Coaching Teachers in Bilingual and Dual-Language Classrooms. Alexandra Guilamo
on implementing powerful practices to accelerate the growth of all students. After all, making a difference in the lives of students is the reason I went into education.
I loved shutting out the world, going into classrooms to observe a lesson, and working side by side with teachers to zero in on a goal that could improve student learning. This was something I did in every classroom—monolingual, bilingual, dual-language, special education, and so on. The teachers never questioned the ability to move in and out of each of these spaces with such ease. Being bilingual myself and having taught language learners all my life provided a sense of confidence in knowing what to look for and a strong credibility with the teachers with whom I worked.
As a principal and academic coach, I observed instruction in English, Spanish, and Arabic. Since I transitioned into my role as a consultant, I’ve observed lessons in nearly a thousand classrooms in Spanish, English, Mandarin, Arabic, Somali, Hmong, Polish, German, and many more languages.
When I first began my consulting work, I approached interactions with these new and amazing teachers with one basic assumption: that everyone observed teachers who use a language other than English with the same ease, lens, and process that had become second nature to me. And yet, with each school and district visit, it became more and more clear that this was not the case.
As I work with schools across the United States, I’m still amazed at the overwhelming pressures on the shoulders of bilingual and dual-language teachers. These pressures include keeping up with pacing, implementing buildingwide initiatives that require anywhere from fifteen to sixty minutes of already limited instructional time, and of course, increasing achievement. These pressures are riddled with challenges, such as the absence of a viable curriculum (Marzano, 2003), valid and reliable data, time to teach the required standards, and basic supports that are staples for monolingual teachers.
As a former administrator, I believe that bilingual and dual-language teachers should and must be accountable for producing results. Students come to school counting on receiving an education that will prepare them for the future. But due to the unique challenges they face, the message that bilingual and dual-language teachers receive is to produce more with less. There seems to be an unspoken expectation that these teachers can produce the same academic results as their monolingual colleagues while having to teach an additional set of standards, translate huge amounts of print resources, and constantly justify why their classrooms have to look different—as if the program itself was the way to achievement.
Confronting and overcoming these challenges can be mentally and physically exhausting, resulting in immense turnover and creating a teacher shortage that could have huge consequences for U.S. students, schools, and the future workforce necessary for any society to thrive.
As educators, we must not force bilingual and dual-language teachers to simply make it work under these conditions. At a minimum, we must share the responsibility of providing all teachers with equal access to the same supports for improving their effectiveness. While aspects of the process are more challenging than others, leaving these teachers to fend for themselves is no longer tolerable or sustainable.
As schools determine how to ensure the academic success and language development of every language learner now mandated by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), supporting teacher effectiveness must be the focus of discussion and action. This work of observing, providing feedback, and coaching teachers is critical. But this can’t be just any support, especially if it conflicts with the research or focuses on using materials and initiatives rather than student thinking and increasingly complex language development.
The challenges teachers face in getting quality feedback and support always seem to reflect a few reoccurring themes.
• Support personnel in the building did not observe the teachers because they didn’t know how it was possible to observe without speaking the language.
• District personnel only observed and evaluated teachers for the required two to four observations per year because no building coach or evaluator spoke the program language.
• District personnel observed teachers using a business-as-usual approach and offered feedback that was counterproductive to the very principles that were most essential to the program model in which they taught.
• Teachers felt disconnected and abandoned while still hungry for collaboration and opportunities to grow.
I realized that it wasn’t only bilingual and dual-language teachers who needed support to grow their practice. Rather, school and district personnel who are there to coach and support the teachers who navigate this gray area of learning content and language were also at a loss. How would teachers get the coaching they needed if the coaches didn’t, couldn’t, or struggled to enter into classrooms to provide meaningful and constructive help? Interestingly, it wasn’t only English-speaking coaches who steered clear of these classrooms. Even coaches who spoke the language of instruction struggled to understand teacher practice and how to improve student learning.
To answer the preceding question, I must first acknowledge that coaches who support bilingual and dual-language teachers face unique circumstances and challenges, and therefore need a different model for coaching and observation—one that helps them overcome the issues created by language barriers and misconceptions about the coaching process. This book presents a responsive observation and feedback cycle that diminishes the challenges of observing in the complex and diverse classrooms that serve language learners and helps coaches who support bilingual and dual-language teachers acquire the skills and perspectives necessary to effectively coach in these classrooms. In doing so, coaches will be better prepared to actively develop and engage in a fair and meaningful process that can transform current and future options for students.
The Time Is Now
You might ask, “Why now?” Why have the number of bilingual and dual-language classrooms increased so much that they have reached a breaking point that demands a new model of coaching? The reality is that classrooms have undergone massive demographic changes. In fact, 2014 marked the first time in U.S. history that students who were once considered the minority are now the majority (Maxwell, 2014). Maxwell (2014) states: “This fall, for the first time, the number of Latino, African-American, and Asian students in public K–12 classrooms is expected to surpass the number of non-Hispanic whites.” In particular, educators have struggled with how to sufficiently and effectively serve the number of English learners (ELs) in K–12 schools.
English learners are a very diverse group, and we know that different states use a range of terms to discuss that diversity. However, for the purpose of this text, I will use the term bilingual and dual-language students. I have chosen to use this term because it refers to students who are developing two language and literacy systems as part of their K–12 bilingual and dual-language educational experiences. These are students who emerge as truly bilingual and biliterate, rather than simply proficient in the English language.
To some, the distinction between biliterate and proficient is a small one. However, it is an important distinction in terminology that plays a role in teacher choices for leveraging educational theory and implementing best practices.
Before 2010, bilingual and dual-language students were present in only a handful of states. The Migration Policy Institute reports that between 2011 and 2015, the percentage of K–3 emergent bilinguals was 44.6 percent in California, 42.6 percent in New York, 45.3 percent in Texas, and 44.7 percent in Florida, while other states like West Virginia, South Dakota, and Kansas hovered between 1 percent and 5 percent (Park, O’Toole, & Katsiaficas, 2017).
But this trend of bilingual and dual-language students residing in only a handful of states has dramatically changed. In fact, between 2000 and 2017, “the young Dual Language Learner (DLL) population in the United States has grown by 24 percent” (Park et al., 2017, p. 1). What does that mean for schools across the United States? Based on 2017 figures, more than one-third of all U.S. students in grades preK through third grade are emergent bilinguals (Park et al., 2017). This immense growth in the number of bilingual and dual-language students has brought about a new education imperative for us all: improve the quality and impact of instruction for