Think Aloud Protocols: Teaching Reading Processes to Young Bilingual Students

This digest describes the use of think-aloud protocols with young bilingual children. Qualitative findings from a small study with 12 first through third grade students in dual language programs demonstrated that think-alouds were used effectively with elementary school emergent bilingual learners. The evidence from this study suggests that instruction in reading strategies should be given to young bilingual students and that more research needs to be done in this area.https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ceel_journalarticles/1008/thumbnail.jp

No.6, December 2017: District Administrators\u27 Perspectives on the Impact of The Local Control Funding Formula on English Learners

Two years into implementation, this policy brief examines how California’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) and its accompanying Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) meet the needs of English Learners (ELs). Researchers seek to understand district administrator perspectives on the impact of LCFF for ELs through interviews and focus groups with administrators that represent districts from Northern, Central, and Southern California. Findings reveal that although the LCAP serves as a mechanism to increase personnel and PD efforts to address EL needs, it is still largely viewed as a compliance document that requires alignment with other strategic documents and is sensitive to changes in leadership. The following policy recommendations are made as a result of these findings: 1) re-design the LCAP to support districts in specifying EL learning goals, services, assessments and expected outcomes; 2) differentiate support for district administrators; and 3) invest (long-term) in district-level and site-level professional development with a focus on EL success.https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ceel_education_policybriefs/1005/thumbnail.jp

No.8, July 2020: Examining English Learners’ College Readiness and Postsecondary Enrollment in California

Given a growing asset-based approach to equipping English Learners (ELs) with the knowledge and skills to enter and succeed in postsecondary education, this brief examines ELs’ college readiness and postsecondary education outcomes in California. It includes a brief summary of relevant literature on college readiness among EL students. Researchers then present data retrieved from the California Department of Education on college readiness and postsecondary education. The results show that EL students lack access to college preparatory courses, have a low rate of meeting the state’s College/Career Indicator, and enroll in postsecondary education at lower rates than other groups. This policy brief concludes with recommendations for state-, district-, and school-level improvements for ELs’ college readiness and postsecondary enrollment.https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ceel_education_policybriefs/1007/thumbnail.jp

Mapping Writing Development in Young Bilingual Learners

A growing interest in Two-Way Bilingual Immersion (TWBI) programs has led to increased attention to bilingualism, biliteracy, and biculturalism. This article describes the writing development in Spanish and English for 49 kindergarten students in a 50/50 Two-Way Bilingual Immersion program. Over the course of an academic year, the authors collected writing samples to analyze evidence of cross-linguistic resource sharing using a grounded theoretical approach to compare and contrast writing samples to determine patterns of cross-linguistic resource sharing in English and Spanish. The authors identified four patterns: phonological, syntactic, lexical, and metalinguistic awareness. Findings indicated that emergent writers applied similar strategies as older bilingual students, including lexical level code-switching, applied phonological rules of L1 to their respective L2s, and used experiential and content knowledge to write in their second language. These findings have instructional implications for both English Learners and native English speakers as well as for learning from students for program improvement.https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ceel_journalarticles/1001/thumbnail.jp

The Observation Protocol for Academic Literacies (OPAL); A Tool for Supporting Teachers of English Language Learners

Schools and school systems are experiencing an instructional support gap that results in limited opportunities for educators to analyze, reflect on and improve research-based practices for ELLs so that outcomes for culturally and linguistically diverse students can change. To address this need, an inter-disciplinary research team from the Center for Equity for English Learners, comprised of educational leaders, teachers, researchers, and content experts developed a classroom observational instrument—the Observation Protocol for Academic Literacies (OPAL). The OPAL is intended for teachers, educational leaders, coaches, and others to conduct focused classroom observations for three potential purposes: research/evaluation, professional development, and coaching. In this article the authors introduce the OPAL’s research base, describe how to use the OPAL tool, and provide examples of the applied use of the OPAL to support professional learning and evaluate a three-year school reform effort.https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ceel_journalarticles/1000/thumbnail.jp

An Exploratory Study of Bilingual Teacher Residencies in California.

This research brief presents a study that explores the underexamined area of bilingual teacher residencies (BTRs) in California. The authors build upon research on teacher residencies to better understand the perspectives of program leaders- those who implement BTRs in Local Education Agencies (LEAs) and Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs). The study describes the program leaders’ insights into the implementation of BTRs at various stages of development and implementation based on the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing’s (CTC) funding phases from 2018 to 2023. Four findings are highlighted: 1) Forging New Relationships to Build on Community Cultural and Linguistic Wealth, 2) Designing Bilingual Teacher Residency District-University Partnerships and Programs, 3) The Burden of Support: Augmented Financial Barriers for Bilingual Teacher Residents and, 4) Bilingual Teacher Pedagogies: Critical Consciousness and Culturally Responsive Teaching. Based upon the findings, the research brief proposes three key recommendations for policy and practice to address the ongoing and projected California’s bilingual teacher shortages at the state and local levels: 1) Create Coherent and Articulated Cross-State Agency Efforts, 2) Differentiate Bilingual Networks of Support, and 3) Strengthen Bilingual Teacher Residency Communities of Practice.https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ceel_journalarticles/1013/thumbnail.jp

California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE) Position Statement on Ebonics

In this position statement, the authors write in support of Ebonics (also known as African American Vernacular English, Black English, Black Dialect, and African American Language) as a legitimate language. The linguistic and cultural origins of Ebonics is traced, along with its legitimacy by professional organizations and the courts. CABE asserts that the role of schools and teachers is therefore to build on students’ knowledge of Ebonics rather than replace or eradicate Ebonics as they teach standard English. This position statement has implications for teacher training.https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/whitepapersandstatements/1000/thumbnail.jp

The Observation Protocol for Academic Literacies: Conceptual Framework and Validation Report

The Observation Protocol for Academic Literacies (OPAL) conceptual framework and validation report describes the development of the OPAL instrument and the results of the validation study that confirms OPAL as a research-based tool to measure classroom practices for ELs. The OPAL development began in 2006 as a research-based behavioral observation tool that measures teacher practices and classroom interactions from a sociocultural language acquisition perspective. It utilizes a six-point Likert- scale (1-Low – 6-High) to rate instruction across four domains and 18 indicators: 1) Rigorous and Relevant Curriculum, 2) Connections, 3) Comprehensibility, and 4) Interactions. The instrument allows for anecdotal notes to be taken during the observations. This report is organized into two sections: 1) the conceptual framework–including the underlying sociocultural perspectives and effective teaching practices for ELs with the description of the four domains; and 2) the technical report describing the validation study–including phases of development, content validity, construct validity, and data analysis and results. Key highlights from this report position the OPAL as a valid and reliable measure of instructional practices that can support teachers of ELs in refining the content and language development of ELs given that the OPAL: standardizes the description of research-based practices for ELs has content validity for measuring the optimal classroom conditions that bolster EL’s academic achievement has construct validity for each of the four domains as measured by confirmatory factor analysis is proven to be a reliable tool as measured by the Cronbach’s Alpha The final chapter of the report provides recommendations for the OPAL for professional development and for examining teaching and learning for school reform and for conducting research that leads to improvement of EL outcomes. Further research to establish the predictive validity of the OPAL is also implied.https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ceelreports/1002/thumbnail.jp

Falling Short on The Promise to English Learners: A Report on Year One LCAPs

California’s Local Control Funding Formula was signed into law in California in 2013 and allowed districts the flexibility to meet their student needs in locally appropriate manners. One year after its implementation, a panel of 26 reviewers, including educators, English Learner (EL) advocates, and legal services staff reviewed the Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAPs) to understand how districts employ this flexibility to address the needs of ELs. The report uses the English Learner Research-Aligned LCAP Rubrics with 10 focus areas, and reviews sample LCAPs from 29 districts, including districts with the highest numbers/percentages of English Learners in the state, districts representative of California’s geographic Regions, and districts providing quality EL services. The review centers around four questions of the extent to which first-year LCAPs: (1) specify goals and identify outcomes for ELs, (2) identify action steps and allocate funds for increased or improved services for all types of ELs, (3) reflect research-based practices for achieving language proficiency and academic achievement for English Learners in their actions, programs and services, and (4) are designed and implemented with EL parent input as reflected in stakeholder engagement. The results indicate that overall, the LCAP is inadequate as part of the state’s public accountability system in ensuring equity and access for ELs. Six key findings were: (1) difficulty in discerning funding allocations related to EL services and programs; (2) inability to identify districts’ plans for increased services for ELs; (3) lack of explicitly specified services and programs aligned to EL needs; (4) weak approach or missing English Language Development (ELD) or implementation of ELD standards in most LCAPs; (5) weak/inconsistent representation of EL parent engagement; and (6) lack of EL student outcome measures. The authors also present detailed findings for each focus topic and offer district and state level recommendations.https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ceelreports/1003/thumbnail.jp

No. 13, January 2024: Bilingual Teacher Residencies in California: Findings and Recommendations for Policy and Practice

This research brief presents a study that explores one type of teacher residency program, bilingual teacher residencies (BTRs). The Center for Equity for English Learners at Loyola Marymount University (LMU CEEL) partnered with the Californians Dedication to Education Foundation (CDEF) to investigate BTRs participating in CDEF’s California Teacher Residency Lab (The Lab). To expand the knowledge base around bilingual teacher residencies and provide policy and practice recommendations, researchers conducted interviews with a sample of BTR grantee program leaders to capture and analyze their perspectives regarding BTRs based on their implementation phase and context. Four key findings emerged: (1) Bilingual Teacher Residencies are building on community cultural and linguistic wealth; (2) Bilingual Teacher Residencies focus on critical consciousness and culturally responsive and sustaining teaching; (3) Strong district-university partnerships facilitated collaborative program design and problem solving; and (4) Candidates in BTRs face greater financial barriers to becoming teachers than other teacher residency candidates. Based upon the findings, the authors propose three recommendations for policy and practice to ensure California’s BTRs can serve as a vehicle for addressing bilingual teacher shortages at the state and local levels: (1) Ensure systemic coherence and information sharing across agencies and efforts; (2) Build on the efforts of the California Teacher Residency Lab (The Lab) as well as the newly formed State Regional Technical Assistance Center (SRTAC) to provide differentiated, high-quality technical assistance/supports; and (3) Ensure sustainability of BTRs into the future through funding and knowledge building.https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ceel_education_policybriefs/1014/thumbnail.jp