English Language Learners at School: A Guide for Administrators

This edition builds on the successful question-and-answer format of the first edition and includes over 80 questions from teachers and administrators. More than 70 experts provide clear, concise, practical responses that administrators, teachers, and leadership team members can apply to their schools and districts.
Also in to the second edition:

• Website resources to support interaction, innovation, and collaboration
• Focus on leadership, shared responsibility, professional development, and action planning
• Icons indicating strands of bilingualism and data-driven decision making
• Updated research and guidance on effective resources, policies, programs, and practices

Else Hamayan is a psychologist, language education consultant, and former director of the Illinois Resource Center in Arlington Heights. She advises teachers and administrators nationally and internationally on issues of second language learning, special education, culture learning, biliteracy, and dual language instruction. She is co-editor of English Language Learners at School: A Guide for Administrators (with Rebecca Field). She is also co-author of Special Education Considerations for English Language Learners: Delivering a Continuum of Services (with Marler, S´nchez-López, and Damico), Dual Language Instruction from A to Z (with Nancy Cloud and Fred Genesee), and CLIL in Context: Practical Guidance for Educators (with Fred Genesee).

Rebecca Field, Ph.D., has worked in the field of language education for over 30 years. Field has conducted action-oriented research in bilingual schools and communities since 1986 and has published two books on her work, Bilingual Education and Social Change and Building on Community Bilingualism. Field concentrates much of her energy and efforts on leadership and capacity building in language education at the district, school, and classroom levels. She co-edited (with Else Hamayan) English Language Learners at School: A Guide for Administrators. Field also has extensive experience working with general education, bilingual education, ESL, world language, and heritage language teachers, administrators, and coaches in the United States and internationally. She helps them focus on language policy and planning; language education program development, implementation, and evaluation; academic language and literacy; biliteracy; and differentiating instruction and assessment for bilingual and English learners.

Karen Beeman is an education consultant who specializes in biliteracy and bilingual education. Beeman has worked as a classroom teacher, principal of a dual language school in Chicago, consultant with the Illinois Resource Center, and professor at the University of Illinois–Chicago and National Louis University. Biliteracy, how to teach children to read and write in two languages at the same time, is the area that has most captured her passion and is the focus of her work. As a professional developer Beeman works at the national level, providing training for teachers, principals, and other constituents. A simultaneous bilingual born and raised in Mexico City, she is co-author, with Cheryl Urow, of Teaching for Biliteracy: Strengthening Bridges between Languages and co-founder of the Center for Teaching for Biliteracy, an online forum for supporting and connecting educators who teach for biliteracy.

Nancy Cloud, Ed.D., is professor emerita in the Feinstein School of Education and Human Development at Rhode Island College in Providence. Previously, she coordinated the M.Ed. in TESL program where she taught graduate courses on second language and literacy development, as well as the appropriate assessment of English learners (ELs). She continues her work as an educational consultant to school districts focused on responsive curriculum and instruction for K–12 ELs. She is a nationally renowned author and educator.

Jack Damico is the Doris B. Hawthorne Eminent Scholar in Special Education and Communication Disorders at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette where he teaches graduate level courses, conducts research, and writes in a number of areas related to language, social interaction, and learning in children and adults. Dr. Damico, an ASHA Fellow, is author or editor of more than 90 publications. He has also received numerous awards for his scholarly and practical contributions to the field.

Ester J. de Jong is a professor of English as a second language (ESL)/bilingual education and the Director of the School of Teaching and Learning at the University of Florida, Gainesville. Originally from the Netherlands, she earned her doctoral degree in bilingual education from Boston University and worked for five years as the assistant director for bilingual education/ESL in Framingham, MA. Her research focuses on two-way bilingual education, language-in-education policy, and preparing mainstream teachers for educating bilingual students.

Kathy Escamilla is a professor in the Division of Educational Equity and Cultural Diversity at the University of Colorado–Boulder. Her research interests center on biliteracy for Spanish/English emerging bilingual children in U.S. schools. Escamilla’s career in education spans 45 years; she has written three books and published over 50 articles. Escamilla has been a teacher, resource teacher, bilingual program director, and professor.

Shelley Fairbairn, Ph.D., is a professor at the Drake University School of Education and a national teacher professional development consultant. Fairbairn specializes in the instruction, assessment, and grading of K–12 English language learners; issues of cultural and linguistic diversity; and teacher education.

Ofelia García, is Professor Emerita in the Ph.D. programs in Urban Education and Latin American, Iberian and Latino Cultures at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. García has published widely in the areas of bilingualism/multilingualism and bilingual education, language education, language policy, and sociology of language. The American Educational Research Association has awarded her three Lifetime Research Achievement Awards—Distinguished Contributions to Social Contexts in Education (2019), Bilingual Education (2017), and Second Language Acquisition Leadership through Research (2019). She is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Education.

Dr. Genesee is Professor Emeritus in the Psychology Department at McGill University. The goal of his research and professional interests is to discover children’s capacity for acquiring language by examining language development in second language learners and simultaneous bilinguals under diverse circumstances. To this end, he has conducted research on alternative forms of bilingual and immersion education for language minority and language majority students as well as language development in preschool bilinguals and internationally-adopted children. He has published numerous articles in scientific journals and magazines and is the author of more than 14 books on bilingualism. He has served as a consultant on bilingual education to schools around the world. Dr. Genesee is the recipient of the Canadian Psychological Associate Award for Distinguished Contributions to Community or Public Service, California Association for Bilingual Education Award for Promoting Bilingualism, and the CPA Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement.

Margo Gottlieb, Ph.D., is the co-founder and lead developer for WIDA at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is also the former director of assessment and evaluation at the Illinois Resource Center. Starting her career as an ESL and bilingual teacher, Gottlieb has worked with governments, states, school districts, international schools, publishers, universities, and organizations. Over the last decade she has focused on designing English language development standards, assessment systems, and curricular frameworks. She has extensive publications, including close to 100 articles, monographs, chapters, and books. Her books address language proficiency standards, academic language use, assessment and accountability, common language assessment, and assessment of English language learners.

Stephaney Jones-Vo, M.A., is a consultant and professional developer focusing on linguistic differentiation, literacy, and equity. She has extensive experience as a K–12 ESOL teacher, Title III grants director, refugee sponsor and resettlement volunteer, and teacher of adult refugees. As a private consultant for Starfish Education, her passion continues to be English learners, from early childhood age to adult.

Tamara (Tammy) King, M.A., is an education specialist at the Illinois Resource Center in Arlington Heights where she focuses on program design and improvement—especially in multilingual settings and districts with small numbers of English language learners. Bilingual in Spanish, she has worked as an elementary bilingual and English as a second language (ESL) teacher, an adult ESL teacher, and a language education program coordinator in a large, linguistically diverse school district. King is a WIDA-certified trainer and writes for the WIDA blog. She is also a wife and the mother of a precocious toddler.

Judah Lakin, M.Ed., is a bilingual and content ESL social studies teacher at Hope High School in Providence, RI. He received his B.A. in history from Brown University and his M.Ed. in teaching English as a second language from Rhode Island College. Lakin also cocoordinates the after-school tutoring program and the family-engagement committee. He has dedicated his efforts to helping undocumented immigrants gain access to higher education. He founded Higher Inc., a nonprofit aimed at giving scholarships to undocumented students who need financial assistance to attend college. Lakin has traveled extensively, including to the Dominican Republic, Ghana, and Guatemala to visit and learn from the families and communities he teaches here in the United States.

Barbara Marler has more than 30 years of experience in bilingual/ESL education. She has taught students in both ESL and bilingual programs in grades K-8, served as a Title VII preschool director, and directed the bilingual/ESL and foreign language programs in a large suburban school district in Illinois. She is certified in both ESL and special education and has a master’s degree in administration and supervision from National Louis University.
Since coming to the Illinois Resource Center (IRC) in Arlington Heights, she has served as the primary consultant for the Illinois State Board of Education in the area of Newcomers’ Centers, coordinated Project READ WELL (a Title III professional development program for mainstream teachers working with English language learners in northeastern Illinois), and mentored a cadre of adjunct instructors teaching the graduate course, Assessment of Language Minority Students. Marler also coauthored Special Education Considerations for English Language Learners: Delivering a Continuum of Services, was retained as an expert in ELL matters by the U.S. Dept. of Justice, and served as the lead developer of the Perfect Match staff development series (a joint IRC and World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment [WIDA] endeavor) focused on research/evidence-based ELL program design. Her focus and interests are program design/management, systemwide reform/restructuring, assessment/evaluation, Title III programming, partnering with community agencies, response to intervention (RtI) and special education for language minority students, effective instructional strategies, and school efforts to reduce cultural conflict.

Kate Menken is an associate professor of linguistics at Queens College of the City University of New York (CUNY), and a research fellow at the Research Institute for the Study of Language in Urban Society at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is also co-principal investigator of the CUNY–New York State Initiative for Emergent Bilinguals, which develops the knowledge base of school principals and staff to transform language policies and practices in schools enrolling emergent bilinguals (EBs).

Dr. Diep Nguyen is an associate professor and chair of the Department of Teacher Education at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. Prior to coming to NEIU, she served as the assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction in two Illinois school districts. Dr. Nguyen was also the director for bilingual/multicultural programs in Schaumburg School District 54, where she instituted dual language programs in Spanish/English and Japanese/English.

Dr. Nguyen received her Ph.D. in educational studies from the Ohio State University. She has an M.A. in French literature and a B.S. in foreign language education. Her areas of interest include second language development and programming, assessment and curriculum development, and multilingual/multicultural education.

She serves on the Illinois State Advisory Council on Bilingual Education. She is also the co-author, with Dr. Margo Gottlieb, of Assessment and Accountability in Language Education Programs.

Cheryl Urow began her career as an educator in rural Costa Rica and later in the United States as an inner-city dual-language teacher. Since then she has had the opportunity to provide professional development across the country for schools, districts, and other organizations supporting the education of English language learners. More recently, Urow has focused her professional work on areas related to biliteracy development—the strategic use of languages in bilingual, two-way immersion, one-way immersion and dual language classrooms; authentic strategies for Spanish literacy instruction; and the Bridge between languages. Urow is a sequential bilingual who learned Spanish while serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica. She is co-author, with Karen Beeman, of Teaching for Biliteracy: Strengthening Bridges between Languages and co-founder of the Center for Teaching for Biliteracy, an online forum for supporting and connecting educators who teach for biliteracy.

Suzanne Wagner, Ph.D., has been a bilingual educator for more than 30 years. She has taught English as a second language, worked as a high school bilingual coordinator, and as a Title VII program director. As a specialist at the Illinois Resource Center in Arlington Heights, Wagner has taught courses, conducted workshops, and provided professional development for teachers and administrators in school districts throughout Illinois and nationwide.

Wayne E. Wright is the Associate Dean for Research, Graduate Programs, and Faculty Development and the Barbara I. Cook Chair of Literacy and Language in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction in the College of Education at Purdue University. He provides training for future and current educators in the areas of ESL teaching methods, literacy, assessment, technology and research. Wright has extensive experience as a researcher and practitioner in schools in the United States and internationally.

Wright is the author of numerous research articles related to language minority education, and serves as the founding editor of the Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement. He has presented his research and provided training for language teachers throughout the world. In 2009 Wright was a Fulbright scholar and visiting lecturer at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where he provided training and assistance to the university and students in the M.Ed. program.

He and his wife Phal are the parents of three amazing children.

Jack Damico is the Doris B. Hawthorne Eminent Scholar in Special Education and Communication Disorders at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette where he teaches graduate level courses, conducts research, and writes in a number of areas related to language, social interaction, and learning in children and adults. Dr. Damico, an ASHA Fellow, is author or editor of more than 90 publications. He has also received numerous awards for his scholarly and practical contributions to the field.

Ester J. de Jong is a professor of English as a second language (ESL)/bilingual education and the Director of the School of Teaching and Learning at the University of Florida, Gainesville. Originally from the Netherlands, she earned her doctoral degree in bilingual education from Boston University and worked for five years as the assistant director for bilingual education/ESL in Framingham, MA. Her research focuses on two-way bilingual education, language-in-education policy, and preparing mainstream teachers for educating bilingual students.

Kathy Escamilla, Ph.D. is a Professor Emeritus of Education in the Division of Equity, Bilingualism and Biliteracy at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Dr. Escamilla’s research focuses on issues related to the development of bilingualism and biliteracy for emerging bilingual children in US schools. She is a co-founder of Literacy Squared, a program dedicated to creating biliterate pedagogies with and for Spanish-speaking children and their teachers. She is a lifelong bilingual educator and has been a teacher, administrator, and professor in her 50+ years in public education.

Shelley Fairbairn, Ph.D., is a professor at the Drake University School of Education and a national teacher professional development consultant. Fairbairn specializes in the instruction, assessment, and grading of K–12 English language learners; issues of cultural and linguistic diversity; and teacher education.

Ofelia García, is Professor Emerita in the Ph.D. programs in Urban Education and Latin American, Iberian and Latino Cultures at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. García has published widely in the areas of bilingualism/multilingualism and bilingual education, language education, language policy, and sociology of language. The American Educational Research Association has awarded her three Lifetime Research Achievement Awards—Distinguished Contributions to Social Contexts in Education (2019), Bilingual Education (2017), and Second Language Acquisition Leadership through Research (2019). She is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Education.

Dr. Genesee is Professor Emeritus in the Psychology Department at McGill University. The goal of his research and professional interests is to discover children’s capacity for acquiring language by examining language development in second language learners and simultaneous bilinguals under diverse circumstances. To this end, he has conducted research on alternative forms of bilingual and immersion education for language minority and language majority students as well as language development in preschool bilinguals and internationally-adopted children. He has published numerous articles in scientific journals and magazines and is the author of more than 14 books on bilingualism. He has served as a consultant on bilingual education to schools around the world. Dr. Genesee is the recipient of the Canadian Psychological Associate Award for Distinguished Contributions to Community or Public Service, California Association for Bilingual Education Award for Promoting Bilingualism, and the CPA Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement.

Margo Gottlieb, Ph.D., is the co-founder and lead developer for WIDA at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is also the former director of assessment and evaluation at the Illinois Resource Center. Starting her career as an ESL and bilingual teacher, Gottlieb has worked with governments, states, school districts, international schools, publishers, universities, and organizations. Over the last decade she has focused on designing English language development standards, assessment systems, and curricular frameworks. She has extensive publications, including close to 100 articles, monographs, chapters, and books. Her books address language proficiency standards, academic language use, assessment and accountability, common language assessment, and assessment of English language learners.

Stephaney Jones-Vo, M.A., is a consultant and professional developer focusing on linguistic differentiation, literacy, and equity. She has extensive experience as a K–12 ESOL teacher, Title III grants director, refugee sponsor and resettlement volunteer, and teacher of adult refugees. As a private consultant for Starfish Education, her passion continues to be English learners, from early childhood age to adult.

Tamara (Tammy) King, M.A., is an education specialist at the Illinois Resource Center in Arlington Heights where she focuses on program design and improvement—especially in multilingual settings and districts with small numbers of English language learners. Bilingual in Spanish, she has worked as an elementary bilingual and English as a second language (ESL) teacher, an adult ESL teacher, and a language education program coordinator in a large, linguistically diverse school district. King is a WIDA-certified trainer and writes for the WIDA blog. She is also a wife and the mother of a precocious toddler.

Judah Lakin, M.Ed., is a bilingual and content ESL social studies teacher at Hope High School in Providence, RI. He received his B.A. in history from Brown University and his M.Ed. in teaching English as a second language from Rhode Island College. Lakin also cocoordinates the after-school tutoring program and the family-engagement committee. He has dedicated his efforts to helping undocumented immigrants gain access to higher education. He founded Higher Inc., a nonprofit aimed at giving scholarships to undocumented students who need financial assistance to attend college. Lakin has traveled extensively, including to the Dominican Republic, Ghana, and Guatemala to visit and learn from the families and communities he teaches here in the United States.

Barbara Marler has more than 30 years of experience in bilingual/ESL education. She has taught students in both ESL and bilingual programs in grades K-8, served as a Title VII preschool director, and directed the bilingual/ESL and foreign language programs in a large suburban school district in Illinois. She is certified in both ESL and special education and has a master’s degree in administration and supervision from National Louis University.
Since coming to the Illinois Resource Center (IRC) in Arlington Heights, she has served as the primary consultant for the Illinois State Board of Education in the area of Newcomers’ Centers, coordinated Project READ WELL (a Title III professional development program for mainstream teachers working with English language learners in northeastern Illinois), and mentored a cadre of adjunct instructors teaching the graduate course, Assessment of Language Minority Students. Marler also coauthored Special Education Considerations for English Language Learners: Delivering a Continuum of Services, was retained as an expert in ELL matters by the U.S. Dept. of Justice, and served as the lead developer of the Perfect Match staff development series (a joint IRC and World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment [WIDA] endeavor) focused on research/evidence-based ELL program design. Her focus and interests are program design/management, systemwide reform/restructuring, assessment/evaluation, Title III programming, partnering with community agencies, response to intervention (RtI) and special education for language minority students, effective instructional strategies, and school efforts to reduce cultural conflict.

Kate Menken is an associate professor of linguistics at Queens College of the City University of New York (CUNY), and a research fellow at the Research Institute for the Study of Language in Urban Society at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is also co-principal investigator of the CUNY–New York State Initiative for Emergent Bilinguals, which develops the knowledge base of school principals and staff to transform language policies and practices in schools enrolling emergent bilinguals (EBs).

Dr. Diep Nguyen is an associate professor and chair of the Department of Teacher Education at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. Prior to coming to NEIU, she served as the assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction in two Illinois school districts. Dr. Nguyen was also the director for bilingual/multicultural programs in Schaumburg School District 54, where she instituted dual language programs in Spanish/English and Japanese/English.

Dr. Nguyen received her Ph.D. in educational studies from the Ohio State University. She has an M.A. in French literature and a B.S. in foreign language education. Her areas of interest include second language development and programming, assessment and curriculum development, and multilingual/multicultural education.

She serves on the Illinois State Advisory Council on Bilingual Education. She is also the co-author, with Dr. Margo Gottlieb, of Assessment and Accountability in Language Education Programs.

Cheryl Urow began her career as an educator in rural Costa Rica and later in the United States as an inner-city dual-language teacher. Since then she has had the opportunity to provide professional development across the country for schools, districts, and other organizations supporting the education of English language learners. More recently, Urow has focused her professional work on areas related to biliteracy development—the strategic use of languages in bilingual, two-way immersion, one-way immersion and dual language classrooms; authentic strategies for Spanish literacy instruction; and the Bridge between languages. Urow is a sequential bilingual who learned Spanish while serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica. She is co-author, with Karen Beeman, of Teaching for Biliteracy: Strengthening Bridges between Languages and co-founder of the Center for Teaching for Biliteracy, an online forum for supporting and connecting educators who teach for biliteracy.

Suzanne Wagner, Ph.D., has been a bilingual educator for more than 30 years. She has taught English as a second language, worked as a high school bilingual coordinator, and as a Title VII program director. As a specialist at the Illinois Resource Center in Arlington Heights, Wagner has taught courses, conducted workshops, and provided professional development for teachers and administrators in school districts throughout Illinois and nationwide.

Wayne E. Wright is the Associate Dean for Research, Graduate Programs, and Faculty Development and the Barbara I. Cook Chair of Literacy and Language in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction in the College of Education at Purdue University. He provides training for future and current educators in the areas of ESL teaching methods, literacy, assessment, technology and research. Wright has extensive experience as a researcher and practitioner in schools in the United States and internationally.

Wright is the author of numerous research articles related to language minority education, and serves as the founding editor of the Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement. He has presented his research and provided training for language teachers throughout the world. In 2009 Wright was a Fulbright scholar and visiting lecturer at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where he provided training and assistance to the university and students in the M.Ed. program.

He and his wife Phal are the parents of three amazing children.

Else Hamayan is a psychologist, language education consultant, and former director of the Illinois Resource Center in Arlington Heights. She advises teachers and administrators nationally and internationally on issues of second language learning, special education, culture learning, biliteracy, and dual language instruction. She is co-editor of English Language Learners at School: A Guide for Administrators (with Rebecca Field). She is also co-author of Special Education Considerations for English Language Learners: Delivering a Continuum of Services (with Marler, S´nchez-López, and Damico), Dual Language Instruction from A to Z (with Nancy Cloud and Fred Genesee), and CLIL in Context: Practical Guidance for Educators (with Fred Genesee).

Rebecca Field, Ph.D., has worked in the field of language education for over 30 years. Field has conducted action-oriented research in bilingual schools and communities since 1986 and has published two books on her work, Bilingual Education and Social Change and Building on Community Bilingualism. Field concentrates much of her energy and efforts on leadership and capacity building in language education at the district, school, and classroom levels. She co-edited (with Else Hamayan) English Language Learners at School: A Guide for Administrators. Field also has extensive experience working with general education, bilingual education, ESL, world language, and heritage language teachers, administrators, and coaches in the United States and internationally. She helps them focus on language policy and planning; language education program development, implementation, and evaluation; academic language and literacy; biliteracy; and differentiating instruction and assessment for bilingual and English learners.

Karen Beeman is an education consultant who specializes in biliteracy and bilingual education. Beeman has worked as a classroom teacher, principal of a dual language school in Chicago, consultant with the Illinois Resource Center, and professor at the University of Illinois–Chicago and National Louis University. Biliteracy, how to teach children to read and write in two languages at the same time, is the area that has most captured her passion and is the focus of her work. As a professional developer Beeman works at the national level, providing training for teachers, principals, and other constituents. A simultaneous bilingual born and raised in Mexico City, she is co-author, with Cheryl Urow, of Teaching for Biliteracy: Strengthening Bridges between Languages and co-founder of the Center for Teaching for Biliteracy, an online forum for supporting and connecting educators who teach for biliteracy.

Nancy Cloud, Ed.D., is professor emerita in the Feinstein School of Education and Human Development at Rhode Island College in Providence. Previously, she coordinated the M.Ed. in TESL program where she taught graduate courses on second language and literacy development, as well as the appropriate assessment of English learners (ELs). She continues her work as an educational consultant to school districts focused on responsive curriculum and instruction for K–12 ELs. She is a nationally renowned author and educator.