179. Translanguaging and Literacy: Helping Multilingual Learners Thrive with Sara Knigge

Hey there, and welcome back to another episode of the Equipping ELLs podcast. I'm your host, Beth Beauches, and I am thrilled to introduce our guest, Sarah Kinnigy, an independent consultant and author who has spent her career working to empower educators. Sarah's personal experience as a second language learner combined with her time studying and working in Mexico City ignited her passion for supporting multilingual learners.

Over the years, she has served as a bilingual teacher, chaired an ESL bilingual endorsement program at a university outside of Chicago, and co-authored a book for emergent Spanish readers. Sarah partners with district leaders and educators to help them build the knowledge and tools needed to better serve their multilingual learners.

In today's episode, Sarah and I will be focusing in on the similarities and the differences between Spanish versus English literacy using native language in the classroom. Just how can we really... better support our Spanish speaking students and multilingual learners as they work on literacy skills and what you need to know to better support your Spanish speaking ELLs.

Teaching ELL students is a privilege and a joy. Is it easy? No way. But with the right support, you can feel empowered to tackle each day with ease and confidence. I'm your host, Beth Bochet, founder of Inspiring Young Learners. With over 10 years of teaching both nationally and internationally, I know what it takes to ensure that your ELL students have what they need to thrive today.

tomorrow, and for life. I'm on a mission to empower you to equip your English language learners. Welcome to Equipping ELLs. Let's get to today's episode. I am so excited to have you here with us today. Thank you Sarah. Thank you so much for inviting me. I was really excited to get the invitation. I'm glad to have this conversation around a topic that I think needs a little bit more discussion.

Absolutely. We were just talking about it before we hit record of just how little we still are talking about this, how much more research there is to come. And this is a really important conversation that I think can really transform what's happening in the classroom as literacy is a big area of interest, right? But there seems to be lacking that area of...

Focusing in on our multilingual learners, our Spanish speaking students. So how do we help support them in their literacy journey? Because it does look different than for a multilingual or for a monolingual student. I'm excited. I have so many questions. So let's, you know, just open this up. And why don't you share first about just the benefit of using a home language in the classroom? Because I know that.

There's a lot of more movement towards this. We hear more about translanguaging. We hear more about teachers trying to create that environment. But I think there's still a lot of maybe fears or if teachers don't speak the native language. Why should we do this? We really need to be pushing English. There's a lot of confusion around as well. So with your experience, you know, share a little bit more about just that important piece of the native language in the classroom.

Sure, sure. If we prioritize a student's native language in the classroom and with families, it really sends a clear message that your language matters, your culture matters, your opinions matter. We do want your voice at the table, especially.

when it comes to the education of families' children, right? So it sends a clear message to the students as far as building relationships that you really do want to get to know all of them holistically, not just the part that fits in to the English portion of school.

And it really does empower the parents to feel like they can't take part in their children's education. I'll give you a real quick scenario. When I was first a teacher, I was more of an ESL teacher. We had many different language groups spoken. The main mode of instruction was English. I was able to help some Spanish speakers, but I couldn't help the Gujarati speakers, the Polish speakers, the Italian speakers. Right. So.

Most of the instruction was in English and we would have parent-teacher conferences and I was a new teacher and I was really excited. I had all my files ready and the students, you know, journals and writing examples. And I was so excited to talk to the parents and get to know. know their child better through a discussion with them.

And then at the end of parent-teacher conferences, we were instructed that we were supposed to bring our attendance slip to the principal's office to say how many parents showed up. And inevitably, my first couple of years teaching in this ESL setting. when English was mostly used for communication, I would walk kind of dejected to the principal's office and put in my attendance slip with maybe only half the class showing or eight parents out of 24 showing. And this is...

I felt I value bilingualism. I made that known to the parents and to the students, but parents still didn't feel safe enough or strong enough to come in. The moment that we switched to a TBE program, a transitional bilingual education program where instruction was in Spanish, homework was in Spanish, communication was in Spanish. The parents knew that I had this shared language with them. I had a hundred percent.

of parents showing up for parent teacher conferences. That's when I strutted to the principal's office and said, look at this, you know, we've got 100% now. So I think that's a testament to really empowering parents and helping them feel that they are able to. work with their students at home and their native language and that we value that. Absolutely. Yes. And, you know, I have another guest on about talking about family literacy and that was a big part too, is really seeing.

parents as an extension of the classroom seeing parents as other educators that can come and help you know there's only so much that can be done in the daytime and it's not all on us we want the parents support and they want to be so they want to help when they're, you know, really looked at that way, when there is that solid connection with the home, when they're given the tools to know what to do. And so I love that. Yeah, most definitely. Most definitely.

So let's just hit on a few. What are some common misconceptions educators have about using native language in the classroom? Because I think you're talking about, you know, you originally were in an ESL setting where you had multiple different languages and then you switched into a TBA.

transitional bilingual educational classroom. And so those are very different than of how you're going to approach using the native language. So let's talk about, you know, in the ESL classroom, what does that look like where it's...

makes sense to be able to give opportunities for students to use the native language. And maybe when is it not appropriate? When does it not work? Because I think there's confusion around that where people feel like, okay, now everything I need to translate or I need to, you know, and that's not what's beneficial either for you.

teachers or for the students. So let's dive into that a little bit. This is a huge trend in all of the districts that I'm supporting currently. I've had the same conversation with teachers and with directors saying, what can we do, right? We've got this new... influx of newcomer students that's hitting all of the schools and we want to provide them with as much support as we can. So I'm seeing some teachers just translating materials.

from an article in English to an article in Ukrainian, which that shows really great initiative that they truly want to help the students. But it's not necessarily the most beneficial, right? We've sent out surveys to teachers as well saying, hey, what is happening in your classroom where you've got many languages spoken and how are you using Spanish? So I've seen some really great things and I've seen some things that may be confusing.

teachers. And so I guess I'll get right to the first misconception that I want to talk about the notion of concurrent translation. So whether you're in a bilingual, dual, or ESL classroom, if you share the same language as your students. We're often told, right, we want to embrace their language, not erase their language, right, which is so important. But at the same time, we need to take a look at what our end goal is. So with current translation, sometimes what happens is teachers will.

teach in English. I'm teaching a concept in English and they might see the glazed over eyes of students really not understanding. And if they share the language, the teacher might think, I'm going to explain it to them in Spanish really quick so they get this content because this is so important. It's going to be on the test. We only have five more minutes before we have to do our exit slip. I want to give them something. So well-intentioned teacher, all of this.

sudden is doing something that has some unintended negative consequences, right? So what happens is if we automatically switch to Spanish at some point in time, Number one, we're not really able to assess what the student has captured and understands in the target language. We don't really know what that is. It kind of muddies the waters. It also then... teaches that the students learn quickly, right?

oh, the teacher is going to say it in Spanish if I look really confused right now, or I don't say it in Spanish. And so oftentimes students will just wait until that time where the teacher wants to swoop in and help them. And so, yeah, that unintended consequence of, number one, it's kind of slowing down the second language acquisition process. We're not helping them acquire English. And then we're also kind of showing them, you can't really do this in English yet.

So it's impacting their self-confidence as well. So instead of concurrent translation, I really want to empower teachers to say, hey, no, I know some sheltered instruction. strategies that I can use right now that will help these students understand what I'm doing. So tier one instruction has to kind of be beefed with all of those visuals and oracy and building background.

so that we don't get those glazed eyes all of a sudden and think that we need to switch to Spanish. So it's almost kind of like a double-edged sword, right? We want them to... language, but we don't want to come in and just swoop in to help them. There needs to be intentionality. I guess that's the point of it, right? You're going to be using native language instruction. Let it be intentional, not just, hey, I share the language. I can do it.

Yes. Yeah. You know, I've told teachers before, as they've shared with me inside our membership and saying, you know, but I don't speak their native language. I said, honestly, sometimes I think that's better because in my experience, as soon as a student knows that I speak Spanish.

they will wait until I get, they wear me down. And then, you know, I'd say it in Spanish and they, oh, okay. And so I, you know, I think that that's a really important point that people are looking for that clarity around. Okay. There's an unintentional consequence. But so what is being more purposeful and intentional look like than using a native language?

Yeah. So I think what we really need to be doing with our Spanish speaking students, if we have a language group of students that share the same language, we can allow them to build background or talk about what they know around a certain topic. we engage in a discussion in English, before we engage with a writing activity or reading activity, we can really have them kind of get together and talk.

in their native language about what they know about a concept, right? If we can do that before we start the lesson, that's great. During the lesson. something that we can do is really kind of be cognizant of cognates right that's the number one um tool that we can provide our students and it's easy for teachers who might not share that language

Because the word is going to, you know, look alike, sound alike and share the same meaning or have the same meaning. And so we can ask students during a lesson, hey, what do you notice about? These words, what do you wonder about these words? Let's talk about how is it similar or different than Spanish? And have them engage in that conversation there. When I was the ESL teacher and I had all of these different languages and I valued bilingualism,

And the majority of the students spoke Spanish. I really wanted to bring in all the different languages. Well, I had a student who spoke Gujarati and there might have only been one or two students that spoke that Indian dialect. And so I said to him, oh, you know, maybe we were doing apples and making applesauce. I can't recall. And I said, so how do you say apple in Gujarati? And he did not respond. His head was down. And, oh, come on, share it with me.

That's my biggest. I pushed and I pushed like, no, I come from a good place. Please share in your language how to say Apple. And he did not want to. It wasn't until years later that I realized I was pushing that student to be the spokesperson. for his language, which is very personal to him.

We also have to kind of make sure that we're not putting students in an uncomfortable situation and they need to feel that safe environment if they're going to learn, right? So that was my mistake as a teacher, was pushing students. to be the spokesperson for their language. So we've discussed you can use native language before, during, and then after. One of the biggest strategies in dual language is using the bridge. So I'm sure a lot of the listeners have heard of the bridge before.

but you can use it with language groups. After a lesson is taught, if you want to reinforce vocabulary, right, it should be interactive. You can say, hey, we just finished this lesson on animal habitats. What were some of those important words that we talked about? because the language of instruction is English, they might list all of the different habitats. They might list all the different animals.

And in English, and the teacher can really say, how do you say these things in Spanish? So you might have some students that really didn't understand a concept, but within that. five to seven minute lesson that you're putting those languages side by side, it could be just what they need to fill in the gaps for understanding what they just learned.

And then if you do have the time, that is then the time to really kind of take a look, do that contrastive analysis and say, what do you notice about these languages, right? Oh, I'm noticing that, you know, the word the is used on the side with English, but it's not. In Spanish, it's L. Is it just L or is it La? You know, what are the articles in Spanish and English different? You know, how are they different or the same? And that discussion about meta language is really, really important.

because that is something that students don't come by naturally. Much like the notion of cognates, if we don't teach the students to look for them, they're not going to know that that's their superpower. So it's our job to say, hey, look, these words look alike and sound alike. They share the same meaning. And that's going to help you later on when you're getting into more complex topics. But all of those ideas of metalanguage and taking a look at how the languages are the same.

and different, if you have just bits of time to talk about it, it kind of seals the deal, right? For the students. Yeah. And I think that goes back to the point of when it's intentional, it's purposeful. And, you know, you can plan in those kind of mini lessons because what I'm sure you've seen a lot and what I saw when we had a transitional bilingual program and just the different models is that. they might come in speaking Spanish, but they don't know necessarily, you know.

pronouns. They don't know why things are the way they just know, because it sounds kind of like an English. A lot of us just know, Oh, we just use, you know, I remember asking, I was doing a Spanish speaking tutor and I said, well, when do you use porn? She's like,

I don't know. You just know. And I'm like trying to study the chart and like, okay, in this situation, I use this. And you just realize that, you know, they're having the same experience that a lot of us in English have. We just know when to use. A, the, like, we don't really think about the lesson behind it, the meaning behind it. And so when we can bring in those little mini lessons in comparing the languages and really bringing that to life is.

really a powerful use of time and maybe a couple minutes, you know, it's nothing that has to be really in depth or anything, but just exposing students, I think is, is really a powerful thing.

Definitely. And I think, I mean, I'm a second language learner. I believe you're a second language learner, right? And I'm a sequential learner. So I spoke English first and then I didn't take any Spanish classes until I went to high school. I mean, my middle school didn't even have.

Spanish classes. And so while I was learning English and taking grammar classes with, you know, nuns that really wanted you to learn things about English grammar, all of a sudden I'm learning Spanish. I'm like, oh, that's what... That's what a past participle was. And so then I made the connection.

in English and Spanish, and that was as a high schooler, right? So we really do need to be making those connections. And it just, again, it goes back to if we can provide students with a strong foundation in their L1. it's going to reach their L2. There's going to be higher successes of transfer in L2 if we can build that foundation in L1. Absolutely. Yeah, I had the same of when I learned subjunctive in...

Spanish, I realized they were subjunctive in English. And I was like, I never even heard this before. I think I was in high school, maybe even college by that time. But I think the point is that helps solidify. the other language you're learning you know when we when we use that native language so let's dive into that sarah of

I want to focus in on literacy because literacy, like we've mentioned, this is a very big topic. It's always a big topic. I think, you know, if you can teach a child to read, they're set for life. They can then learn anything that they want. So it is something that is. you know, first and foremost that we want to be able to do is teach our students to read and teach our students to be bilingual, trilingual, really enhance their superpowers.

But I think that's what we hear a lot is the transfer from L1 to L2, especially with reading skills. Anybody who's worked with a student who is literate in their native language and... how much easier it is to teach them to read in English compared to a student who's not. And so there is a lot of...

research and validity in that. But what about when you don't have the time, you know, when teachers are already trying to cram in so many things and just teaching English reading alone is a long journey of all the different stages. they have to go through. So let's talk about that. Let's maybe just even step, take a step back for a second and look at, you know, the differences.

and similarities between Spanish literacy and English literacy. And then we can get into maybe how can we increase those transfer skills.

Right. So if you take a look with reading, right, the first thing that we want students to get a real good grasp of is phonics, phonology, phonemic awareness, all of those, right? When you think about Spanish. We've got five vowels, right? And English has five vowels. But those five vowels in Spanish always say the same sound. And the five vowels in English could say 14 sounds. Just think about the letter A in the word Kate, in the word father, in the word Pat.

that's three sounds right there that that letter A can make, right? So that has a couple of repercussions, right? Short vowel sounds for students are really difficult. So we need to ensure that we're providing them with opportunities to hear these sounds that might not be a part of their sound system. That's really important. When you think about not just vowels, but the entire alphabet, right? English, we've got, what, 26 letters. And we have, I think, 44 sounds, right?

Not a great one-to-one correspondence. It's not very predictable. You can't really, you know, decode as easily as you can in Spanish because Spanish has 27 letters and there are what, 24 phonemes, I believe. That's got a closer one-to-one. So if you're listening and you say, wait, what do you mean? 27 letters and 24 phonemes. I'm hoping those numbers are right. I'll tell you a real quick story. Like for example, the V and the B in Spanish.

They are pronounced the same way. So that's two letters with just one sound. When I was teaching, we were working with the gen ed classroom. So I was working with the gen ed classroom in a bilingual classroom. And I had a student named Vera. V-E-R-A, Vera. And so she went up to the teacher who only speaks English and said, hi, my name is Vera, Vera with a V. And she made the little V sign or a peace sign with her finger.

And so the teacher came up to me and said, why is she? I mean, it's great that she knows the first letter of her name. And I said, it's way more than that. It is way more than that. She knows that her name can either sound like a V. And so she, that is metalinguist awareness right there for our first grader. So phonics is a huge thing that you need to pay attention to and really make sure that.

The sounds that aren't a part of Spanish sound systems are something that you explicitly teach, right? Like the TH sound does not exist in Spanish. How do you teach a student to read words that have TH? You know, it's almost as if you have to say, well, the point of articulation, you stick your tongue out. And that's the only time you can stick your tongue out at the teacher is when the TH sounds. providing them with that. Also syllables in Spanish.

are used for reading a lot more frequently than individual sounds. I think in English, we love our alphabet. Like we love the alphabet name. We love singing the alphabet. Not every language sings their alphabet, right? So in Spanish, the names... of the letters, kind of take a back seat to learning the sounds of the letters and then making sure that you're putting a vowel with a consonant to form syllables. So when I first turned into a bilingual teacher.

Somebody must have come up with a magic wand and said, you are now a bilingual teacher. They did not. They did not do that. I was using English methodologies and the Spanish language. So that is a no-no. I did not know any better. I didn't receive Spanish literacy training in college. I think all I needed to do is take a multicultural literature class. And that was all I had. And then I lived in Mexico and I spoke Spanish.

But just because you speak Spanish doesn't mean you know how to teach reading or to teach grammar. It's still something that you need to learn. And so it wasn't I taught it. the wrong way, Beth, for a year. And then we hired another teacher and she said, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm teaching reading, Spanish reading. She goes, no.

You're using Spanish words, but you're using English methodologies. It was from that point on that I needed to learn as much as I can to make up for that year that I was not winning any teaching awards whatsoever. And that really is the reason that we decided to write the book that we wrote. We co-authored this book, Myra, Tristan, and I. And it follows the phonological order.

for the syllables in Spanish. In Spanish, you also start with the vowels. In English, you usually start with the consonants. When I was teaching incorrectly, I probably started with the letter of the day. I was really saying, okay, kids, let's sound out this word. G-A-T-O instead of G-O. Everything wrong was happening that year. And so that truly is kind of what has propelled me to where I'm at right now. I really want to make sure that more people have the information.

When you think that bilingual education has been around since 1965 and we still have people who are confused about it, it's kind of mind-blowing. It is. I think about that all the time. But, you know, to your point too, Sarah. For those who are listening and are like, well, I don't speak Spanish. I don't know. Just I think being in a spot where we humble ourselves and learn because I also have my transitional bilingual certificate.

I only had to have a minor in Spanish and pass the test. I mean, you have no really qualifications to teach Spanish besides, okay, you pass the test. You must be good enough. But exactly what you're saying is like there wasn't any training on teaching literacy in Spanish or, you know, just all of that. So I think it's still, you know, something that if we're all just willing to.

Listen to those who've walked through this and have seen, okay, I made mistakes. What can I do better? Because. To me, I think that this is a really important area that we as educators really advocate for something different. And as we see so many new curriculums and all these big companies coming out with things and they slap on a little sticker, this is, oh, this is. This is for multilingual literacy. It's not. They maybe add a picture. But it's still seeped in monolingual.

practices. So this is, yeah, this is why I think this is a really important conversation because I, my daughters go to bilingual school and so they're learning to read in both languages. And so it's been really awesome to see. They take a lot of things from Spain from their literacy, but.

just seeing how much quicker they get into syllables and start blending words quickly. And it's very straightforward, but they're really lacking, you know, having the decodable books and things, the materials aren't there yet. Like you have an English. So a lot of times they. They switched back to that, but let's keep going on this. I think this is really eye-opening to hear some of those similarities, like syllables are something that a native Spanish speaker would be very comfortable.

and confident to be able to do and could probably transfer easily into English. Is that kind of what you're looking to? Right. No, most definitely. Another thing with big book publishers, right, saying, hey, this is our ESL section or this is our bilingual section, or we've translated everything into Spanish, right? So a lot of dual language programs will say, okay, great, we've got all of this. We have it in English, we have it in Spanish. because we're teaching both.

But you need some time to unpack. The term holistic learning is really important when you think about that. If they are students in dual and bilingual programs, you can't just say, oh, great. What do you know in English? What do you know in Spanish? Looking at that. So there are so many great researchers out there. Kathy Escamilla has her rubric, holistic rubric for writing that really provides teachers with a better understanding of what students can do in each of their languages.

So that's pretty important. And I think, yeah, the notion of whether or not you're a sequential bilingual or simultaneous bilingual does impact what you. can do in the other language at any given point. I wanted to mention that OELA, it's the Office of English Language Acquisition, just came out with a really great article on integrating kind of research-based practices for multilingual learning.

And they really do have some great sections on how to use home language. So if you don't speak Spanish, you can definitely find that in Oella's latest article. So let's keep going on, you know, just. similarities, differences, transfer skills. So for teachers who are working on literacy skills with Spanish speaking students, what

What do you recommend? Where should they start? What should they look for? How can they support these students in a better way and help them to not struggle through learning English reading, you know, for. You just see them for years or years and years. They're good. And I've even seen, I've worked with some teachers in our membership who they're getting, they're being told to do phonics three times a day with their Spanish speaking students.

reading teacher, homeroom teacher, and the ESL teacher then has to become the reading teacher. And so you're just like, there's limits to how much these students, you know, maybe there's something not working. So let's keep talking about that. Right. So there are many shared phonemes in English and Spanish. So you want to start with what's similar with the two different languages and say, hey, the M makes the same sound in English and in Spanish. So really focusing on.

the similarities with the sound systems. And then you can get into the differences, right? But you do, again, need to point out the fact that you may not have heard this sound before in the word wet, right? The eh, eh, the short e. may not have heard this. So let's say it, let's repeat it. Let's see how we write it, all of that good stuff. So really it's from the phonological awareness.

It's not giving them triple doses of phonics, right? We need to be, again, intentional and strategic about how much time we're spending on phonics because. If just because a student is bilingual and then you're increasing the phonics time, which is great, foundational skills are important, when you get into the meaning, when do they actually get a book in their hands to say,

I can read this, right? We can't wait for that to happen in both languages. Students will become bored and disengaged. And so tripling phonics is not the answer.

to teaching literacy in Spanish. So dual language programs, right, they've got that allocation set. With the science of reading and the huger push towards phonics, we need to make sure that that's happening again in an intentional way. But if you are in the classroom and you want to promote native language. instruction or literacy, you can definitely let parents know, right, that, hey, the concept of print transfers from one language to another.

the same directionality left to right for our beginning readers. If they learn something in a content in one language, it transfers to the other. The knowledge of... writing types and text structures transfer from Spanish to English or English to Spanish. Right. So. There are so many things that transfer. Two of the most important, I think, are the reading strategies. So if we are practicing predicting or summarizing or inferring, questioning.

All of those types of reading strategies that we teach our monolingual students can be done in Spanish to beef up that skill. And then that skill transfers to English. So the list of transferable skills is far greater than what does not transfer, right? What doesn't transfer? Some sounds, some grammar points, some punctuation rules, right?

Really, the list of things that transfer, skills that transfer far outweighs those that don't. That's a great point. So I'm picturing what you're saying is, you know, if you're working on questioning, let's say, you could. beef that up in their native language, provide something that helps them. Maybe even if you don't speak their native language, find a song or something on YouTube that helps them in Spanish that talks about questioning.

And also sharing that with the parents, because I think that's something that, you know, as teachers, one of the best things we can do is encourage parents to continue reading in their native language. language at home so that those transfer skills do happen. So then you can encourage parents, Hey, we're working on questioning, you know, here are, here's a bookmark of three ways that you can ask your students questions at home as you read together.

Again, it feels very simple and straightforward, right? But it's just being intentional about.

How do we bring in the home connection? How do we bring in the native language connection? And it goes to the confusion too about what information is still out there because I'm sure I'm not the only teacher who has heard from parents. Pero maestra, yo no quiero leer en español. We're not going to read to them in Spanish. I want them to learn English, right? In the U.S., English is the language of power. English is the language.

You get them the job and the money. And this is why the parents gave up so much and came here. Right. So. A lot of that is based on the misconception that their language is not going to help their students, their child, right, in the long run. And so what I really wish is that doctors and nurses, right when a mom has a baby, go.

and talk to them and explain, read to them in Spanish, right? We need to be telling them, watch TV in Spanish with them, play games in Spanish, sing songs in Spanish, talk in Spanish about, you know. events that happen in your life, because all of those lists of transferable ideas is going to help them.

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I mean, I think all of us, anybody who's learned another language realizes your brain hits a capacity every day where they've already been in six hours of English. They need that break. They need. you know, to use their heart language, they need to just be themselves. So I do think that's, I agree, one of the best ways we can advocate for the students at school is to encourage parents at home to keep up the native language. Let's just talk briefly about...

writing. Okay. It's literacy and writing, you know, kind of go hand in hand. And so I know with, with writing, that's usually the last domain that's developed. It's, it can be a struggle for, I think even monolingual students. I think writing is just difficult. Our brains weren't. created to write, but we're learning to write. So what specific challenges do you see that Spanish speaking students face when they're learning to write?

Like you mentioned, punctuation is not always a transferable thing. Syntax can be really difficult, even just order of adjectives.

compared from one language to the other. So how do you kind of approach the writing piece when you're working with Spanish speaking students? Right. So I love, I know you had somebody on earlier that spoke about the GLAAD strategies. The GLAAD strategy, I don't think it was discussed in the podcast, but it was sentence pattern charts, right? Those sentence pattern charts that you can have an article or something that you're going to be exposing the students to, and you can break down some.

sentences that will follow a predictable. order and students can form sentences from a graph that you provide them with article, adjective, subject, verb, object. So you can follow that predictable pattern in English. to show them what it is. And that's because Spanish is a really strict subject, verb, object language. Super strict. We really don't ever drop a subject. We stick to that.

Spanish is a lot more flexible. It's also subject, verb, object, language, but it's a lot more flexible in that maybe you've already mentioned the subject in a sentence prior, and then you could just start with the verb in the next. sentence. So it's different, right? You might have students making grammar mistakes that are kind of those negative transfers. They're applying Spanish rules to English. So the more that we can show them the pattern structure in English, the better, right?

Something else that happens is oftentimes with writing, like we said, it's difficult and we always want to make sure that we connect it to oral language as well. So oral storytelling.

in Spanish really values rich descriptions and really long sentences and when students begin to write in english let's say they will start using those things that are valuable in their language right so they really might kind of talk around a topic in english we like beginning middle and end we're very linear tell me what's

What happened in the middle, what happened at the end. But in Spanish, it's more circular in nature. So that goes for oral language and for writing. And so we might have students that are telling a story about a birthday party, but they're starting the story at the...

store where they bought the pinata. And then they might circle back and tell something that happened when they were planning it at their grandma's house before they left. So to somebody who doesn't know that about the Spanish language. those Spanish speakers could seem disorganized. They're off topic. We could be taking points away on the rubric for them.

So we want to make sure that even though you don't speak the language, you might know some of the structures of the language so that you can point out, oh, that's interesting. That's how your language does it. This is how our language does it. So, yeah, there are a couple of nuanced differences as far as writing goes. But really, my goal for teachers for writing is to find the graphic organizers that work for this. purpose and use those same ones so that it's predictable for the students.

I've got a new project coming up with Biliteracy Builders, and we're going to take a look at writing. We sent out a survey to see what type of PD teachers want, and it was overwhelmingly help us with writing in both languages. think that is because a lot of the big book publishers, there's not a set. curriculum and teachers have a fear of messing up, right? Some people are FOMO, teachers have FOMU before a fear of messing up. And so we want to know what we're doing is right for our students.

dive into more writing research to be able to help those teachers. That's going to be powerful. Cause yeah, there is, it is an area that. you know, is really a skill people are going to use throughout their life. I mean, I think of the emails they'll be sent, the job resume, all the things that they need to become very proficient writers. And yet it's, I think, one of those subjects in school that still doesn't have a very defined.

path forward of here's best practices. There's more research coming out, thankfully, but I'm glad to hear that you are also going to be taking a dive into that. that vulnerability aspect that we mentioned in the beginning, right? Teachers need to be able to say, I might, I'm not really strong at this. I remember even when I taught second grade and I thought, okay, I'm going to do a modeled writing.

And if I did not have that prepared, even if it was in front of a class of second graders, I was anxious about my writing. It's putting yourself out there. Right. And so students deal with that all the time where we expect them to. get that in writing and it is a vulnerable process. So we have to respect that. And I love that point you made of, you know, starting with that oral piece and really for anybody who's working with it.

multilingual learners in writing, that really is one of the biggest places to begin is just making sure they're orally ready to be able to even transfer it onto paper. And I think that's, you know, one last question because we're running out of time. I could keep talking about this all day. You know, something that I've noticed in my research is just...

Like I've mentioned, the push for more phonics or the push for, you know, just moving them faster. We need them to fill the, close the gap and all these kind of anxious practices. But when you really think about it and you look at it, you know, a kindergartner who's grown up in an English speaking home is entering kindergarten with maybe 20,000 words already. And you have a student who's a newcomer maybe or, you know, been speaking.

Spanish at home for the last five years and their vocabulary word bank isn't there yet. And so you're trying to teach two kids who have a very different vocabulary word bank, which we know in literacy, we're pulling. from that vocabulary word bank. When we see these pictures, when we're sounding out these words, we're pulling that. So how do you, you know, what do you recommend of how teachers can go about increasing vocabulary while still focusing on the literacy skills?

Right. Vocab is something that I'm going to say we need to spend more time. Using orally as well, right? It can't just be a word list that we've got students. I always try to tell the teachers that I'm working with, you know, work smarter, not harder. So if you need to create visuals for a unit. How are you using those visuals, the key vocab visuals? Can it be an I have who has game? Can it be find it around the room? Can it be a matching up with the partners, right?

And all of that requires language. So I really want to make sure that teachers realize the power of visuals when it comes to vocabulary development. And again, providing students with the opportunities to use that language. QSSSA is a strategy that's been around for, I mean, not too long. I feel like there are still teachers that haven't heard about it, but I've created a million slides with QSSSA, which is questions, signal, STEM.

share, and assess. And it's a very structured format to ask students questions. The best thing about it is that it forces academic language on the student. So if you really want them to use the term habitat, then you will create a sentence frame that uses the word habitat, right? There's also structured conversations, which could really just be scripts. Student A says this, student B says this with some.

fill in the blanks so that the teachers or the students are engaging in this structured conversation. And again, the teacher has inserted that academic language where she needs it to be inserted. force the students to use it, meaning creating those opportunities for them to use academic language. They would rather not. So we need to be cognizant of that as teachers that we can force that we do have the power to create those opportunities. Absolutely. I love those examples.

Well, Sarah, this was so incredible and just such so many things to think about as we look at our students and how we can best support them. And I love the different examples you gave. And I would love for you to share where my listeners can learn more from you. Sure, definitely. You can go to my website, www. Does anybody see that anymore? Read in Espanol dot com. So read in Espanol dot com. And there I've got a blog that I'm trying to reignite.

products and where you can find me and services that I provide. I'm also pretty active on LinkedIn. So if you're not on LinkedIn, you should go on LinkedIn. It's not just for bankers, the education community. I know. That's how we connected. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So those are the two major, but I'm on Instagram too. So you can find Rita Nespanol on Instagram. Wonderful. Well, we will link those in the show notes. And again, thank you so much, Sarah, for your time.

and sharing your wisdom and expertise with us. Thanks, Beth, for having me on. I appreciate it. Thank you for joining me in today's episode. All links and resources mentioned can be found in the show notes. If you're looking for even more support and done-for-you resources created specifically for the needs of ELLs, head to inspiringyounglearners.com. I'll catch you here next week. Until then, take that next step to keep equipping your ELLs.