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Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Lexia Learning Wins Gold Stevie Award in 2021 American Business Awards

BOSTON (May 13, 2021) – Rosetta Stone® English from Lexia Learning, a Cambium Learning® Group company, was named the winner of a Gold Stevie® Award in the ELL/World Language Acquisition Instructional Solution category in The 19th Annual American Business Awards®.

The American Business Awards are the U.S.A.’s premier business awards program. All organizations operating in the U.S.A. are eligible to submit nominations – public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small. Nicknamed the Steviesfor the Greek word meaning “crowned,” the awards will be virtually presented to winners during a live event on Wednesday, June 30.

More than 3,800 nominations – a record number – from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted this year for consideration in a wide range of categories. Rosetta Stone English was nominated for a Stevie Award in the Education and Education Technology category group.…Read More

5 ways to integrate ELL instruction into teaching and learning

As a curriculum and learning specialist at an elementary school in Verona, Wisconsin, l have the opportunity to work with amazing educators and students of all cultures; as a prior bilingual resource and two-way immersion Spanish teacher, I like to honor the language learners in our classrooms.

I work with all teachers and all students. I help teachers find resources to help support their curriculum and often that entails helping them find new ways to include their English Language Learners in their lessons. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, an average of 9 percent of students in U.S. public schools are English Language Learners (ELLs); that number is closer to 14 percent in cities.

Here are five ways you can integrate ELL instruction into teaching and learning. These are simple strategies and some resources that are not very time-consuming, and best of all, they will help all the students in your class feel included and able to access the curriculum.…Read More

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Rosetta Stone Announces Winners of the Emergent Bilingual Educators of the Year Award Program

Rosetta Stone Inc. announced the 10 winners in its first Emergent Bilingual Educators of the Year award program. A total of $20,000 in grant donations and $75,000 in subscriptions to the Rosetta Stone® English for Education language learning program were awarded to teachers of English learners (EL).

Victor Machado, an ESL teacher at East Side High School in Newark, New Jersey, won the $10,000 grand prize, along with a schoolwide semester’s subscription to Rosetta Stone English. The two runners-up are Timothy McGrath and Virginia Valdez. McGrath is a K-5 ELL teacher at West View Elementary School, a small inner-city school in Knoxville, Tennessee, and Valdez is a kindergarten teacher at Minnie Mars Jamieson Elementary at Chicago Public Schools. Each won $5,000 grants as well as the schoolwide semester’s subscription to Rosetta Stone English.

Machado was nominated by the Bilingual Department Chairperson Brian Donovan who submitted an essay describing how Machado helps his students. Donovan wrote of Machado: “He is able to synthesize all the tools required to educate a student and turn his class into a fun engaging ESL lab, where technology is used to leverage student achievement and where students take ownership of their education.”…Read More

Pocketalk Donates Devices To ELL Teachers Through First-Ever Back To School Program

Pocketalk, the global leader in connecting conversations and removing language barriers, today announced the donation of 100 devices to educators across the U.S. that teach English Language Learner (ELL) students as part of its first-ever Back to School program, an effort to equip teachers with the tools they need and foster inclusive learning environments for all families, at home or in the classroom. During the application process, recipients of devices answered eight survey questions to reveal the evolving language needs of the education community and its communications styles ahead of an unconventional school year due to the ongoing pandemic.

Teachers surveyed in August represented 29 states and Washington, D.C. and averaged 10.7 years of teaching experience, with 98% of teachers responding that they have taught ELL students in the last three years. Highlights from the survey results include:

  • 99% of educators stated that the current virtual environment changed the way they will plan to communicate with ELL students and their families
  • 62% of teachers use translation daily to communicate with parents of students, with 35% and 3% using translation weekly or monthly, respectively
  • Teachers are most likely to primarily use phones (38%) to communicate with parents of students, followed by email (20%) or a messaging platform (17%) like Microsoft Teams
  • Compared to all respondents, teachers who use translation daily to communicate with parents of students are more likely to communicate using phones (43.5%) and less likely to communicate using email (11.3%)

With close to one million units in service around the globe, Pocketalk has been used in a number of industries to build community and break down communication barriers when it matters most. Aligned with recent findings from Pearson’s Global Learners Survey on how government funds should be spent in education in response to COVID-19, Pocketalk saw the need for translation services in education from its own survey findings to provide tech for underserved learners, to ensure teachers are equipped to handle emergency situations with quick, accurate communication and to offer more remote learning solutions.…Read More

How we found budget for student programs in our printers

Demographics

Hatboro-Horsham School District, located in suburban Philadelphia, has a strong history of academic excellence. Serving approximately 5,000 students, the district provides education from grades K-12.

It has received blue ribbon honors from both the Pennsylvania and United States Departments of Education. Hatboro-Horsham’s schoolboard, parents, teachers, and staff are committed to moving into the future of education.…Read More

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6 ways to connect with ELL parents

There’s no secret formula for parent engagement. And when English isn’t their first language, the obstacles seem more daunting. Connecting with ELL parents can help educators better support students—and there are some strategies to help.

According to Rick Castaneda, a training specialist at Rosetta Stone, the key is to develop a multi-step approach that gives parents several different opportunities to connect with the school and their children’s teachers while also making sure that the parent, no matter their language, feels like a key part of the decision-making process.

In his edWebinar, “Involve Parents for Greater English Learner Success,” Castaneda discussed six key areas of parental involvement, based on the work of Johns Hopkins professor Joyce L. Epstein, PhD, and how each one helps build a stronger relationship.…Read More

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How we turned around our English language learner (ELL) program

Demographics:

West Broward High School, located in Pembroke Pines, Fla., serves more than 2,000 students in grades nine through 12.

Biggest challenge:

Results on standardized tests revealed that about a quarter of our 9th- and 10th-grade students weren’t reading at grade level. Many of those struggling were English-language learners (ELLs) whose English proficiency wasn’t at the level needed to comprehend challenging texts within these exams. Some were students with learning disabilities. Others simply hadn’t discovered texts that engage them, so hadn’t spent enough time developing the reading skills they need for success.

Solution:

With the help of our literacy coach and reading department chair Elizabeth Rivero, we developed a set of strategies for closing the gaps by targeting struggling readers through specialized instruction. Any student in grades nine or 10 who didn’t score a level 3 or above on the Florida Standardized Assessment (FSA) in the previous year is now placed in a dedicated reading class. Any 11th or 12th grader who hasn’t met the reading score requirement for graduation through the FSA, SAT, or ACT is placed in this class as well, along with all level one or two ELL students.…Read More

Survey shows SEL is critical for K-12 English learners

Most teachers of K-12 English learners say their students have lots of academic potential, but social and emotional obstacles could potentially stall these students’ progress, according to the English Learners Report from McGraw-Hill.

Seventy-five percent of surveyed teachers and 85 percent of surveyed administrators say they are optimistic that K-12 English learners can achieve academic success. A majority of both educator groups also believe English learner instruction contributes to their students’ improved academic language performance and overall English proficiency.

The research underscores the growing importance social and emotional learning (SEL) have in classrooms. SEL, while not a core curriculum subject, is frequently considered another essential part of learning because it helps students regulate their own emotions and learn how to respond to social situations and challenges.…Read More

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Language barriers still impede home-school communication

Just a little more than half (55 percent) of teachers in a recent survey say their schools translate parent correspondence into other languages, despite federal data showing that almost 5 million U.S. students are English language learners (ELL).

The survey from communication app ClassDojo highlights the communication challenges teachers and families face each day due to language barriers. Of the teachers who say their school does translate communications, 36 percent say they rely on a teacher who speaks the language to do it, and 16 percent use a professional translation service.

Close to 10 percent of the overall student population speaks English as a second language, and 28 percent of surveyed teachers say their school does not translate parent communications at all.…Read More

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Science for all: How to reach English learners

Nationally, English learners (ELs) make up nearly 10 percent of PK-12 classrooms and almost 15 percent of urban classrooms, and these numbers are on the rise. Many supports are available for ELs (bilingual programs, SIOP, SEI), but the elementary science materials available are disproportionately directed toward grade-level readers.

In our work in local districts with high EL populations, we regularly see upper elementary students using K-1 science texts. While this might be acceptable for building language proficiency, content becomes a major issue. For example, a fifth-grader reading grade-one content is learning that during the day the sun crosses our sky. Fifth graders should be learning more abstract and complex concepts like how a star’s apparent brightness is related to its distance from Earth. Developmentally inappropriate content puts ELs behind in science from the start! Over multiple years, below grade-level content learning limits ELs’ science knowledge as well as access to secondary and post-secondary STEM programs and careers.

How can we make access to science more equitable? Here are three actions you can take in your own classroom to build science literacy, setting your ELs on a path toward success.…Read More

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