kind of thinking about okay how can we take this but that's exactly what you might do you might okay so we're going to focus on comprehensible output and let's look at where this lesson already has it okay well I see that there's a turn and talk there's a prompt for a turn and talk okay that's good but that's actually it okay so let's let's give them a let's give them a prompt for the turn and talk let's give them some sentence frames to use so we're going to scaffold their comprehensible output and let's also add in a small group like instead of doing this practice
in the whole group let's go and do it in small groups and we're making a center let's make it a center where the kids can talk so just like how so that's what we kind of think about like what what's already there and then how can we tweak it just to just to really enhance that aspect but the really important part also in a dual language context is how do we do that together if we're two different teachers if we if I'm the English teacher you know so share a nice I was a Spanish teacher she was the English teacher so in many in you know different
models work differently but let's say you're in a model where you both teach math but you've got two different groups of kids so I'm doing unit one lesson one in Spanish with group a and share at the exact same time as doing unit one lesson one in English with group B so all the kids are getting unit one lesson one you know half in English half in Spanish well if we don't plan together I might use a lot of these common roots and soil because I was trained in them and I know about them I just think they're important
and share in the meantime maybe wasn't trained in them or you know whatever and so she doesn't do any of them and so the kids are getting really unequal experiences and and it's making it much harder than when they switch right because they're going to go back and forth every day or every week so suddenly when share as kids come to me I think that they've done these activities I think they've done the centers or the small group for comprehensible output I think they've had these multimedia or anchor charts for comprehensible input and then they have it and so I can't build on
that the way I thought I was going to be able to build on it and so so that's why it's really important not just to do it yourself but to do it with your partner if you're in a two teacher model and that's what the tandem teaching comes in that's what we mean by tandem teaching we mean in dual language programs when we have two different teachers an English teacher and a partner language teacher who really need to work together as two parts of one system we're not two separate teachers in a parallel monolingual model we're really two parts of one system and we have to coordinate
together and that means making sure that if we use the common roots and soil that we're doing it consistently in both classrooms and so that also might mean like you know maybe I'm really comfortable with the common roots and soil maybe my partner is new so we might just slow down a little bit and we might say okay we're going to focus on this one that my partner is ready to focus on because we want to be consistent and and so we're going to just kind of focus there and we're going to go at that pace and I might sure I mean I just might naturally add in a few other things and I kind of can't help you know I just do the
math like Cher was saying it's not like I have to tie my hands behind my back and never do them but but but you know in terms of a planning and like agreement we will at least agree to do whichever ones we're working on together as a team because we are two parts of one whole we're two parts of one system.
And it's so important to really be disappointed having that planning time really carved out.
Well that's why we talked to the administrators right because we are saying like hey they need this time this is not easy work they need the time to plan it needs to be done in a way that you know you you make the charts like we know what your visuals are going to look like you know all these things take time and so we do these like knock knock knock administrator they need extra time to do this so we're hoping that that message comes across because it's not easy work and so we we point out key places where we think that it's important for them to pay attention.
Yes, so that's this can actually happen in practice.
And I love I love how the point was made earlier that a lot of educators are already doing this work and they don't they don't necessarily know it and so I really appreciate like us highlighting that it's the intentionality that we're focused on it's been in a name to us we can have a common vocabulary of what we're doing but of course early childhood education really lends itself to forms of language acquisition already in many ways.
Versus what you might see in secondary but I always I always remind the teachers whenever I'm able to to do fun work with them that you already are doing this we're just going to like I said be more intentional give it a name and then we're going to make some connections.
You know with different levels of language proficiency and how do we actually implement this now etc and a lot of teachers are always surprised that they don't need to be bilingual to do this.
Many teachers are surprised they don't have to be bilingual to incorporate or implement trans language circles, for example, in their classroom and I've been fortunate to work with one teacher who is modeling will only English and decided that she wanted to really try this trans language thing a little bit so we just you know little by little and the kids really took it over and then you had the.
This is a fourth grade class and then English only speakers in the fourth grade class were learning Spanish which wasn't hurting anybody I told them I said listen it hasn't hurt me.
Bilingual you can still learn and grow but then the other students as English was not their primary language they were learning English and acquiring it so much faster because of what was happening because they themselves are making the cross linguistic connections it didn't even look like the formal.
When they that we might be looking at but this because kind of those scenarios I didn't know I was doing project based learning you didn't know what you were but it happened to be happen organically but now we put a name to it and the success that came from that was just really really incredible not just for the students.
But the teacher wanted to retire she wanted to retire and then she decided I don't want to retire this is really fun when it's so fulfilling yeah that was that's incredible and then she was asking can I have more newcomer students in my class.
Which a lot of times the conversation was flipped like I'm scared I don't know what to do and so I think that whenever we do have these conversations we can start to be very intentional and we can name it we can bring it together.
Having that opportunity to empower a professional educator in a classroom working and serving these students right here I think is one of the game changers that we don't recognize is such a powerful moment.
That literally a teacher who was able to retire wanted to decided let me call let me keep doing this that was exciting yeah and that word empower is exactly what you know we were we were thinking that's really what we hope our book and our and our work does.
That that's we have these six big ideas of tandem teaching and a lot of them have to do with teacher agency and that you know we say this teacher agency is both required and promoted through tandem teaching you know you need to know this information you need to understand the research and best practices.
Behind it and then you should have the professional autonomy to be able to make the choices that are in the best interest of your students and teacher satisfaction is one of the outcomes that we think should be considered to that it's it's not just about if you know of course it's largely about student outcomes and about instructional quality.
But we think you know teacher outcomes should be factored into that teacher satisfaction is an important outcome and thinking about the climate for teachers and what their with their experiences are.
Is really important in its own right and as a mechanism for helping to promote stronger student outcomes.
Well and then there's a direct correlation between collective teacher efficacy that we know from john hattie's research and how that therefore.
Factors into the efficacy that students feel in the classroom as well there are implications to this exactly yeah exactly the system the teacher has that collective efficacy right and then the students have it well that's going to help their students to be able to do that.
I feel a little more engaged little motivated and then while the teachers implementing these pedagogical practices at the same time i'm set up for success I don't have to do any part of my identity or who I am and keep my language keep my culture keep my heritage and add to it and not take away I think it's so exciting.
Right and I think your earlier point about.
Your earlier point about how English monolingual teachers can do these strategies it's absolutely right and that's a big message that we have in the book and in chapter three where we introduce the idea of.
Translanguaging and talk about that and navigating that tension between translanguaging and separation of languages you know we talk a lot about how really in dual language programs especially the English teacher does need to step up and do.
More of the translanguaging work because it often seems to by default fall to the partner language teacher because they're the person who's bilingual and who may do it more naturally but that's where the planning together the intentionality.
And the thought about how can we have this be a role that we both share and that the English teacher takes on is really, really important.
And it can be super simple you know we we talk about a linking moment is what we call it when you have these planned activities that you know if you're doing a unit and you have vocabulary that you're going to be you know switching day by day and introducing vocabulary it would be just like what you do in a monolingual classroom right.
You're like yesterday we did this today we're going to do this so you can say yesterday in Spanish you did this tell me tell me this word and they will you don't have to know I mean of course you do know because you planned.
You don't have to know how to pronounce it for example you know when I first started teaching I wasn't as proficient in Spanish as I am now so I'm certain that I you know mispronounced words and as you can hear with my southern accent I'm sure it was completely butchered.
But I think it's important that you know you kind of put yourself out there and show your students as a language learner and you can say tell me so we would we would do that we would say like tell me yesterday what did you learn and you even have it on the chart that's the other thing that we also suggest is let the charts travel with the kids because it doesn't need to stay in your room it should be you know what the kids are working on it's a living and breathing chart just like you so I think it's really simple to take those little moments linking moments and then you know you can say well I'm going to go to the next one.
So I think it's really simple to take those little moments linking moments and say tell me what you did yesterday oh you learned about you know whatever shapes and it's circles you learn circle tell me circle what is this word and they say circle though and you're like yeah okay cool let's look at your chart today we're going to do a new one a new one and then it goes back and forth and it's that simple but those those moments are really important to like help your kids make those connections.
1000% and that was one of the big takeaways not that it's anything that's brand new or you know a big shock to anybody but in the research that I was doing one of the big key takeaways was whenever the teacher would learn a language alongside with the students so I think it's even so whenever you whenever the students know that you're bilingual and it's it's wonderful but whenever they know that you're monolingual and you're trying that hard I think it just touches your heart in a different way and the kids see it but I think what's really
impactful though is that the teacher gets to experience something that they hadn't experienced yet which automatically better informs their pedagogical practice and what they actually do in the classroom because now they have empathy with what their students were also going through perhaps.
And it makes your students a little more comfortable too right like that they know their teachers learning to that makes them a little bit less hesitant to practice speaking or you know to openly share in class when everybody's kind of learning along together that just opens that up a little bit for your kids.
That's thousand percent and I really promote this you know kind of for everybody. I'll be working with with schools and we'll we'll do a comparison for example where they might students might have to go over to one side of the room to work on some program and you know
they might have to work on some skills up to a certain grade level but then whenever we start looking comparatively at the state scores for example on their state assessment both students might have below basic scores but the student that happened to be put over on the side and doesn't necessarily have the proficiency in English yet actually knew the content at a higher level than the English only student over here getting to participate fully in class all the time but still performing at the other level.
So that doesn't mean like that bubble at the bottom or maybe just for you know dual language or so which of course again that's the oxygen it means that these are these are these are non negotiable that have to happen.
I mean just imagine though if that would be kind of like that top bubble under that first lens that we go through, because we're all acquiring language, and there's different dialects and different vocabulary and different parts of just the United States, and we know that that's so true whenever we consider
how to say straw in Spanish, right, just because it's Spanish because English I mean it's all the same word you got, you know, both of these or better so I'll be able to hear you got like all these different words for but I think that's where it becomes really interesting is how can we take these
these practices and this pedagogy and make it where it's not just specifically for the multi legal student but it allows us to really understand the lack of roots of words, the Anglo Saxon German almost that that that that we speak today, but making these connections
even in science classes and different romance languages. So it doesn't have to just be in this dual language education program and that one elementary school in that district, even though the other elementary schools right next to it that still has half of them as bilingual
this is something that can really be an incredible, you know, mindset shift and change in our practices that helps elevate the voice and the choice and the traditions and the identities of all of our students and really celebrate multiculturalism and diversity.
Yeah, yeah.
I get so excited. Listen, I could be with you all all day. I know that you have busy scheduled things to do but as we wrap up right here is there just anything that you would like to share with our listeners celebrations the next upcoming things anything exciting
or just some not final thoughts because they're so final but you know some some lasting comments.
Well, one really exciting thing we have coming up that's kind of connected to everything we've been talking about today is we're going to be hosting a webinar through dual language schools, just to kind of go over our common roots and soil.
For those that are interested in learning a little bit more and then we're going to be having a course launching in September, we're going to do it in English and in Spanish, two different sections and English section, two different sections.
Yeah, exactly. So it'll be eight week or sorry nine week course in the evenings. Okay, any people interested you can register for that on our website, tandem teachers calm so we're excited about that because it'll be our first time teaching in Spanish, and we think it's really great opportunity
because a lot of PD is always in English, and it's just kind of fun to give it a shot in Spanish and and welcome Spanish speakers to our, to our course and to work side about that we did teach it last podcast episode.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, kind of a bilingual attempt last last winter and really enjoyed it but we thought we might try it with separate English and of course, you know, people can be bilingual in either space but having a predominant presentation in English or Spanish, we're going to give that
a go this time.
I'm so excited and they can find that is on your tandem teachers.com. Yeah.
Excellent, excellent well listen just so you know I will make sure that Mike and I will make sure rather that we have this information in, and as well as the official bios for our amazing guests today in the description of this podcast episode today.
And so, we will make sure to have like I said, the bios as well as the out of the box learning lab, the OTB learning lab.com tandem teachers.com and also the dual language education New Mexico DL E n m.org.
There is an article that I encourage all of you to read that I did read as well and I wanted to get deeper into some translating which is that because I have lots of questions I would love to ask so I think we should maybe really plan a part to if you all would be
interested. Yeah, that would be great. Yeah, for sure and continue this conversation.
But the article is called navigating tensions between translanguaging and separation of languages and dual language programs and that's, we will have all these links in there for you.
That that that monograph is really an excerpt from chapter three of the book and it's really kind of the engine of the book so it's it definitely gives readers kind of a taste of what the book is about and the cross linguistic pedagogies that we introduce that really are the heart
of the book. And we are also going to be presenting for anyone who's on the conference circuit and planning on traveling around in the fall in Utah, we're going to do a half day pre conference Institute at the immersion conference in early October on this navigating tensions between
translanguaging and separation of languages, and then another session on it during the conference and we'll also be at luck or such a presenting there so we'd love to meet anybody in person if you're going to be going to either of those conferences, please come and say hi to us.
Wonderful, I will be
happy to. Yeah, no, for sure. Definitely. Yeah, we'll be the ones on the tandem bike. Last year we had a tandem bike there. Yeah, we'll see if we get one this year.
I was there too. I missed you on the last year you were there. Yeah, we had a tandem bike right and then Albuquerque presenting. Yes. Yeah, we were downstairs. I'm not going to lose you this next time. Okay. We will. I'm going to find you for sure.
Also for all of our Instagram and Facebook users we will have a link there for for their tandem teachers on Instagram as well as Facebook, and to both of you I just want to say thank you again for not only taking time out of your day to share this amazing information and your research on our podcast, but thank you from a personal standpoint, just because it is researchers and practitioners like you that help people like me grow in this field, and I lean on on your research.
I continue to learn from that and I just thank you so much for the groundwork that you played out so people like me can continue in this work as well. So thank you so very much. Yeah, thank you for having us.
It was wonderful to meet you and talk with you. Yeah.
Well, we're going to plan a part two so listeners stay tuned and we, I really will we're going to continue this conversation for sure so much more to talk about. As we wrap up just thank you again to share it Simpson for being here today.
And Dr. Elizabeth Howard thank you so much for being here. And on behalf of Edgeskills we thank you so much our sponsor Mike Overhaul, our producer, and as always, everyone I wish you all the best.
Thank you for joining us today. Don't forget to like, follow and subscribe.
Adios.