It was a dark and stormy night in Santa Barbara. January 19, 2017. The next day's inauguration drumroll played on the evening news. Huddled around a table were nine Corwin authors and their publisher, who together have devoted their careers to equity in education. They couldn't change the weather, they couldn't heal a fractured country, but they did have the power to put their collective wisdom about EL education upon the page to ensure our multilingual learners reach their highest potential. Proudly, we introduce you now to the fruit of that effort: Breaking Down the Wall: Essential Shifts for English Learners' Success. In this first-of-a-kind collaboration, teachers and leaders, whether in small towns or large urban centers, finally have both the research and the practical strategies to take those first steps toward excellence in educating our culturally and linguistically diverse children. It's a book to be celebrated because it means we can throw away the dark glasses of deficit-based approaches and see children who come to school speaking a different home language for what they really are: learners with tremendous assets. The authors' contributions are arranged in nine chapters that become nine tenets for teachers and administrators to use as calls to actions in their own efforts to realize our English learners' potential: 1. From Deficit-Based to Asset-Based 2. From Compliance to Excellence 3. From Watering Down to Challenging 4. From Isolation to Collaboration 5. From Silence to Conversation 6. From Language to Language, Literacy, and Content 7. From Assessment of Learning to Assessment for and as Learning 8. From Monolingualism to Multilingualism 9. From Nobody Cares to Everyone/Every Community Cares Read this book; the chapters speak to one another, a melodic echo of expertise, classroom vignettes, and steps to take. To shift the status quo is neither fast nor easy, but there is a clear process, and it's laid out here in Breaking Down the Wall. To distill it into a single line would go something like this: if we can assume mutual ownership, if we can connect instruction to all children's personal, social, cultural, and linguistic identities, then all students will achieve.

By now it's a given: if we're to help our ELLs and SELs access the rigorous demands of today's content standards, we must cultivate the "code" that drives school success: academic language. Look no further for assistance than this much-anticipated series from Ivannia Soto, in which she invites field authorities Jeff Zwiers, David and Yvonne Freeman, Margarita Calderon, and Noma LeMoine to share every teacher's need-to-know strategies on the four essential components of academic language. The subject of this volume is vocabulary. Here, Margarita Calderon reveals how vocabulary is best taught as a tool for completing and constructing more complex messages. With this book as your roadmap, you'll learn how to: Teach high-frequency academic words and discipline-specific vocabulary across content areas Utilize strategies for teaching academic vocabulary, moving students from Tier 1 to Tiers 2 and 3 words and selecting appropriate words to teach Assess vocabulary growth as you go Our vocabulary instruction must come from the texts our ELLs and SELs are about to read, not from a set of activities that teach words in isolation. This guidebook will help you get started as early as tomorrow. Better yet, read all four volumes in the series and put in place an all-in-one instructional plan for closing the achievement gap.

Your guide to culturally and linguistically sustaining practices in your dual language classroom and school. It’s time to set the record straight: Multilingualism is a tremendous asset that must be nurtured and valued and the most effective pathway to multilingualism is dual language education. Despite significant evidence attesting to the cognitive, social/emotional, and economic benefits of multilingualism, the majority of our classrooms and schools are monolingual. Encouragingly, recent shifts in state policies have increased the demand for dual language programming in our schools. This increased momentum brings new challenges, including the need for more bilingually authorized teachers, high-quality instructional resources, and accurate assessment and accountability in the target languages of instruction. With contributions from ten experts in multilingual education, Breaking Down the Monolingual Wall outlines the systemic and pedagogical approaches necessary for successful multilingual and dual language programs. The book supports educators to:  Shift the paradigm from one that is subtractive and deficit-based to one that is additive and assets-based Embed culturally and linguistically sustaining practices in their instruction Understand how to promote multilingualism in the context of teaching academic content Develop assessments as, for, and of learning in multiple languages. Lead high-quality dual language schools and programs Recruit and retain highly qualified bilingual educators Offering a comprehensive overview of bilingual policies and historical context all educators should understand, Breaking Down the Monolingual Wall is an invaluable guide to creating dual language learning environments that build on the precious assets of our multilingual students and families.

With funding from the Carnegie Corporation and the US Department of Education, Calderon and her associates developed the ExCELL (Expediting Comprehension for English Language Learners) model. From this successful program they created the ExC-ELL Observation Protocol - a tool for planning content lessons, coaching by literacy coaches not familiar with ELL instruction, supervision by administrators, teacher self-reflection, peer coaching, and conducting classroom research.

"This book is certain to be an indispensable guide to planning and practice in dual language schools. It is practical, down-to-earth, and firmly based in broad experience and research."
Robert Slavin, Co-Director
Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk
Johns Hopkins University

"Calderón and Minaya-Rowe have done an excellent job of presenting relevant research along with practical examples and suggestions, all in a highly readable and user-friendly format. This volume is an indispensable tool for teachers, administrators, and parents involved with dual language programs."
Liz Howard, Research Associate
Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, DC

"This book is an excellent resource for educators interested in developing bilingual capacity in American school children."
Diane August, Director
National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth

"A comprehensive compendium of dual language program implementation strategies and examples. An indispensable how-to book for school level administrators, teacher trainers, teachers, and parents."
Ana Maria Olezza, Director of Bilingual Programs
Hartford Public Schools, Connecticut

"This practical book can be used as a tool to transform schools into dual-language programs that focus on the improvement of school performance and language enrichment. It is written in a very pragmatic style and provides insights and frameworks supporting a school or district's systemic reform."
Anthony Amato, Superintendent
Hartford Public Schools, Connecticut

How can you provide a bilingual learning experience that includes high levels of achievement for both English-language learners and English-dominant students? What can you do to include all students in the adventure of learning a new language? Two-way bilingual education helps children maintain their cultural language as well as learn a new language?an invaluable skill in an increasingly integrated world.

Designing and Implementing Two-Way Bilingual Programs provides essential elements to help your students gain literacy in two languages, increase cross-cultural understanding, and meet high levels of achievement in all core academic areas.

This excellent resource provides school administrators, teachers, and parents with the basic knowledge necessary for planning and implementing an effective two-way bilingual program by:

• Promoting native-language literacy skills and balanced bilingualism
• Providing a standards-based education while promoting proficiency in two languages
• Helping all students gain cognitive and linguistic benefits from academic tasks that call for creativity and problem solving

This indispensable handbook also includes strategies for building learning communities for dual-language teachers, professional development plans that meet the specific needs of dual-language programs, and tips for involving parents.

.

After decades of experimentation with teaching language minority students, we are still confronted with an achievement gap between these students and their White Anglo counterparts that refuses to close. This gap widens, as students get older. This book is designed to help leadership teams at the school, district, and state levels to develop, implement and evaluate effective programmes for ELLs and all other students. Grounded in the author's extensive research on professional development and effective ELL instruction, the authors describe how professional development programmes integrate language, literacy, and subject matter for better results.