180. Collaboration in ELL Classrooms: Expert tips from Dr. Andrea Honigsfeld

Hey there, incredible teachers! Are you feeling overwhelmed trying to figure out what to teach and which activities to use for your diverse ELL students? Supporting English language learners is incredibly rewarding, but it takes careful planning to meet each student's needs. Without the right guidance, lesson planning can become a time-consuming process that leaves you unsure if you're really helping your students succeed.

That's why now is the perfect time to join the Equipping ELL's membership and transform your school year. For less than one dollar a day, you'll get everything you need to provide your students with the right support all year long. You'll have access to monthly lesson plans, hundreds of K through 12 resources, practical training, and a community of passionate educators who understand your challenges.

What sets equipping y'all apart? Well, we don't push a one size fits all curriculum. Instead, we help you connect the right resources to your students' actual needs. Whether you're working with newcomers or advanced learners, our flexible resources let you tailor your teaching to each student's strengths and challenges.

Don't wait to make a difference. Join the Equipping ELLs membership today and see how easily you can change your school year. Visit EquippingELLs.com to sign up and start giving your students the support they deserve. Teaching ELL students is a privilege and a joy. Is it easy? But with the right support, you can feel empowered.

Tackle each day with ease and I'm your host, Beth Boucher, founder of With over 10 years of teaching both I know what it takes to ensure that your They need to thrive today, tomorrow. and for life. I'm on a mission to empower you to equip English language learners. Let's get to today's episode.

Hey there, Andrea. Thank you so much for being on the show. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to chat with you about collaboration and as you said. We collaborate about collaboration all the time. We recognize that We need to combine what we already do so well and what we might not know. Oh, I have the answer to. So tapping into each other's expertise, knowledge base, and just the joy of collaboration is really important to me.

Absolutely. Well, it is such an honor to have you on here today and to just gain a little bit of your wisdom. And I just, yeah, love your heart and passion for the work that you do. So thank you.

Let's dive in and go back to just a little bit about your background and, you know, where you grew up and where you're at today. I don't know if the book total has gone up, but the last time you had twenty seven books. But I think there might be more by now. So Kinda give us a little glimpse of where that started and where you're at now. Sure. I had very humble beginnings. I grew up in a working class family in Hungary. My mother was actually a theater prop artist.

And she worked 12 hour shifts in the local theater and she set up a little bit of an after school program for me in her workshop. So imagine the steaming hats and the fake jewelry being put together and I'm right there in her workshop until eight PM. So she just put a big box of books in front of me and I had to read aloud to her.

So I think that's the origin story I rarely have a chance to share that I think I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. And it's because of my mother who did not come from an educated background, but I just enjoyed reading. I enjoyed traveling through the pages of those books. And growing up in Hungary, another aspect of my origin story is possibly that Hungary, as many other countries, are more collectivistic.

rather than Western society or US society being highly individualistic. So for me to be a collaborator was second nature. I'm also the youngest of five children. Wow. I I didn't even eat any piece of fruit by myself until I came to the United States because we were always chopping and cutting up and sharing. So sharing, collaborating, just doing things together was

Second nature for me. I was a teacher in Hungary before I came to the United States. I actually became a middle school EFL teacher, English as in language that was our designated title at that time. And it was the same middle school where I was a student a few years before. Wow. The fun part of that was that The teachers that I had as a child now became my colleagues and my collaborate.

So they taught me so much about, you know, how to learn from each other. They mentored me. They helped me on a whole different level because now I was their student, but maybe I was still a little bit of their student. So that's basically where I started. You know, I've been recently interviewing some inspiring language stories of language learners, just people I've met here in Panama or, you know, different stories that I've crossed.

And it really comes down to that one person. It's usually a mom or a teacher that really kind of sets off that path for, you know, children and students of their desire to learn. through books or through whatever opportunities. But it is cool how that kind of the every story kind of comes down to that one person that really instills that vision and that desire in them. And so that's really cool about your mom.

Yeah, I love that. And I think that that's such a great point too, Andrea, of of the difference of, you know, because I'm kind of opposite where I grew up in the US. I'm American and had that invit individualistic, I can do it myself kind of attitude. You know, you really don't depend on others. And then moving to Panama and being in a place where I'm very out of my comfort zone. And then you see how many of the expats, the foreigners,

from all over the world really kind of come together'cause they really need each other to survive when you don't have family, when you don't know the language, when all these things and and you have this dependence and collaboration desire, you know, that happens. So I think that that's such a beautiful point of Why you bring such a different perspective into this approach that's really, really necessary for us to learn from you. So I can't wait to get more into that.

Since you mentioned that there are influential people in our lives, I would Just absolutely have to give a huge shout out to my very first principal in the New York City system. Yeah. Where my journey took me. So from Hungary being a middle school educator. I became a kindergarten through third grade ESL teacher. You can imagine that culture shock, especially in New York City, the world and and Queens. Wow. But here is the influential

person in my life that just again put me further on the path of collaboration or exploring this angle and serving multilingual learners. I had a visionary principal. Her name is Carol Wertheimer. And now I call her Carol at that time, Mrs. Wertheimer. As I mentioned, someone with a very strong vision that Inquisitive mind

But sometimes teachers might not have liked because she was asking a lot of questions, but she was asking good questions. Yeah. So the questions that she asked the four-member ESL team, you know, that was our title at that time, English as a second teacher. It was very simple. The question was who wants to come out of the basement? Because we're all in a in our isolated little nook.

Yeah. We were teaching in the pull out system. And at that time was the height of the inclusion movement for special education. So she said another question was, why aren't you trying what special ed is doing? Why don't you go into the classroom? Well, I know. I know. And the four team members, you know, there were four of us. How many do you think actually wanted to try that? Probably. One? You?

Yes. So that was exactly that kind of a pattern that no, we're fine, we're good. This is how we've always done things. Don't fix, that's not pro. But I was actually feeling the tension there because I spent so much time in the hallway, just taking kids through the building, collecting from collecting them from the classrooms.

were learning and then all of a sudden their learning was interrupted. I had to pick them up, take them to my special little spot where we did all the magic in 45 minutes. Then we dropped them off. And well That was something that just seemed really alien to me or unnatural to me. So I jumped on the opportunity and I was the only ESL, ELL co-teacher at that time.

My principal again, Carol, had the vision of adding an extra prep time for us. Wow. Mm-hmm. Already at that time she knew that we need to spend extra time. She can't mandate it. that we would give up our own prep time because the union was very strong. It still continues to be very strong in New York. But she was also, again, very visionary by putting that extra Friday planning time right after lunch.

But now my then co-teacher, Sandy Schlaf, and I had lunch together. We had our shared prep together. So we had a good chunk of time every Friday. to reflect on how things went, who needs what, and what can we do next week. We also established teen a structure. Oh, and I was given a double period. Now we were able to stay, or I was able to stay rather for the entire literacy block, which was 80 minutes long. So there was just so many conditions that She intuitively Created for us that

At that time there wasn't really much written about. Now I'm taking you back to the nineteen nineties. I I know you could kind of like imagine where are we on the Yes, I was gonna ask that. I haven't given that away yet. In a while. Yes. It's it was a long time ago. That's why I connected it to the early years of special education inclusion. So the early to mid nineteen nineties when there wasn't much written. Right.

wise about collaboration or co teaching for multilingual learners. So it was a pilot initiative. It was something that was more of a grassroots. Let's try that. Let's see what happens. And then the kids did really, really well. So we had that kind of evidence. It might not have been empirical research, but we had our own evidence of student learning. And that's very powerful. Wow. And I think that that is such a important point to make for those who are listening to this and who are feeling like

This is what I want. You know, I see the tension. I feel this as well. I know this isn't best practices. And I think the reminder that sometimes you might be stepping out on your own and it might be lonely and it might be, you know, that you have to push some walls down. But it's worth it. And I think that that's, you know, seeing the journey of where the ninety nineteen nineties to today and where that's taken you.

is incredible because you had that visionary principle because you were willing to step out and figure out and keep at the core what is best for these multilingual learners. And there is one more person and that's all right. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes, this couldn't have happened without her because we met. Mm, let me just try to think of that timeline. 2004. Okay. So we got in 2004 when the institution where I'm still a professor, Molo University on Long Island. Mm-hmm.

got a grant, a New York State grant, which was sort of a fast track certification program. We call they called it ITI Intensive Teacher Institute. Teachers took X number of courses in a limited amount of time and all of a sudden we had this accelerated program because of the shortage of ESR bilingual teachers. And we needed adjunct faculty.

So I met Maria at a conference where I was speaking and she casually gave me her card saying that if you ever need an adjunct faculty and I said, Oh yeah, sure. And then two weeks later we got the grant and then we had to hire. extra people and I happen to still have Maria's happen to have had her card. So it was such a good moment of being at the right place at the right time. And then we discovered that I have the

So I have the urban and international experience with collaboration and co-teaching. And she had a suburban experience. She was one of very few co-teachers in the suburban school district where she worked. So we started comparing notes and by 2007 we were presenting at conferences. started writing articles, started planning out. Maybe we have to put it in a book because there's no book about co-teaching out there. So that was our joint origin story, how we started publishing.

And to date I actually have 31 books. Wow. Not all of them about collaboration. Yeah. You have a variety. You have a variety of them, but that's the common theme. Yeah. And not all of them with Maria, but eleven of these books are bestsellers. So I'm very humbled and very honored that people read them. Yeah. No, I mean, and I've only been able to dive into a few and I'm just always blown away with the impact you're making in the field, the way that you are able to take

you know, a lot of complex things and really bring it into a practical approach that any educator, whether you have ESL experience or not, can read it and apply it and feel really confident about what you're doing. So

We're gonna get to that at the end'cause I want you to highlight which book people should start with because I also love the growing language and literacy. I haven't gotten the six through twelve yet. I didn't realize you had that one out. So I that's the next one I'm gonna That might be one of my summer readings because I really love how you break that very complex approach down as well, because that can be very there's just a lot.

There's a lot of factors that go into supporting multilingual learners. And I think, you know, I would be interested to hear because this was a big Teaching in the suburbs of Chicago. You know, we had ninety percent ELL students. I was a homeroom teacher. So just scaffolding for those students as best as I could, but really kind of sticking in the framework of the US public school system and how that deficits approach was definitely pla at play and

a lot of that kind of mindset. And then moving to Panama and teaching at an international baccalaureate school here where everybody spoke multiple languages. I mean, that was just expected and that was the culture of the school was A l actually a lot of our embassy students were kind of jealous of all these other kids because it became that was the norm that you spoke more than one language. And so they were kind of feeling left out. It was an interesting shift there.

But what I saw in those types of classrooms when language is something that's beautiful, when language is accepted, when kids are able to use their native language, just their their speed at which they learned English was so much faster. And it just became a very holistic approach. And so How have you seen that as you've taught internationally, you've lived internationally, and you've taught in the US and seen the difference? You know, what are you seeing in the way that?

Multilingual learners, what are what are the shifts you think that we need to make in the US public education so that we can get to that point where it's a it's a amazing superpower to have more than one language?

So ever since I came to the United States, which was in the nineteen nineties, I have noticed that the rest of the world is multilingual. by virtue of well what's so special about it. Exactly. It's multiple languages. Just the way of life around here. Yeah. And in the United States, sometimes I even felt that pride that, oh, English only. I only speak English or speak English to me.

discrepancy or this tension between one kind of understanding about the world that I had, that multilingualism is the norm, that it's beautiful, and that there's also nothing Unusual. Yes. I I had to study multiple languages in school, so that was part of the school curriculum. And then you studied languages or you've also picked up languages more informally because of traveling or other kinds of experiences within your context. So I think that is now catching up in the United States.

So there's both research and common sense evidence that we have to give up that monolingual bias. that English only focus, and we have to honor our students' rich linguistic heritages. As educators, we have to tap into those funds of knowledge, funds of identity that Lois Moore also Have been writing about and his work was recently.

from the nineteen eighties, rediscover that that's the way to go. That's the way to do the best kind of education for multilingual learners rather than thinking it's almost counterintuitive because you think more English is more English when in fact More English and more other languages or opportunities to use all of our languages or linguistic repertoires that we have will lead to more language and literacy development across those different languages that we have

So I'm seeing that more and more, both internationally and in the United States, that it is not just okay, but it is now valued and celebrated and encouraged. to tap into those resources and invite the students to take pride in their identities. and use their languages. So through translanguaging pedagogies or multilingual, multimodal, multi-sensory learning experiences, teachers are bringing those opportunities into the classroom.

That's encouraging to hear. And I do see that shift happening as well where I think we are moving from that deficits based approach to more and more homeroom teachers, administrators who maybe don't have that experience working with ELLs are starting to see the beauty.

And having a more assets-based approach. I just had somebody on my podcast yesterday, we were talking about equitable grading. And again, it was just such a fascinating conversation around These conversations that need to happen of how can we, you know, make sure that we're all on the same page with this, because that's really at the end of the day, the only way that our multilingual learners are going to have success is

when we're all on board with that. We're all confident and and ready to support these students because what they bring into our classrooms is so incredible. And the opportunities, I just, you know, kind of pinch myself sometimes and think, wow, you know, this resource that we've created

is helping students around the world and and we don't know the impact they're gonna have. You know, we don't know how this one second grader where they're gonna go on to and how they're gonna impact the world when they're twenty five. And it's an exciting opportunity to get to educate the global classroom. Right in our own neighborhoods and in our own, you know, communities. So I think something I'd love to hit on is, you know, I think there's a lot this as this shift is happening.

Encouraging our teachers, the ELL teachers who feel like it's a lot, the weight is on them. That was kind of like you're saying teaching in the basement. I This is your job. These are your students. So how do we really break down those silos? How do we really help that collaboration to happen? How do we help administration to see the importance of plan time if they want to encourage co-teaching? How do we get there? What are some tips that you have and just some advice?

I think there could be multiple entry points. I would not be able to give you one cookie cutter answer five step program that if you only follow this five steps, everything is going to be moving. Perfectly ahead with collaboration. But I let me share a couple of possible entry points and maybe we could chat about them so that

And I'm not ranking them that the first is this or that, but let's just start somewhere. So one way that we can find a viable entry point is recognizing that all teachers are teachers of academic language. So it can be just one teacher's job. When in fact you can't teach math without the precise academic vocabulary that's necessary to describe a fraction or an equation. You can't teach math.

without teaching how to deconstruct and reconstruct a math problem. So now we're reading in mathematics. Same with science. If you think about writing a science report. is very different from writing a haiku poem and again being very different from writing a personal narrative. So we have to think of genre pedagogy as well, disciplinary literacy. So I know I'm just throwing around these big words, but they're really important because once we shift a culture in a school.

that wait, but we're doing this already. So first of all, affirming that every teacher, whether they wanted to do it or not, whether they were teaching it or not, are going to be teachers of academic language. So then who are your in-house experts of that? Wow, you're amazing set or maybe one or two or maybe more staff members.

Who can collaborate with you? See where are those language development opportunities. We used to talk about language demands and had more of this deficit oriented discourse around what what is gonna be difficult, what are we going to do to target those challenging points in our curriculum when it comes to language. But if we turn it around, as you mentioned a few times already, we talk about this asset-based perspective.

then rather than challenges or demands, let's talk about opportunities and experiences. What are those language based experiences that are embedded In every content area, by the way, not just the core content, also including gym, music, you name it, it's there.

So that is one entry point. Do you have experience with that when teachers have that aha moment like okay? Yes. More than just vocabulary, because that's a given. Everybody's very comfortable with teaching vocabulary, but we can't stop there. Yes.

And that's what I think, you know, a hit a point I hit on very often is just when we teach with ELLs in mind, all of our students succeed, you know, because all students need they're they're going to benefit from extra visuals or from a word bank. And so you just think. Even as a monolingual learner, my daughter's who's in second grade, if she's supposed to, you know, use a way to defend her her paper or whatever, these technical ways of academic language.

She doesn't know how even though she's monolingual, she doesn't know how to use that correctly. And so when you think of it in that way, I think that that's a very good point and a great approach is

really helping every teacher to identify that they are a language teacher, the math teacher, the science teacher. There is language in all of our subjects and our areas. And I think the more that we can strengthen that. And I I honestly I think it goes back to your point of how do we help the Western world see the beauty of that collaboration piece. Because that is such an ingrained part of who we are, that independence. And so how do we see that? Hey, this.

You know, the ESL teacher might not have that confidence in the content of the grade level because they already are doing all these other things. So they might need that support of the homeroom teachers on their knowledge of the content.

But they get to bring in their expertise of the scaffolding of the language. And so that's really, you know, what you've shared in so many different ways and in all your books is just that importance of seeing how each of us brings something that's really needed.

to this space in order to properly plan and prepare for our students. So I I love that. I think that's a great, a great starting point is just shifting that mindset a little bit so that every teacher sees themselves as the language teacher. Another possible entry point is this notion of building relational trust, building relationships. professional relationships, forging partnerships, recognizing that we don't operate in silos. We might.

sometimes prefer to close our classroom doors and my classroom, my curricular, my kids. But how to come out of that silo? How c how come out of that isolation is through establishing collaborative opportunities for teachers. So here leadership is really important, but not just top-down leadership, bottom-up leadership too, but teacher leadership.

creating opportunities to work together. You could start small, one partner teacher, one grade level, one literacy meeting a week in which we're talking about shared practices. Building trust by sharing challenges and opportunities, what worked, what didn't work. So shifting the culture from everybody going into their classroom and doing their own job, even if they're doing their job in an exceptional way, when we combine that expertise.

We can only multiply the impact that we have on our students. So one way that it has been happening for quite some time, not sure if if in your school or in your listener's school it's an important movement, but the PLC movement, professional learning communities have been around for quite some time. The idea of looking at student work together, L E S W, looking at student work. So whether it's co-planning or co assessment or building professional capacity together.

If there are already structures in place in any kind of school system, whatever that is, that's the entry point. Absolutely. Which is now amplifying the focus on multilingual learners. So I'll give you one example. Um recently I went to the Matsul conference, the Massachusetts State Conference. And I always seek out sessions that are connected to collaboration. And there was this fabulous middle school team. that they talked about exactly that.

that there are some things already in place. And one example they gave was they get summer study time. I don't know, a lot of hours, not a lot of money, but a little bit of a summer stipend. And they use that structure in place. for forging a community just informal. Well, if we have this summer study time that we have to spend, whether it's a book study, article study, looking at student work and studying patterns of um evidence of student learning.

So let's center our focus on multilingual learners. So they formed a study group, a summer study group, just about that. Another example they gave. I loved it. I just absolutely look for what is already in place. Another example and then we could move on to other No, I love this. I just love this stuff because this is very real. This is Again, evidence-based. You might not have extensive research on what summer learning for teachers will result in.

When teachers give up their time and commit to these opportunities, we know that they build their knowledge base and their skill sets. So another thing that they turned into a multilingual focal activity is what they call Positive peer visits. So positive peer visits. are already part of the school system. So teachers can sign up.

and visit each other's classes. It's not a surprise visit. It n it's never a gotcha. It's never to look for what's not working, as the name suggests. When into somebody's classroom. you go there to affirm their practice, to celebrate their practice. So they were able to shape this a little bit with the lens of multilingual learners. So let's celebrate what the teacher is doing, but also let's celebrate what our students, our multilingual learners, can do in those.

difficult, rigorous classroom scenarios. Those are such great and practical examples. And I think, you know, that's a great point that it it doesn't have to be something brand new and coming up with this whole new framework and implementing all this. I think You know, as teachers, we want to see the difference and the change quickly. And I just I think as humans, we like that. We we live in a fast paced world.

But I think seeing that those small changes can make a big impact. And I think going back to your story. you know, you and one you found one homeroom teacher that wanted to co-teach. And and that might be if you're in a school that it's not happening yet in your school, it might just be finding that one homeroom teacher who also has that desire

to better support their multilingual learners. And it might just be between you two teachers sitting on a Friday at lunch, you know, pick up one of Andrea's books and read it together and just start walking through that and having those discussions around What does this look like? How can we get better at this? What didn't work when we did this? How is how can we improve on our planning together?

How can we become prepared to our planning session so that we can make sure that we are, you know, using this time really well together? All of those just conversations that can revolve around this topic. And it might just be two teachers at once. But what happens, and I'm sure this is what you see, is when other teachers start to see the difference in those students and they start to see the impact.

they're gonna want to get on board as well. And so it might just be that ripple effect of those two teachers beginning and then all of a sudden more and more are wanting to get on board. Is that what you've seen in your practice as well? Oh, absolutely. And I don't know if you've seen my very first book on the topic.

We had the ripple effect. Exactly. Okay. So that book is not in print anymore. We came up with a second edition of that. book with the two hands holding each other. Yes. Start with one conversation, one partnership. If it seems overwhelming that We have to shift paradigms. for an entire school or maybe in the US in a in a district context, that could be really hard. There are too many moving parts for everything to be in place by, let's say, a new forthcoming academic year.

Yeah. But we could start smaller. And we can underestimate the impact of those initial conversations because they lead to partnership building, they lead to further opportunities to to share. Yeah. And also to receive. So it's a two-way. Absolutely. I love that so much. I could keep talking to you forever, but I our time is running out, Andrea, but I would love to know. Out of all your books, which one would you recommend for teachers who are, you know, just maybe getting started with?

teaching multilingual learners or co teaching because I want to help teachers decide which one to start with because I know it might be overwhelming when they go and see, wow, thirty one different books. Which one which one should I start with? So what would you recommend? So for classroom teachers, homeroom teachers, or secondary content teachers who might not have had extensive training or certificational credentialing in working with multilingual learners.

I recommend the two books you mentioned, the Growing Language and Literacy books by Heinemann, published by Heinemann. There's an elementary version and a secondary version. And the reason why I recommend those two books is because The editorial directive that I got was to show, not tell. Yeah. Yes. Excellent book. Yes. Well, language and literacy development is all about. Five chapters, the five stages of language development and lots of authentic.

examples. In fact, for both books, I have over 100 full color illustrations. Lots of mini references to what teachers are doing in their classroom. So I'm very honored because of that generosity that teachers. expressed towards my work that they kept sharing what I could feature. And then regarding collaboration and co-teaching, as I mentioned to you, that original book that really put my work on the map unexpectedly. We never expected

But that would become a bestseller, the collaboration and co-teaching book. We came out with a second edition called Collaborating for English Learners, a foundational guide to integrated practices. So here we polished every word to perfection in that title to make sure that it clearly communicates that if you are new.

If you're just starting out, whether that systemic approach that an administrator would take, they could use the book because there's an administrator's corner in every chapter. Amazing. A teacher, a teacher team, it's ideal for a book study. because it answers the who, what, where, when, why and how. Of collaboration. Those are actually the chapter titles. Yes. And then we ran out of question words, then we just duplicated some of them. I think we have two chapters that begin with what?

But exactly the types of questions that teachers would have about, or educators rather, would have about collaboration and co-teaching, restructure the entire book around those questions. And that's why I love your work so much is because you really have done the research, you've done the hard work for us, but you put it in a way that it really does answer our questions and helps us to apply right away. And I think that that's

a real gift to be able to make those connections. I we will put those links in the show notes so that everybody who's listening can go and find those right away and order them. But please share with my listeners where they can find out more about you. Well I have a website. It's my name, Andreahonixfeld.com and it has all of my books, lots of my articles.

As you mentioned, I've been on a few podcasts. So some of those podcast links I definitely will be putting this link there too. Wonderful. Uh articles, blogs, just whatever is already in the public domain and available related to my work could be found on that website, as well as links to all of my publications, all of my books.

Amazing. Well, Andre, this has been a such a pleasure to have you here. Again, thank you so much for taking the time to share with us and my listeners. And we're just so grateful for you and the impact that you are making in the field of multilingual learners. Can't wait to see more and read more books in the future.

Thank you so much for having me. And I'm looking forward to maybe speaking with you again soon. Yes, absolutely. If you anytime you want to come back, and hopefully our paths cross in in real life one day. So all right. Thanks, Andrea. Thank you. Thank you for joining me in today. All links and resources are Specifically for the needs. I'll catch you here next week. Until then, take that next step to keep equipping your