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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.

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We're excited to have you join us today. We sincerely hope that you enjoy the show.

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EdgeSkills, transforming education, one student at a time.

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Welcome back to another episode of Cultural Connections Lab with myself, your host, Dr. Kelly Forbes. I am excited to be here today with a special friend. His name is Samuel Aguirre.

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Samuel Aguirre is the senior director of the Consortium and State Relations Department at World Class Instructional Design and Assessment, as we know fondly as WIDA.

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His team engages and supports WIDA consortium member states to ensure successful implementation of all WIDA products and services. The Consortium and State Relations team also engages and facilitates state expertise within WIDA to deliver high-quality products and services for multilingual learners and their educators.

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Sam's life experiences as an immigrant and language learner in the U.S. work as a classroom educator, advocate working with culturally and linguistically diverse communities, and director of multilingual student services at a state education agency provide a strong foundation for his role at WIDA.

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Sam joined WIDA in fall of 2019 as director of WIDA Espanol and transitioned to his current role in August of 2024. Sam holds a bachelor's degree in bilingual bicultural elementary education from Northeastern Illinois University and a master's in second language studies with a concentration in engaged language policy and practice from the University of Hawaii in Manoa.

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And I'm so excited to announce that he is currently completing a doctoral degree in curriculum and instruction with the concentration in bilingual education at the University of Wisconsin Madison. So a big

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thank you to Samuel Aguirre. Kelly, it is a pleasure. It's a pleasure to be here with you and with Dr. Taylor here to talk. Yes, it's really fantastic. I know that I was fortunate to get to meet you through Dr. Tribble, which he is here today as our co-host.

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So a big shout out to Dr. Taylor Tribble, president and CEO of Edgeskills, the sponsor of this episode. So thank you for being here. And Dr. Tribble, thank you so much for this connection. I know that Sam has been able to help guide me in helping support our local education agencies, specifically here in the state of Oklahoma with implementation of dual language education programming. And I've been able to receive some highlights and tips from him. And we're just so thankful for all the service that you do.

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Thank you so much, Sam. Yeah, I'm so excited. It's been kind of, we've been planning this for a while. So I'm excited to finally get down and sit down and chat with you on the podcast. I know you have a lot of valuable information about how we can support students and families. I know with your own background, add a lot of insight to the podcast. Thank you so much.

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My pleasure. So Samuel, with that, I would just like to, you know, start off just having a fun conversation with you. Who is the incredible and amazing Samuel Valanguirre?

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Oh, gosh. You know, whenever I'm asked about to speak about my work and about, you know, how I got here, I always got to go back to the beginning. So I was born in Mexico, grew up in Mexico until I was eight, and then my family immigrated to the city of Chicago. So I came along, I got into the city of Chicago and got into the public school system there did not have much English to rely on. So I ended up through a transitional bilingual education program.

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I was myself identified as an English learner early on, and went through language services for a few years until I was able to demonstrate proficiency, and so on. But nonetheless, I continue to carry a little bit of that experience, you know, learning and going through the motions of becoming a language learner and multilingual learner.

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And now I am able to speak both English and Spanish fluently and thanks to the work that I do, able to both lean on both of those areas. Along the way, I decided to become a multilingual educator.

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And so I went through, as you mentioned, some of the schooling there, do a bilingual, dual language education program. And so I had the pleasure of working in schools, but in the city of Chicago, as I was doing my teacher preparation program in dual language, I then became an educator of science

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in the state of Hawaii in a very, very diverse community. My classroom had many languages, none of them which were Spanish. So I, although I had multilingualism happening in my classroom, there was a lot of unknown as far as the languages went about.

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But we had a great learning experience. And then I left that position to work at the State Department in Illinois, where I served as the director of Multilingual Services for about two and a half years, and then made the move here to Madison, Wisconsin, where I work now for WIDA as part of this consortium.

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So again, it's been a lot of work along the way, and lots of learning, but it's all tied back to my identity as a multilingual learner myself.

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I think it's incredibly important to always go back and start at the beginning and remember from where we come and celebrate our identities, our cultures and our traditions, and never let that be something that's set aside, but rather something that we lead with, because it's something beautiful that we can share with everyone that's around us.

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So I appreciate you telling us that story.

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So linking onto that a little bit though, it makes me consider, because I know a lot of teachers probably have these questions too. They're in our classrooms and they're serving our multilingual learners. And we all come with our different experiences and backgrounds when it comes to serving multilingual, multicultural students.

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But what was that experience like for you? Most specifically, of course, the English language was probably such a focus, but I'm not sure about in your personal experience about your first language either, espanol, verdad?

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And so my question really points to helping educators understand that importance of language and culture being represented in the classroom, and also correlating that with your own experiences about language and culture and that celebration happening in the classroom.

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Yeah, you know, language has always been very, very tied to who I am, to my identity, to the work that I do. And when I first came to the US, it was definitely part of the classroom. I mean, I was in a bilingual education setting.

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And so therefore, I was able to get some Spanish instruction and English instruction at the same time in the same classroom. Nonetheless, my mom was eager to ensure that her kids were able to speak Spanish and to learn to read and write Spanish.

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So I would come home after school and then have another Spanish class at home. I remember my mom calling at that point in that time, calling my cousins and my aunts and uncles out in Mexico and having them ship my cousin's textbooks up so that she could then teach me Spanish at home.

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Oh, how cool. Same thing with part of my sister's upbringing. And so then, you know, the three of us now are able to read and write in Spanish. And I think that was part of that opportunity that we had at home to really learn our Spanish.

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Yeah. And coming back to my own experiences in the classroom, I mentioned, you know, when I was working in Hawaii, and although I didn't speak the languages that were present in my classroom, I was still able to allow students to express themselves through their own language.

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And those languages were not written languages, but they were still able to discuss and chat with one another and really enjoy and lean in on their cultural and linguistic expertise that would then just make the classroom a lot more enriching.

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And the same thing in my visits to schools, my visits to classrooms, especially those that are promoting either additive bilingualism, dual language programming, you know, the fact that you get to see culture and language reflected in the classroom makes a tremendous difference for students.

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With your kind of current role at WIDA, I'm curious to know what your experience was, if you even recall, with the assessment process, language proficiency assessment, what assessment was it? Do you remember being intimidating at all? Or do you even have any recollection of that?

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Yes, I'm working with a lot of teachers right now, and because it's here in Oklahoma, it is the WIDA season is coming up and there are surrounding states as well. And everyone's having these questions, and we're even talking to some students about this, about their own experiences.

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So a lot of people are interested in this right here.

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Yeah, you know, it's, it's funny because it's part of the sort of the work that we have to do, right, as part of our following this legal statute and federal law requirements for the identification and continuous assessment of multilingual learners is something that's required, right.

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It's something that we have to do, right. But I think the unique thing that comes across with the WIDA assessment or the ways in which we frame our assessment is the design itself, right. We designed it in collaboration with educators and multilingual learners so we have educators that come in and work closely with ourselves and our partners at the Center for Applied Linguistics in the development of the test items.

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And then we go through multiple versions of bias review that allow for those test items to be truly reflective of educators and multilingual learners experiences, so that multilingual learners are able to engage with the assessment in a way that is as low tension as possible, and to allow them to fully demonstrate the language proficiency.

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And then of course we get the results at the end, but I think there is of course, a lot of work that goes behind the development, but there's also a lot of work that comes across in the classroom itself.

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So working directly with our multilingual educators to ensure that they have the resources that they need the preparation that they need, and that they're able to ensure that their students are ready to kind of take the test right testing is not always fun and you know, drawing back to my experience

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when I was in Illinois, like in the city of Chicago as a multilingual learner, identified as an English learner at the time, Illinois was not a WIDA state yet. I exited EL services in 2004 and I think that's the first year that Illinois became a WIDA state so I got, I was able to exit the program or

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the designation right before Illinois became a WIDA state. Nonetheless, the assessment that we had, of course, brings in sometimes nervousness right and makes our students nervous and especially when it's such a high stakes right that it would either maintain their

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designation as a multilingual learner as an English learner or, you know, exit them out of services so I know and I understand that there is that pressure, but I think part of it is just reminding our students, and more importantly, our families of the reasons behind the assessment

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right. It allows us to have a measure of growth, a year over year, as the students language, learning and language proficiency. It allows us to be able to continue to track the language development of our students, and hopefully this is happening, allows us to make decisions at the classroom

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level about the instruction and the supports that we're doing so that our students are able to learn and acquire English so that they can be successful in the classroom.

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Not to say that they shouldn't also be learning other languages, right, but it does give us a measure for their English development and English proficiency.

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Yeah, of course I mean, we do have the the rules regulations and policies and the whole reason behind that is to help to provide equitable services for our students right and to make sure that we're helping them gain and acquire language to be able to learn, do what they need to do, etc.

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Right. But I would, I would love to actually get some feedback as to what would be a recommendation for leaders who are in school districts and or in school buildings and also to our teachers because regardless of your title you're still a leader in your own right and in your classroom.

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But we, we have so many students who are required to take the WIDA access assessment. And then we have other students who are not required but if they were to take it wouldn't necessarily pass that assessment anyway.

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So I'm a principal in a school where they're not me actually right now currently but for example, hypothetically, I'm a principal in a school, and half of my students are multilingual learners, and the other half of the students are not multilingual learners yet

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because they're not the native born speaker of academic language. So how could I implement everything that WIDA is talking about to help support all of the students when it comes to acquiring language within the content areas and those five WIDA standards, but doing so

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in a way that can help support whether you're in a dual language program, or you happen to be in a monolingual education program but yet it's still 50-50 so no matter what you call it still dual language. How can leaders and teachers use this in such a way to help really make this holistic

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linguistic ecosystem, where we're all being language models for each other, even though only some students may be required to take quote unquote this language assessment, whether it be WIDA or any other language assessment.

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That's very important. I think it's very important for us to keep in mind that our students' language learning and their academic growth has to be centered, right? And so part of that entails that as we, let's say we get the results of the annual English Language

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Learning Proficiency Assessment, that being used in parallel with a score or measure of students' knowledge and expertise in a partner language or multiple partner languages, depending on the program model that might be implemented in a school.

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So to your point, I think it's ideally for a program leader is looking at that data as a means to ensure that there is adequate growth year over year for our students and making modifications to the programming, to the classroom resources, to the curriculum, to the professional

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learning for our educators, making sure that our educators are well supported so that students are able to continue to make the growth. Now, Access or the English Language Proficiency Assessments give us that measure for English. We need a similar or comparable measure of that

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students bilingualism. And sometimes those can come through classroom observations, right, depending on the language that is taught in partner with English. We may lean on educators to make informed decisions and inform evaluations of their students' language

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growth. But ultimately being able to use that data for decisions around programming, around curriculum, materials, professional learning, I think that will be the ideal use of that, of those scores. As you mentioned, right, federal policy requires us to report those scores to the federal government.

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It also now requires that schools have a report card or some other form of publicly releasing that information to our communities, into our parents. And I think that's also important because then our advocacy groups and our parents can ensure that their students are making that

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growth and that there is, you know, the program needs are actually enabling language development. But to your point, we can't forget about the partner language and we need to make sure that there's supports on that front as well.

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To add to that question, you know, I think too often students are kind of left out of the equation talking about assessment results. I'm just curious from your experience growing up, do you remember even talking about the assessment that you were taking and had any idea what it

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meant? Obviously you became proficient, but did teachers, parents talk to you about those results? And even beyond that, like, knowing that it is important to include the students, how do you recommend that educators engage their students and talking about WIDA

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results and just English language proficiency assessment results and beyond that even regular assessment results more broadly?

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Yeah, you know, I'm thinking back to, you know, my nine, 10 year old self, in coming home with the test scores. I do recall that my mom and my dad as well, they always wanted to see my score results, be it on the test, be it on the report card, you know, anything that I brought home they wanted to see.

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So I was very fortunate to be in a household where my parents were very engaged with us. Now, my parents came to the school only on like report card pickup day or when there was an open house. So my parents were not actively in the school building.

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However, at home, they were very eager to ensure that we were reporting back, my sisters and myself, anything that we were bringing with the score.

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So, there was a little bit of the conversation about what the scores meant. And I remember, you know, once I had enough English, a lot of it was translating the reports, right, if they were coming in English only then ensuring that my parents were able to understand the score.

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I think that was part of my role and part of many multilingual learners who end up doing a lot of interpreting and translation early on.

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But I don't think I ever got to that to that point, Taylor, of actually digging in and understanding what the score meant and understand what it meant for, for, you know, my teacher and for myself.

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So I think that was a miss. Nonetheless, I think, you know, we're doing some progress. I've definitely been in situate or, you know, in school visits where now we have like portfolio reviews and teachers are reviewing materials of students or with the students, sometimes with the parent also present, and allowing the student to engage in conversation and self analysis of their own learning and their own growth.

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And I've seen it where access scores are part of that conversation, right. It allows the student to understand their placement into multilingual learning services. It allows them to fully understand and it takes away a little bit of the negativity behind that label of being identified as an English learner or not.

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And I think it allows for the students again to just be able to set some goals for themselves and be able to see their progress and their growth year over year. So I think that is happening maybe in some of the places that I've been to.

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Perhaps it's a little bit more common today than it was about 25 years ago, but I think there's still work to be done there. And in showing that our teachers are well prepared, that we are providing in the case, for example, of WIDA, we give guidance on our website about how to interpret the scores and how to utilize the scores in conversation,

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like in our parents or communities and with our students in the classroom. Well, and currently in the work that I'm doing, I am definitely trying to spread the word, if it's in a WIDA state, but regardless, it would still be the same type of a conversation.

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But I love getting into these conversations with educators and asking them, do you have access and know your state standards? And if so, raise your hand, and they'll all raise their hand and then ask them, okay, also, what are the five WIDA standards, for example?

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And inevitably, someone always says, listening, speaking, reading and writing. And so we get to start to have this conversation around it. Because again, I remind everyone, no one's a native born speaker of academic language.

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We're all acquiring language. And we all, I said, I was never born going, onomatopoeia. I didn't know that word, right? I had to learn that word. And it's that language of a certain content area of language arts.

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And so how do we utilize that? So whenever we start to have these conversations, and, you know, especially whenever there are places that have platforms that have language acquisition plans for students. So for example, if we're if we're in a place that has

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edge of skills, we can go in and look at all of the students because I have all the students listed. So we start by comparing their state test scores. And then we look over at the WIDA. So now you have English only speakers who are performing at the same level or even lower than sometimes a

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multi-lingual student. But then you start to show the examples of WIDA from the website. And then inevitably, again, a teacher says, Oh, my gosh, I have students that speak only English that couldn't pass that. And I'm like, exactly. And some of

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they don't have that knowledge. It's the fact that we're not practicing some of the domains that we're not understanding that language is the vehicle to get access to that content. And all of our students do need that. Well, some students are

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required to do it. So again, it's just a great opportunity for educators and for leaders to have this conversation with all of our students, because we all need that access, right? And again, we're language models for each other, regardless of the type of

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programming that you might be in. But we can still help each other because you had mentioned translating and having to do that. That is a huge, incredible skill that you were doing. And so while you might be seen on one hand as, you know, not having enough

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proficiency level, on the other hand, you're doing a skill that most people cannot do at all. And that's that superpower of the of the bilingual, multilingual brain, right? And so being able to ensure that our students and we all understand that to

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celebrate this and to bring it to the forefront, how about that be the filter that we go through for all the students, not just for a certain group of students, right? Right.

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Very true. I agree. Because one of the guiding principles is translanguaging. And so again, it goes back to even using all those languages to help us with acquiring whatever language it is, but for the vehicle to get active to that content.

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That is very true, Kelly. And I want to highlight something that you mentioned that when in the classroom, when in our school buildings, the population of multilingual learners, it's everyone's responsibility, right? And recognizing that

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every student, be it coming from a multilingual household or an English only speaking household, wherever it might be, they all have the opportunity to learn more and to learn more language. And a lot of the practices that are implemented for multilingual learners, right?

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So we're talking about multiliteracies. We're talking about very engaged, kinesthetically driven approaches to learning. Those have benefits for everyone in the classroom, whether you are identified as a multilingual or as an English learner or you're not, right?

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Even if you have met proficiency in English, those sort of approaches to language learning can have tremendous difference and tremendous, can lead to tremendous gains of language and academic language specifically, right? That allows students to be able to read and write and engage with content and mathematics and science and so on.

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So I think it makes a tremendous difference. But it really comes back to, and then coming back to the point you asked about earlier, working with our administrators so that there is this encouragement both for the support of those students identified as English learners, but for the support of all students in language learning in general, right?

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And ensuring that we're all provided the opportunity to be multilingual learners. And so that also means working with the content teachers who may not have formal bilingual or English learner education themselves, let's say they haven't gone through the formal training at the university.

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However, professional learning, coaching, other additional supports can make that difference and allow them to become responsible themselves and supportive of language learning in their classrooms. That is something that WIDA is also continuing to grow.

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And so one of the things that we're doing right now is trying to find out like how many of our content teachers are engaging with our professional learning and with our standards. And so that ideally down the road, because we all have multilingual learners in front of us, all the educators will know those language standards.

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They'll be able to come back in and share what those standards stand for and what they mean and how they impact their instruction and how they benefit both that student identified as an English learner and the student that is sitting next to them who may already be English proficient.

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So there's a lot of work to do on that front. And we're hoping that through more information to our educators and more professional learning opportunities, we can reach that population of teachers.

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There, I'm so excited about this. And if you're listening, shout out to you and you'll know who you are and what school and what district and everything. But there is a middle school where I'm getting to do some work and engage.

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And anyhow, we've had this conversation and we've really been just digging deep into data and then looking at pedagogical practices and culture and trying to add levels of cultural proficiency to what we're doing in the school overall.

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But anyhow, to the point is that utilizing the WIDA speaking rubric and the WIDA writing rubric, they're using that now for all their students trying to have that level 6B where they want because now we can all kind of speak in that same language, you know, no pun intended.

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But then at the same time, though, they're doing fun things like speaking and writing across all domains and creating like whole school competitions and fun. And then all of this creates a conversation where the students who aren't necessarily taking the WIDA assessment, they understand it more too.

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And they're encouraging and celebrating the bilingual superpowers of their friends and their peers right there in the classroom.

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And it's changed the whole conversation for the educators, for the adults in the room, but also in how it's creating relationships and whole different types of relationships because through all of this, language and culture can't be disconnected.

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And so now teachers are learning more about their students and the other students are learning more about culture.

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And so it's created this ripple effect now where the whole dynamic has changed and all the conversations have changed and it's just been really an empowering process for the educators to feel like they have tools and resources, but also for the students to feel a true sense of belonging.

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Very true. Very true.

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Sorry, go ahead.

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No, no, no.

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I'll let you finish this sentence.

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I was just wondering, you have children, right?

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Not yet.

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Oh, for some reason, I thought you had.

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Our plan is that we'll have our firstborn in the next maybe two years, maybe for next year.

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We're planning for it.

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I'll say that.

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You say that. That's exciting.

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I was just curious, kind of from a parent's perspective, you know, but I guess then turning back to your, your childhood, like, what do you feel like, if you were to give advice to parents of children, multilingual families and children, kind of what, what's, what, what your parents do right, not to say that, you know, nobody's perfect.

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What could they have maybe done differently, like, or just more broadly in schools a lot.

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What have you seen work well to engage parents and help them be a better support of their students?

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Yeah.

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I think one of the reasons that this case like my mom was having the school books from Mexico be shipped up to Chicago so she could use them and I can be able to provide some of that essential instruction in Spanish for for myself and my sisters really ties back to the motivation, right.

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In her case.

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So I'll give you a little bit of the backstory there.

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I have family with cousins that were born in California and so they grew up there so they were about maybe six, seven years old so they were already started school.

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Then they moved down to Mexico, and they had some Spanish, mostly oral Spanish, but not the academic written and writing and you know, written in the reading, where it should be so then they had a bit of a hard time transitioning into the schooling system in Mexico.

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After about five years I want to say they had moved they moved back to California again.

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And then they came into the schooling system here and it turns out their Spanish was not really strong, but their academic level in English, of course, that they didn't get the practice, they needed into that had hindered them, I guess in their participation of work in the classroom in the US.

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So, when my parents decided to move that was in the back of my mom, in my mom's mind she was always thinking about that experience that my cousins had, and she wanted to kind of do better by us and part of it meant that when we were here and we might.

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We ended up staying here but initially the idea right I think a lot of immigrant communities come like that they move to the US seeking a better opportunity, but there's in the back of their mind this desire to go back to return to their home country.

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And that was the case my parents. And so when they came here, initially, they didn't know that will be coming back to Mexico and if they did, my mom wanted to ensure that we had enough Spanish to be able to come back and be able to, I guess, get ourselves back into the school system

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and be successful there, but that was the motivation behind her and behind these instructions that I was receiving at home. What could have been better, I think, initially, again just because of the unknown right being in your country working with a new system.

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My parents, as I mentioned, were not in school a whole lot. They, if something needed to be communicated to the school, it was mostly myself with a note or something else that I was bringing that message back so I was the connection between home and school, and be it because of work, be it because of just the I can be

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here that you know what it would be to walk into a school building my parents didn't come to school often. So what does that mean for parents today or parents who are might be listening and educators of course work directly with their communities.

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I think we need to make sure we find those things that will make the parent engagement meaningful. Try to find out what are the things that are happening the community, what is the community's background. What is it that is a desire of that particular language

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and cultural community around you that would incentivize those parents to come into the school building, and that would allow them to be able to have a stronger connection to their children's education, both on language learning and academic content learning.

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And then providing those avenues, right incentivize so I remember when I was in Illinois when I was director of multilingual services. There were a few school districts that would have like a parent night once a month, and they will bring food for the families

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and the kiddos right because it will be later in the day so like around five six in the evening, and they'll have like some type of food or light meal that they would have their, they'll bring like music just to that, you know, or even if it's just plugging in your

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computer to a speaker writer Bluetooth it so that when parents are walking in, they felt music that they connected to they felt this as a welcoming space that reflected their culture and their, their identity.

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And so, they would be there and little by little start forming that community with other parents, and that incentivize them to come back right because all of a sudden they weren't just walking in by themselves now they knew someone else, and the teachers really made an effort to

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I think something like that would be ideal, where we are both identifying our communities, figuring out what their interest is and what's going to bring them in through the door. And then how do we actually implement that and make them happen to keep them engaged.

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I think that's really the importance of your mom bringing in those books that's such that's so cool that she was so focused on doing that to keep your bilingualism and by literacy going it makes me think about one of our other podcast guests shout out to Veronica

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Ramos of WEPA Libros I don't know if you know her she's also from Illinois, but check, you should check her out because she does bilingual sources bilingual books from all over the world to help kind of encourage bilingualism in a similar way that your

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mother did with you and that you think that is so important that schools really can help continue that literacy through other students native language.

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And we will be right back.

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Contact us now and let's start building a brighter tomorrow together.

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And now, back to the show.

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This whole connection about for our families and our the not just involvement, but rather that engagement, right?

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And I so and Taylor, I don't I don't even think I had I mentioned this to you.

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You know, so the Edgeskills platform was updated and now on that homepage it has a map.

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So it has a map of all the students like from where they're from.

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And I think we know this in the field because we talked about this a whole lot like we get our own silos and we're with people that think like us understand us understand the numbers means like that.

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Some other teachers, though, they were shocked to see how many students that are multilingual learners that are from the United States, which again to us, it's very much like, well, yes, because we're in this data.

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We're in this research.

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But whenever you're with other people that just don't necessarily have that same background or experiences, it was so eye opening.

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And so I think about like two scenarios.

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Well, I guess three, you have families, entire families who have all come from one country to another country.

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Then you have some families where the parents came from one country, but the child was born here.

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But then we're even added with Generation Z right now.

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We have parents that were born here, multilingual students here, and their children are also multilingual students here because their household is multilingual.

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And so when it comes to that family engagement, I think there's also just different layers to that onion to consider because again, the majority of the students being served, a lot of them were already from right here.

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I don't know about any specific site or location, but overall, generally speaking, the majority already from the United States, which just also speaks to how multilingual we are as a nation and have always been for a long time.

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Maybe not in the beginning beginnings, but for a long time in our history, it's been a very multilingual, multicultural country.

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And I just think it's something to remember, to bring up and to celebrate.

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And it's so beautiful.

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And a great way, I think, to your kind of reference to the map that's viewed within our platform, a way you can take that to the next step if Harvard gives a recommendation to schools.

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No matter what platform we use, no matter our assessment, put a map of the world on the wall.

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And in our office, we actually have one and we have pins in every country that where we're supporting students can do something similar in a school and that really drives that discussion.

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And kind of also you do have the pin on the US and have that conversation about the highest percentage of your students are actually born here, and kind of what that means.

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So definitely important to highlight that.

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And it makes a great difference.

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I think one of the things that I appreciate about Taylor's work in interest skills is that centering of the multilingual learner within a data system.

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And it really allows us to highlight the experiences and uniqueness of our students, their strengths and the areas of opportunities that we can uncover through the analysis of that data.

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And not alone, just the fact that there is this map, this identification of backgrounds and histories and, you know, family members that students might still have in, you know, in other countries.

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I think that brings to light both the diversity, to your point, Kelly, and the uniqueness that we have in our classrooms in the US, where we can have a diversity of backgrounds all within one single space.

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And I think it's really important that we continue to celebrate that and highlight it and represent it through the maps or other collages of culture and language.

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I just think it's so important to make it relevant and to make these connections in the classroom.

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And, you know, it's actually already it's already working, Taylor, because so, you know, working with the teacher, we recognize that because so in my research about cultural proficiency and thinking about some of those key elements or, you know, how do you assess cultural knowledge, but also how do you

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institutionalize cultural knowledge? Well, you can't really assess it if you don't know who's around you and what's represented, cultural, etc.

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And so to the point, though, there was an educator who's working on narratives through the five senses.

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And so because there was a student in there and we knew the student was from Honduras, we were able to create this fun narrative, playing with some AI, say, hey, make a quick thing about this.

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And then it came up with this great little story that was such an awesome narrative. And the student was literally on the phone playing Candy Crush or something, you know, not engaged at all.

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What was happening all of a sudden to hearing about this narrative because we're talking about marine by the Balearic and of course, because it was through the five senses, this narrative like she was imagining like Honduras again, but then got to share about it.

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You know, she didn't have her phone out anymore playing Candy Crush. I mean, she was really engaged and now she was learning that content that the teacher wanted. But it was this awesome moment that we got to, you know, share out about another culture right there in that setting.

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So I totally agree. I recommend teachers to do that, too, because it's so fun.

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Yeah, yeah, it really makes a tremendous difference. And I want to come back to sort of the what's at the core of that. Right. And I think I'm hoping that educators are getting the supports that they need, the utilizing standards that are designed in a way to promote the access points for students to be able to both celebrate and learn through the use of their culture and their language and other things that connect directly to their identity.

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While still allowing for, you know, you can have a trans language and story per se that allows them to have keywords and key phrases that ties them back to who they are and what they hear at home and those experiences of their family.

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And at the same time, acquire more English along the way or learn another language along the way. And I think that is a unique thing that we bring forth. And I think having the right set of standards in place, allowing our curriculum to be really reflective and prioritizing of our students and then allowing that layer of data and the analysis of data to help inform even, you know, fortify some of that work. I think that's the ideal. That's what we want to do.

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Yeah, yeah, 100%.

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Dr. Schaubler, did you have something you were about to say?

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No.

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I'm so sorry. I thought I was going to interrupt you for a second.

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But you know, I did want to share that. I want to share about something else if that's okay.

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Yeah, this is all about you, sir.

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Oh gosh, let's...

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One of the unique privileges that I've had recently is to work very closely with Arthur Cho in putting together the National Seal of Biliteracy. We've been able to put out the last couple of years of the 2022 and the 2023 reports.

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And that has been a...just it's changed my perspective in many ways. I get to work...I have the privilege of working with states across the country, all of the WIDA member states, and in my current role working directly with the state agencies and ensuring that they have everything that they need to support their multilingual learners.

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And this time around, I got a chance to still work with some of our state leaders, but highlighting and celebrating that bilingualism and multilingualism that was happening in their school buildings across their states.

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And so in putting together the Seal of Biliteracy report, I got to see the extent of reach when it comes to language learning and language practices.

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I think the latest report had over 130 languages reflected in there. And we know that there are some states that, yeah, and there's still a handful of states that didn't report data, either because it's not collected or for other reasons.

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But from every state that reported, we were able to just acknowledge and celebrate all of those languages. And going back to your comment about how the US has always been multilingual, right?

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Documenting Native American languages that are still being taught, that are passed down generation to generation, and that we get a chance to celebrate.

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And I think for us at WIDA and for myself specifically, it is such a great honor to be part of that work and to just, again, collect the data and report on it for an initiative that is now adopted across the whole country.

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So every state now has the possibility of awarding a state seal of biliteracy. And to continue to honor and recognize that bilingualism of our students, whether it is taught formally in school through bilingual education, world language,

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heritage language, or if it's something that happens in the community, there's a lot of heritage schools in the community.

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There's a lot of just oral language that gets passed down from generation to generation. And so just acknowledging and documenting that, I think, makes a tremendous difference.

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And Sam, you know, everything that you're talking about is so important because on the flip side, there are other people and, you know, like little Kellys out there that come, that grow up in an English-only, monolingual household

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that didn't have any connection to any of this culture, the Latinx, Hispanic culture, you know, specifically. It was all through a teacher, right?

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But it was because I had that exposure. But that's definitely impacted me. And so, I mean, that's a real way that culture and travel and learning and all of that has impacted me in learning another language, not just in the way that I think,

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but in the way that I empathize, that I sympathize, that I have compassion, that I consider I have a different outlook, a different thought process.

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And so I'm curious, you know, for me, that was such a huge benefit. But what were some of the implications of that culture maybe throughout your life?

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There might be examples like that, or maybe just on the work that you're currently doing now. But that cultural component was just such a huge impact that wasn't assessed.

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So it wasn't, you know, the forefront or necessarily a focus anywhere. But yet, at the same time, it was that qualitative component that gave this huge quantitative outcome and has radically changed my life for the better.

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And there's really gains for everyone, right? And Kelly, I want to highlight the story of yours that you just shared, your own story, because when we're looking at the CLL by Literacy report, and that continues to be true,

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most of the students receiving the CLL by Literacy were not identified as English learners at any one point.

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So these are, there's a big chunk of those that were coming from monolingual English-only speaking households who have had the opportunity to learn multiple languages in school.

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And so your story is truly reflected across the data that we see there. Right. And again, that appreciation for other languages, other cultures, and the learning and the truly enriching yourself in that.

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Like when I hear your Spanish, I, you know, you just, you have a very strong Spanish, but that speaks to the dedication behind that, right? Your, the energy that you have for the appreciation, the respect, and the learning that goes behind that learning, you know, are in another language.

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Now for myself, I think having been able to maintain my Mexican culture in the home and being able to, through that, acquire more Spanish and allow me to really embrace everything that comes with, you know, the Latino culture.

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I think it's been a tremendous, it has made a tremendous difference to myself, both in the validation of my own identity, in my empowerment as an individual, the confidence that I have to do the work that I do every day.

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And, and then at the same time, by having access to other cultures and other languages, allowing me to break out of stereotypes and, you know, confined perspectives to really have a more responsive engagement with others in a more legitimate and honest interaction with other people.

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And I feel like there's a whole layer to your point about maybe we don't assess culture, we don't document culture in the same way. The benefits of that really allow us to be, I think, stronger human beings, more, more human beings with one another.

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It allows us to break away from narrow perspectives that we could otherwise have. So I think that's another positive benefit of it all, which I really appreciate and I'm grateful for.

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In that vein, what are some examples you've seen in school districts that have been able to kind of simulate those experiences, things like Kelly's talking about, he's traveled, like I traveled and learned languages, and that's really what impacted me and changed my worldview.

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But not so many of our students are fortunate enough to have those experience, even native English speakers. So how do you kind of try to simulate or have you seen schools like help native English speakers and speakers of other languages kind of expand that worldview and

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understanding of the importance of multilingualism and multiculturalism.

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I think, you know, technology nowadays allows us to do a lot of that remote learning or long distance interaction with others. There are initiatives that I mean, for example, and I'll speak to Illinois, because I had the opportunity to work closely with many districts there.

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There have been initiatives that they started with students in other countries, right. And so as they're going through world language or heritage language classrooms, they get to interact with speakers in countries whose native language is that, right, that there are target languages, their native language.

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So we get the opportunity to interact directly with them. And I think that can build opportunities that we may not always have access to, you know, like travel.

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And so that I think it includes for the educator and for administrators to expand those networks to identify other communities. And sometimes we can start with the parents, so that then we can create those relationships with schools in other countries.

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And if the timelines, not the timelines, if the time zones align, we may be able to do sort of real time conversations with other individuals across the globe. And so I think that could be a great benefit for our communities.

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I think that's the one way that I've seen it where it's more tangible.

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I've seen it where school districts or individual schools would host like an international night, right, and sort of recreate either specific foods or play music or bring cultural elements into space, into a classroom to celebrate, you know,

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diversity and cultures and languages. I think there is a little bit of a positive opportunity there, right. One of the risks that we run with doing that is overgeneralizing a whole group of people.

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Yeah, culture within culture, for sure. Yes. I think if we do that, which I think, you know, that is also a popular approach if we have like an international night or, you know, and we're highlighting cultures recognizing that this is our own interpretation sometimes of that culture, and that this is just one way of, you know,

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realizing, enacting or viewing that culture. And so that I think if we couch that within those parameters, then we're being very honest with ourselves and transparent with our students.

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But I think if you are able to connect students with other individuals in other countries, that would allow them to just show their true self, and they'll bring their own culture into the conversation, their own practices, their own languages.

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And I think that just enriches, it makes everything a lot more real, right, almost as if we were traveling and being out there with them.

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Yeah, I, you know, technology is of course an easy, quick way to be able to gain that access, but I also, I think about, you know, explore, exploring your classroom, bring in the community, go into the community also.

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And then it makes me consider what Dr. Elizabeth Howard and Shara Simpson said from their dual language tandem teaching book, and they were on a podcast also talking about taking that field trip first, and how that helps, you know, build background, etc.

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And so there was a pedagogical approach to it, but to the point about culture, they're like, take that field trip first and do it through these very dynamic ways that you can bring in people to help break down some of those stereotypes or those overgeneralizations and then also get out into the community,

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as well as leveraging the technology. But yeah, I think opening up the eyes of our teachers and students and allowing all that culture to be fluid in our schools and get to celebrate it as it comes.

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I mean, it's just, it's a really great opportunity that we should all, you know, aprovechar, they can manage of it.

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We should. And also recognizing that it can have, like if we purposely plan for it, we can make it happen within our content areas.

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You know, give an example when I was in the classroom in Hawaii, as I mentioned, there was a diversity of languages and even cultures, but I was teaching science and there was always, right, the textbook says this.

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And sometimes it was hard for students to connect back to, because that's not how they interpret nature. I was teaching earth and science, earth science and space science.

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And so earth science around them, they had their own interpretations of why things happen. And, you know, I mean, Polynesians alone, their history of navigating the Pacific is unmatched.

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I mean, the way they were able to travel and use their hands to view the stars and to get themselves right from one island to the other. I think there's so much richness there.

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And so I remember one of the key things that I've shared this multiple times before I was teaching about the moon cycle and the different phases of the moon.

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And so we started out by learning like some a little bit of the vocabulary, a little bit of what was in it. And so we learn what we, you know, most of the US we know through this like European approach to different phases of the moon and the scientific approach to that.

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And then we got to learn from the scientific approaches of communities from all over Polynesia. So I had students that were from Pompeii, from Samoa, from the Chuk Islands, from the Philippines and different areas of the Philippines.

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So they spoke different languages themselves, and they were all able to bring forth different stories that reflected the interpretations of the different phases of the moon.

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And one key one that resonated with me was from Polynesian community, this idea of the way in which the moon demonstrates this process of making like pretty much like textile and so it's like a cloth, but then also it's used for paper.

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And the hammering of that like route to make the paper was documented in the different phases of the moon. Right. And that's something that I would have never guessed. Right.

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And that allowed the students to be, again, feel connected to it. And so what they did is part of the homework assignment was to go home and talk to their parents and their grandparents and their aunties and uncles and write down what the story was behind the moon.

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And then we would send those stories back to the classroom and we got to share so every student presented on their own interpretation. But then we married that to, again, what we had initially started with the textbook definition of the phases of the moon, and allowed them to make the content a lot more tangible, because weeks after that, they'll still remember the phases of the moon, because they were connecting it back to stories that they heard at home, or stories that have been passed down from their grandparents.

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And that makes a tremendous difference. It allows us all, everyone in the classroom, myself included, to learn about different perspectives, different ways of interpreting. And again, recognizing that that's also science, different ways of doing science, and engaging with science, and at the same time, it empowered the students, because they felt validated and they felt represented.

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And it wasn't all new. They had something that they could go off of and use that as a tangible way to now learn the academic language in English. So it was it was empowering all around.

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And I think that's what I'm talking about. That's, that is the fun right there is that you're doing your standard. Yay. That's fantastic. We're already doing the standard, but now you're bringing in so many different perspectives and we just forget you know because the reality is that we see things from our own from our own realities, our own experiences and our own you know what's surrounding us and I remind people we don't always see the way that things are we see the way that we are, you know, and so getting to change that that perspective and it makes me even consider just about, I was

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I was taking notes like frantically real quick. I was like, Oh my gosh, you're giving me some great ideas. You're right. Like, like this is that real life example. But also even working with them like what symbolism means the moon got me thinking about that. And so not just leaving my little lens of science, but then yes, and yes. And what I mean, what would you different symbols mean and once you even came up and what was curious about having the owl, the actual owl present in the science class, but considering the other cultures that were represented,

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and what that symbol of an owl means. And so if you're dissecting an owl pellet, and you're talking about the I mean, you know, things that like, you know, we talked about this, but I'm learning to I facilitate conversations and but I'm still always trying to learn and understand more. But that was a perspective that made total sense, but I hadn't necessarily considered before, you know, like, I knew better, but I didn't, I didn't know better type of a situation. And so

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I just think that yeah, to your point, there are so many opportunities to not even layer culture over but to have it as a through line. And our content which builds upon language and builds the vocabulary which ends up helping in the end with any state or language assessment standard to be able to complete

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the language is that that that glue and that culture connected is what really just brings it all together. Oh my gosh. I'm excited. I want to go in the classroom right now and start teaching the science lesson in all different way. Oh my goodness. Go ahead.

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I'll just highlight you mentioned this earlier, connecting with the parents of the community opens up the possibility, so that allows a teacher and I would say the administration and the coaches and the school leaders have to be part of it to ensure that there is that space

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cut aside so that educators have time to sit with it and be able to bring in this innovative approaches into their classroom that truly is going to highlight the language and culture within the academic content. Yeah, and not only that it's compelling. Whenever you have someone else's family members talking about their culture, heritage backgrounds, their profession, what they do, their stories, whatever that is. Now that's something that is compelling for students. They become not just interested, but now we've become fascinated. And that's a whole.

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That's a whole different layer. And that's where that's where the magic and start. Yeah, very true. I wanted to also just give an opportunity for a for a shout out to you to speak about because I know that you did a whole lot of work with Rita.

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Yeah, right with us. Yeah. And so there's there's there's some upcoming webinar that is going to be on February 4th and we'll have the link also in the description. And so and then and then if you're listening by any chance after February 4th, we'll then continue to be on the lookout for any webinars that do come from Rita.

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But can I interject with that? I assume that webinar will be recorded. Is that correct? That is correct. Later and want to find the podcast or recording they can go and where would they where would they find that if they listen this afternoon?

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I think what we'll send you the links that you can post it in the description if that's okay and maybe a search for we webinars and you know they'll help you navigate to but we keep it under our growth section as you know, our educator growth section of the website.

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Great. Well, definitely add that in. Yeah, but I wanted to kind of bring it back to that one to advertise it because I think people should join. But then also, what have been those cross linguistic connections that maybe you've noticed, I personally have not been able to dive in or really have the the opportunity or the space to work within the the the models and making these connections as much as I like to talk about it, any research this, I'm able to be in that space, but I'm just really interested because you're you're

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here's the reality everyone like these are tools and resources that we're using and implementing every single day with our biggest heroes or classroom teachers with boots on the ground in the classroom with our students. So how do we use these again, we've talked about, you know, the English speaking rubric, but how do we use also the Spanish speaking rubrics based on the conversation that we've had to really to elevate this, but I'm curious about some of the connections that you've been able to see and how that utilization of the the model goes rubric has has has worked. I'm so curious.

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Yeah, yeah, and we're actually doing a lot of work right now on developing implementation guides on how to use these in parallel, both the English language development standards and the Spanish language development standards that might have that.

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Valley. And I'll go back to a little bit of the design behind it, right? So as we started designing Marco Dali, which is for the desarroll autentico de lenguaje espanol, we started by looking at what the Spanish look like in Spanish speaking settings. So what we did is we looked at standards or language arts across Latin America, including Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Puerto Rico, Argentina, and we consolidated some kind of synthesized like these are the key things that

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happened in every grade level for language learning in, I guess, French speaking settings. But we wanted to match it up to the bilingualism that is happening here because in the US you're teaching Spanish and you're teaching English as a partner language, right? And so we wanted to bring that in.

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And so we looked at like what California had done with common core, what Texas had done with Texas state standards. New York had done some work with home language standards and of course, Puerto Rico as well. So we consolidated continue to synthesize it and that gave birth to Marco Dali.

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Now, Marco Dali specifically is for language development. So it focuses on the Spanish language for each of the content areas, language arts, mathematics, science and social studies. And then he has a section that is specific for the social instructional language.

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So maybe not tied directly to the content areas, but language that you hear in school buildings. And then it draws it down to give you the sort of language functions and specific language features that can be taught so the students can learn and develop their Spanish.

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So there's a lot of work in there. But to your point about how it connects over to the English language development standards, they were truly designed to be used side by side. So you're looking at language expectations, let's say for a third grader in English, and it gives you a sense of what is the language that a student in third grade would have to learn so that they can fully engage with mathematical concepts.

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And then on the Spanish side, it gives you the same thing but specific to Spanish. So some of the actual language features are going to look different, right? Because they're different languages and they develop in different paces.

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Yes, yes.

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It might be a lot similar in the high school grades, because at that point, there's a lot of language development that's already happened. So you might have more similarities in the high schools. Nonetheless, it allows a teacher to be able to teach content in language, in language in English and in Spanish, and then draw those parallels for that cross linguistic connection.

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So allowing students to learn something in Spanish and then being able to use it in English by looking at what's the comfortable concept and likewise English to Spanish. So both are truly meant to be used side by side and not just allow for students to learn English and acquire English and perform well on access, but truly bring in bilingualism and add in Spanish.

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Now, this is specific to Spanish, as you mentioned, and we are considering what it will look like for the use of these standards in other languages. And for that, we draw back what we call this big ideas, so las ideas principales.

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And I think those are core elements that should be present in every classroom, be it a multilingual classroom or not. We have elements that speak to the trans culturalism, right? We've talked a lot about language in this podcast and you bring those pieces through. What is this trans, this flow across different cultures and the trans languaging that comes with it.

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We talk about multiliteracy, the presentation of language learning and content learning through multiple approaches and not just different modalities and not just like a listening or speaking or a kinesthetic activity, but connecting that back to literacy and connecting it back to identity and what students enjoy doing.

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And then we have interaction and we have equity in there. We have the collaboration. And I'll close out by talking about collaboration. One of the things we did in Marco Dales, we listed out all of these people that are engaging to ensure multilingualism is happening.

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So we talk about the teacher, we talk about the administrator, the coach, we talk about the principles, talk about the parents, the community advocates and how everyone really has to come together and support students in this educational approach of multilingualism.

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So again, whether there are multilingual learners in the classroom or not, utilizing multiliteracies, utilizing trans culturalism can lead to great benefits and great gains. And for those programs that are English and Spanish, they'll get the resources to drill down to specific language functions and language features that give them the nuggets of like teaching verbs or teaching different sentence structures and so on.

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And you bring up something that I actually in preparing for today, you not too long ago were presenting about trans culturalism. And so it's a topic I wanted to bring up and you've already mentioned it. So thank you.

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But for our listeners, one, what is trans culturalism? That might be a new term that they haven't heard before. But then also, in what I saw on your LinkedIn, which is also a link to your LinkedIn in the description of the podcast, but it talks about how that connects to equity.

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One of the values that you have. So one, what is trans culturalism? And how is that connected and helping support equity in our classrooms? Because this is a really important topic. Because again, language and culture cannot be disconnected. But again, as much as we're focused on language, right to your point, it's still that cultural piece. So again, that trans culturalism and that link to equity.

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Yeah, yeah. So in taking that prefix trans, we're thinking of this navigation across this constant flow, constant movement. And then we push in culturalism or cultural this. So in its own, the term reflects this idea of this constant navigation across cultures.

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And it's something that we see, particularly in the US, where you have Spanish speakers from different countries sitting side by side, and they might be able to understand one another. But then there's cultural aspects that impact their language. The student might say one word that for a student from a different culture, a different country might sound different, or may have a different connotation or a different meaning.

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And so that is the emphasis of trans culturalism is not just trans language, and it's well, it's both trans language. But it goes a little bit beyond that to say, even within the different use of language and navigating across language, there is this idea that there's this piece of culture that impacts how the language gets communicated.

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And it goes all the way down to just even tone, right? If you are the way that you kind of formulate your language, whether you're asking a question or you're finding very excited, you know, the tone itself can also mean different things in different cultures.

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And so that's kind of the aspect that we're bringing into this conversation of how do you then become culturally responsive and linguistically responsive at the same time? And so your point about equity, elevating those sort of cultures that it might just be reflective of a few students, but have a big impact on those students, right?

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So when you're talking about, let's say most students in a classroom are, and I'll use my example, like, you know, my own upbringing, most students were from Mexico.

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But then we have a couple of students that are from Ecuador. And if everything in the instruction is around Spanish with a heavy emphasis on like Spanish from specific area in Mexico, students from Ecuador might feel a little bit disengaged, and might feel like their language or their own culture is really reflected in the classroom.

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So this idea of transculturalism allows us to then elevate those students as well, those students' language. And so that brings in the equity piece, you know, allows for that students to be able to create very natural and real interactions, right, where they are sharing not just language, but the cultural aspects that come behind that language.

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And so that if a student says one word, and it doesn't really, the other student doesn't really understand it, one student can now explain it, and now they have this new shared language, right?

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And or if a term happens to have a negative connotation in another culture, then you maybe stop using it because you're being responsive to the community and the space in which you're in.

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And all of that is layered into that idea of transculturalism. This idea of it's not just about teaching language, but teaching it with being linguistically and culturally responsive and truly understanding the people and the students in front of you and the cultures in front of you.

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And this is not really a concept that we can't understand because ironically, there might be a name to it now, but this is what we do all the time anyway. Even if you're an English-only speaker, you're still translating between maybe Shakespearean English and then modern-day English or English from one state to another state.

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There have been places I've been within the US, I've heard the word, I joked with my partner Chris when we went to go see his family, they were talking about the hosepipe, and honestly, I had no idea what a hosepipe was until I realized it was a water hose.

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To me, it was a water hose, not a hosepipe. And so there was just different words, but then I think about, you know, we have England, we have Australia, there's a list, many other native English-speaking countries as well, and all of our words are different, but also our cultures and the implications,

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which again is just a great example of how these two cannot be separated, nor should we try to separate them. But it's an opportunity for us to figure out how are we culturally responsive with people within our own setting, because again, there's culture within culture, but then we're looking at that macro level as well,

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and what that means when it comes to the overall conversation around supporting and empowering and educating, elevating the voices, the culture, the identities, traditional celebrations of our multilingual, multicultural students. It's so empowering.

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Very true. And I think it's, you know, coming back to the community, right, I think we're getting back to the picture. Again, I appreciate your work, Kelly, and Taylor, your work with entry skills, and I think one of the unique opportunities here is this collaboration, right, so that ourselves, and I know we did in the past, I think we continuously work very closely with other partners like NAVE and Dual Language Education of Mexico and NAELPA, other, or CAVE, like other organizations across the country, and I think that's a great way to kind of bring that together.

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And I think that I want to highlight that as well. This collaboration that is happening so that we can continue to create those spaces where transculturalism is happening, where multilingualism is happening, and empowering each other and supporting and uplifting each other.

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And I think one of the unique things that I appreciate the most, and, you know, I'll say, I'll share this from my experience here at WIDA, is both doing what we got to do on the English front, through the standards, through the professional learning, through the research, and of course the access, the language proficiency assessment, but also creating these spaces for multilingualism.

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And only that responsibility that comes with the work of, again, we produce work for Spanish learners, and there's, WIDA has been working on other projects for Native communities, and how do we continue to, you know, strengthen their languages and the teaching of Native languages.

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And there's other aspects of the work that happened in WIDA, and I think she was very proud and very happy with that endeavor of really leaning towards multilingualism.

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We got to do what we got to do on the English front, including the assessment, but there's a whole lot more, and I'm happy and excited to be able to partner with both of you and with other national organizations in that work.

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Well, and I feel the exact same way there. It's really important because we're all in this together, and it's better whenever we have a lot of unity in our community, right?

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Yep. Kelly and I too, thank you for all the work you've done with CELA Biodiliteracy. Kelly and I both have been heavily involved at Oklahoma Association for Bilingual Education and really worked hard to push the state of Oklahoma, which finally they did approve CELA Biodiliteracy a few years back.

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But it is true. It takes us all to build this community effort to support multilingualism.

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Well, Senor Aguirre, you truly are a blessing to us, and I really mean it. I'm really fortunate to have met you.

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And, you know, in our field, I feel like we have a whole lot of friends and a whole lot of family that we don't necessarily know and aren't even related to.

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And our paths cross once or twice a year, maybe more depending on what conference we're at and what's going on. But I'm always thankful for these connections. I'm always thankful to CAHU to learn more.

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And so, sincerely, I want to say thank you for all of your service and for all the work that you do, also that WIDA does, in partnership with the Center for Planned Linguistics as well, and many others. So just to everyone out there listening, thank you, too.

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We're all here to be of service. And I, again, am just so committed to this and thankful for the continued connections that we have.

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And with that, Sam, is there anything that you would like to leave us with? Any closing words or thoughts for our listeners?

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Well, first of all, thank you, and thank you, Taylor, for the opportunity to be here. I think, again, just as much as you share that appreciation, I share it back because really, it is an opportunity for us all to continue to learn.

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And I think one of the main topics of today's conversation has been that support for multilingual learners in the century, multilingual experiences. And I think there's something consistent with your podcast, and I wanted to make sure that that is still a present and forefront.

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We talked a lot about how administrators need to be part of this conversation and teachers and community. And I think that's just the one thing to leave with.

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How do we continue to leverage the resources that we have at our disposal and kind of get the most out of some of the structures that are in place, including access, including other testing?

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And how do we then enable multilingualism to happen and celebrate the cultures of our students in our communities?

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So I think we just keep that top of mind in the work that we do every day. We can make a big difference.

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I agree 100%. 100%.

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Well, with that listeners, thank you again so much for spending some time with us today and for engaging in this conversation.

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Just know that we're here to serve you and there are ways in the bio and also in the description of this podcast, ways to be in contact with Este Señor Nuestro Héroes, Amiguel Aguirre.

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And just I encourage you all to click on that WIDA webinar link that we're going to have in there and make sure that you're looking out for any upcoming and then even past webinars that you might be interested in so you can continue your learning as well.

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Our co-host Dr. Taylor Tribble, you're always amazing and thank you for providing this space and opportunity so that way we can have these conversations and share this with all of our listeners.

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Thank you so much for letting me sit in.

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To everyone out there, to everyone out there, just remember you are special and amazing and you're awesome.

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We send so much amor y paz, love and peace. Have a great day.

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Senora Aguirre, otra vez muchas gracias. We wish you all the best.

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Adiós.

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Thank you for joining us today.

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Don't forget to like, follow and subscribe.

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Adiós.

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Thank you.