SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hi, welcome to another episode of the Linguistic Justice Project. My name is Tania Flores Segundo, and I'm excited to have a new guest, Karen Thompson, and she's amazing. I met her at a conference for multilingual learners through OSU, and I'm excited to have you here. If you can tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, and anything awesome that you want to share.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Sure. Thanks so much for having me. So I am a professor in the College of Education at Oregon State University. I serve as the department head for the Department of Educational Practice and Research currently. I've worked for a long time in our ESOL and dual language program at OSU, and I'm a former bilingual elementary school teacher.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

That's awesome. Thank you so much for sharing a little bit about you. And um what um what is the latest thing? I'm just gonna go like right in. What is the latest thing that you're passionate about in regards to multilingual learners?

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Yeah, well, I think I'll talk about um two different things. One is um providing access to professional development for teachers of multilingual learners. So for the past 10 years, I've been um leading a project, as you know, um that you participated in um through OSU called Teachers Educating All Multilingual Students to provide funding for teachers to get their ESL endorsement or dual language specialization. And so we've been able to support over 200 teachers in Oregon to get their ESL endorsement or dual language specialization. And I yeah, I'm really passionate about making sure that teachers have the tools they want and need to be the best educators they can be for multilingual students, and we've seen really um major increases in teachers, the confidence that they have in using practices that are effective for multilingual learners who've participated in the program. So um I am excited about that. And also um I do research focused on students' access, multilingual learners, student access to core content courses at the secondary level. Um I would say that the reason I got interested in that topic, there there are a few different reasons, but um when as as I said, I was a bilingual elementary school teacher, and when I was in graduate school getting my PhD, I decided to follow some of my former students who were in fourth grade when I taught them, but were seniors in high school when I was writing my dissertation. So for part of my dissertation, I interviewed my former students during their senior year of high school. I shadowed them in high school and I interviewed their them and their teachers and and their parents. And um I just in some cases was really surprised by um you know what I learned. And um, for example, I learned that many students um experienced a lot of challenges in their math courses in high school, um, not having access to instruction that was um meaningful to them. Um in some cases, looking at their schedules, I had questions about why they were in certain courses they were in. And so it just made me think more about um, I, you know, having been an elementary school teacher, I didn't know very much about the challenges of designing a master schedule at the secondary level and figuring out um how to um how to have you know robust, engaging content that's accessible for all students at the secondary level. So raise some questions about that. And meanwhile, um my friend and um collaborator, Dr. Eliana Umansky, who's at the University of Oregon, she was doing research about multilingual learners' access to core content. And she was uncovering some concerning things, um, documenting what she called exclusionary tracking. So um more commonly, we've thought about leveled tracking where students might be in a lower or higher level of a specific course, like a student who's in algebra versus a student who's in AP calculus, they're in different levels of math, but she uncovered that students, including multilingual learners, sometimes were excluded from any course in a particular content area. So a student who is enrolled in no math course in a given year or no English language arts course. And so, yeah, for quite a while now she and I have been looking at the extent to which this is happening and also trying to identify levers that support students' access to core content and making sure that what if when they're in core content um courses that that access is meaningful, that they're really um getting engaging learning opportunities in those core content courses. So anyway, that's a long-winded answer, but those are a few things that that we've been looking at and developing some resources about. Um and Oregon has also passed some interesting um policies that have shifted the landscape about access to core content in Oregon. So we're um looking at how those policies are being implemented too. I'm happy to elaborate on that if that would be useful.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Yeah, no, thank you so much for sharing about um what happens to multilingual learners at the secondary level. With I I worked at the high school for six years and I'm continuing to support the high school. And that's uh it it it's uh it's it doesn't feel right to know to look at the students' schedules and to know that may sure they need to be served, uh, they need to have the language services, and at the same time, they need to have access to those challenging courses that they need for their future careers. And they don't um they might not even know that they uh that's an opportunity for them because they're still in the language, uh they're being served with language services. And one of the things that I think about when I think about students accessing challenging courses is once they're there, it opens up a window of opportunities for them, maybe things that they didn't know, connections with other peers who are thinking, you know, beyond the surface level of instruction that they could receive. And it really opens doors. But oftentimes they don't uh not everyone, but some students maybe lack the ability to self-advocate for what they need and you know what they're what's gonna help them in the future. And parents um oftentimes don't know what they need either. And it's it's it's pretty um unfortunate, and I and that was one of the reasons that I actually that was one of the reasons that um motivated me to continue with my studies until I got my doctorate degree. But then while I was there, or you know, I already have it, it's hard to help them because you have to kind of like fight the system that's already there, and the system is already limiting them. And how do you approach that system that limits them? And you're just one person, and everybody wants the best for them. And sometimes, you know, people think this is the best for them, but you know, like this is the best for them, and the students don't quite know this is the it's it's it's a lot of work and it's not an easy solution.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Yeah, definitely. I I think that one thing that um has been exciting to see is some cases that I've gotten to learn about where there has been a systemic approach to try to shift towards more um specifically more multilingual core content opportunities at the secondary level. So um Forest Grove High School, for example, um, there was actually a participant um in our teams program who used to um be a math teacher there, who was the person who let me know about this um shift that happened at Forest Grove High School where they um had quite a few newcomer students who were arriving in ninth grade. Um, and many of the students had um were ready for algebra one, um, but it was challenging for them to be successful in an algebra one course taught entirely in English when they just had arrived in the US. And so over time, Forrest Grove um was able to implement uh an Algebra One course in Spanish for their newcomer students and just allow them to be able to um have access to that content in Spanish while having them have um English language development opportunities so they could build their English language skills and then transition to um math and English um in future years. So I think, you know, also um this year the Washington State Teacher of the Year is a high school math teacher. Um her name's um Gabriela Maria Whitemarsh, and she teaches at PASCO High School in PASCO, Washington, and she has been able to build um bilingual math opportunities, um including, I believe, dual credit math opportunities, um through you know some systemic support at the district level and in partnership with um post-secondary um institutions there. So I think it's really exciting to see creative ways that um students are um able to access content um in Spanish or other languages as one strategy of increasing access to core content.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Yeah, it's exciting and it's awesome to hear about stories of you know, people go out of their way to make sure that students get what they need in order for them to be successful and reach those opportunities that they're with enhanced. Um they can almost reach them, but they can't because there's a lot of obstacles. Um, that's really cool to hear. Um when you were talking about your uh research to access um core content, core content for English learners. And and one of the questions that I have for you is when you think about access for students who are multilinguals, what feels most on misunderstood by educators? Because many educators think I'm already doing the the best I can. Yeah, this and that.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

And yeah, if you can, yeah, yeah, sure. Um I think two different things come to mind. One, um, I think Ilana and I have noticed that in every single district or state where we've looked to see if multilingual learners are experiencing exclusionary tracking at rates that are higher than English-only peers, we have found that to be true. And a lot of times we've found that people are surprised by the extent to which um this exclusionary tracking is happening. So I I think um we we actually developed a tool for leaders, um, could be at a school level or a district level or a state level to use to try to actually look at data that they might have to just understand how many of your students who are classified as English learners are enrolled in a language arts course? How many are enrolled in a math course, how in any math, how many are enrolled in um social study science, et cetera, and how does that compare for other students? Um, and I think so so just helping educators engage in this, you can basically think of it as an as an equity audit. I think some sometimes um administrators have a sense of like, oh yeah, we're making sure that all our students are who are multilingual learners are enrolled in math. But when we actually look at the data, sometimes we see that that's not playing out the way that that um is intended. So I think it is really important to just try to look at data and gather information at the most basic level of like who is in um these courses. And then in that tool, we also point out some of the levers that seem to be from our research um associated with greater access to core content. And um so we have some reflection questions that people can use to um reflect on that. I think that um another thing that when we think about what access means, I think you know, there's been a more more and more of a push to include students as key decision makers in their own educational trajectories. So really encouraging teachers, and I know you know many teachers are already doing this, but to think about not whether they feel like they're providing access to the material they're teaching, but whether their students feel like they're getting access to that material. So to really um expand opportunities for student voice and student um reflection on their own experiences. Um I think that yeah, I I've heard of um districts that have um done things like following students for a day to get see the how they're experiencing school. Um do things like youth truth listening sessions where you know students are sharing more of their experiences. Um, you know, we have also done some work on um it's sometimes not um um uh talked about that much, but under federal law, students, families um or students themselves at their 18 or over have the right to waive English learner services. And we see that in Oregon, there is actually quite a high percentage of students who are waiving services, especially by the end of high school. And so I think really taking seriously why might students be waiving services, listening to them and their families, and thinking about what are they, are they waiving services so they can have access to something that they don't have access to because they are scheduled into an ELD class when they feel like they might be better served by doing something else. I think we actually have a new paper that's coming out soon looking at the effects of waiving EL services on course taking and graduation. And we see that students, this is using data from Oregon, students who waive EL services compared to similar students who don't waive services, are enrolled in more electives and are more likely to graduate. And there may be differences, um, but in Oregon has changed some things. So now under access to Oregon's access to linguistic inclusion policy, which shifts graduation requirements in ways that are designed to remove barriers to graduation for multilingual learners. Um ELD classes in the past only counted as elective credits, but now could potentially in some cases count for language arts credit or for world language credit. So that might remove a reason why students may have been waiving services in the past. And our research was from before access to linguistic inclusion was passed. Um, but anyway, just trying to understand um what students want and whether they're getting that and how they're they're already advocating for themselves and um or families are advocating and how we can um be as responsive as possible to what they feel like they need to.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Yeah, I work with uh teenage students who talk about wanting to opt out of the class and waive services because they want to access more electives like you were just describing, or take college courses. But then oftentimes that could be frowned upon because these are students that legally have to be there until they have proven proficiency through the ELPA in Oregon, ELPA 21. And um it's there's and even that's an idea, and then making the idea happen, it's an ordeal because you know they're not 18, they have to get parents' permission, the parent can come because they work. So getting out of those services, there's a lot of obstacles to getting out of those services, but oftentimes the reason is because they want to access other electives, they want to access uh work experience or uh college courses. Yeah, yeah. That's an interesting one because there's a lot of obstacles to get out of the services.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Yes, absolutely. Uh, there's um a colleague of mine, Dr. Monica Brooks, who's now the dean of the College of Education at Portland State University. She has done research with young adults documenting their experiences trying to get out of services when they were classified as English learners. And um, it's really fascinating to hear their stories of the barriers they faced and um and supports that in some cases enabled them to do that. But um yeah, her her research is very interesting. It also makes me think of another factor we've looked at in access to core content is extra instructional time. So we see ways in which, in some cases, schools or districts are able to configure opportunities for students that expand the amount of time they have available so they could potentially access those elective courses, whether that's a longer school day or summer opportunities or evening opportunities or virtual opportunities, um, because there are there's a lot that students want to do and um it it can be a challenge, but we but it extra instructional time is associated unsurprisingly with access to core content.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Um does your research talk about um or or maybe um a colleague of yours talks about how um best services to support students who qualify for for language services is to do um integrated teaching, such as collaborating with uh the language arts department and providing services through co-teaching or um by working with the teacher. I this is this is with my bias. I believe that the best way to support multilingual learners who are not newcomers, um, but they have a couple of years of experience in learning the language is by co-teaching rather than a specific yieldly course. And there I don't know if I think of the schools that I visited in the districts that I know, uh, the majority of the students who receive language services are intermediate advanced students, and few students are newcomers that need like specific support. What do you what do you think about that or what research has?

SPEAKER_00 21:00

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Thanks so much for for raising that topic. Um so together with the um Ilana and some colleagues, um doc students at U of O and OSU, we have been doing analysis looking at um the association between students who are receiving integrated ELD compared to students who aren't, and their outcomes, um, course taking and um ELPA growth. Um and we find that it's actually that it's very complicated. So um from my experience, I agree with you that there are a lot of rich opportunities that can happen when um teachers are co teaching, when a language specialist is is potentially pushing into um a content area classroom. Um and my Colleague Amanda Kibler at OSU and I have been convening a group of district leaders who are working to implement integrated ELD for quite a few years now to talk about problems of practice, how to how to make integrated ELD as robust and successful as possible. We actually developed a guide with um co-authored by probably 15 different district leaders in Oregon about it's a guide for district leaders about integrated ELD implementation. And I think what we're seeing in the kind of quantitative analysis that we're doing with Imana and doc students Jacqueline Bovey and Javi Karana is that it reminds me some of early research about dual language programs and their effect on student outcomes. Our research is not causal. We don't have a data structure that allows us to estimate the effect of integrated ELD on students' outcomes. But I think although it would be great to have a really clear answer that's like integrated ELD is always better than designated ELD. I think it makes sense that what we're seeing from our preliminary, our our our analysis is not finalized. We don't have our paper um complete yet. But I think it does make some intuitive sense that there's there are lots of factors that go into making integrated integrated ELD effective. For example, Amanda has done research with with other colleagues um looking at integrated DLD implementation. And sometimes, for example, teachers who are collaborating in a co-teaching model may not actually have much or any co-planning time. And so that really can limit the effectiveness of integrated ELD. So it seemed it it in theory could be a great model. But again, going back to those systemic questions, when the the larger school structure is not set up to enable that co-planning time to happen, then of course it's more challenging for the teachers, for the students to really benefit from the expertise of both teachers if they don't have time to plan together. Or we see teachers who language specialists who are collaborating with, you know, eight different teachers across four different content areas. And that is much more challenging than if you have fewer teachers you're collaborating with in a consistent content area. So um my former doc student who is a district leader in Corvallis, Marcian Kuti, she wrote her dissertation about the role of leadership in implementation of integrated ELD. Um, so just the importance of having a principal who understands why it's important to create structures that facilitate co-planning time, for example. Um and content area teachers who are also champions of integrated ELD, because if it's just the language specialist coming in and saying, hey, we're gonna collaborate, great, aren't you excited? That is not always a recipe for success either. Um, if there's no kind of comprehensive professional learning for the language specialist and the content teacher. So I think that integrated ELD can be great. Um, and at the same time, um, there's a lot that goes into trying to design structures that support its effectiveness.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

Yeah, it's it's it's challenging. I did co-teaching with three four teachers uh and throughout the years, and I think they had um good structures, but um another um key factor that placing to the success of integrated ELD is the relationship that the co-teacher, both co-teachers have, um, because it oftentimes can be hard to collaborate with somebody who said, Yeah, I'll do it, but doesn't really want to do it. They just said they want to do it because they can't say no, I don't want to do it. That does that's make you look good. So it's the finding a good match also matters. Um, people say yes because it's part of the job, you can't say no.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Yes, totally, and how how those there are just so many factors and and pros and cons in different ways, and how those matches are made, who's making the matches, how is it that's mandatory or optional? There are pros and cons there too. And yeah, yeah, I completely agree.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

I did co-teaching with the uh this uh senior uh he taught this guy, he taught uh 12th grade language arts, and it was amazing because he said yes to all my ideas. What about this? This this it was you know a dream, you know. It's like we people say yes, and um and I had another experience where uh there was just not a great communication because um there were no time, and the time that you know it was for collaboration that we had millions of separate things to do, and the time was there, but the time was used just it was just hard. Um, but yeah, it definitely needs to be a good match, as I feel I as I feel is the key ingredient, then the rest is important too, such as the structure you're describing.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Yeah, that makes sense. And I think it's hard to figure out what it looks like at scale. You know, Portland Public Schools has shifted to an integrated ELD model for most the vast majority of students at the high school level. So it's not it becomes mandated, and then there's limited say in who's collaborating, um, and and just what that looks like is complicated. We also have a um a literature review of co-teaching um in English language development context that um my informer postdoc, Jamie Burrow, um, led and a lot of people contributed to, so that it's really it's interesting to look at the prior literature. Jamie has a PhD in special education, and so our literature review, we started off looking at literature on co-teaching in special education because there's a long history of that. And we see, although the the literature review in its current form morphed into focusing really on um co-teaching and English language development, that special ed context is interesting, and and these issues that have been long standing in that literature about equity and voice in co-teaching relationships and um how to address that, the kind of models that people default to, um, and and ways to try to specifically work against that. That you know, there's often a default to the like one the what what um has been called the one teach, one assist model, that the linguist specialist becomes an assistant, and unless there's specific attention to not making that the model and and disrupting that, um, because um that's true. There are a lot of structures, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

There's a lot of models. Um I yeah, there was this um author, Dove, I forgot.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

I forgot the last name. But I read skilled than Dove, yeah, yeah. I read uh two of her books and I was like, yes, yes, yes. And at the time that um, you know, the different models and how you can do it, and the time uh yeah, if it it was just the communication, and communication was key to make it into a successful thing. Also, you know, a lot of structures like you grade differently differently than I do, and you would give it a 12 out of 20, and I give it an 8 out of 20. So those kinds of structures still matter in the co-teaching model. Yeah, the little details, you know, you have to be kind of like a partnership, like a wife and husband, which is hard.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

Yes, Amanda and colleagues have a new paper out about co-teaching based on observations and in multiple districts. And I am gonna get the exact title of the article wrong, but they started using music as a metaphor. Are you singing karaoke or playing in a band? Like thinking about the extent to which this is like one person leading things, or you're really all collaborating together to create the sound. Yeah, of something like that.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Yeah, I like that. Um, thank you so much for talking to us. I'm gonna ask you one more question, and I would love to uh talk to you more. For people that want to hear it out there, I need to be better uh promoting it so people can access it a little bit better. But you have really um a lot of information that I think is important. Uh the last question is if educators listening could change one practice tomorrow to expand access, what would you urge them to do?

SPEAKER_00 31:45

That is a a great question that's hard to answer. Um I guess I would say I'm guessing this is not um you know news to most people listening to this podcast, but I think that a very simple, actionable thing for any teacher is to really encourage and facilitate ways for students to use their full linguistic repertoires in um our classes in however that looks in your container area at your grade level and and facilitate um them having access to materials in multiple languages when possible. So that but but just the simple step of facilitating students using their full linguistic repertoires. It's maybe easier said than done, but I think it's a useful concept.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

Yeah, I I I agree with you. I'm reading this book, I forgot the title, but Ophelia is one of the authors.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

Yes, Ofelia Garcia, probably.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

She she's cool. Um she she taught, I think uh I'm in the beginning of the book, but she I as I was reading it, I was reflecting that it's easier for someone like me who's who speaks more than one language to be like, yeah, in Spanish and English, whatever you want, put it on. It's easy because I also speak. Right. But someone who only speaks English and is they don't speak a word of say Spanish, and it's hard for those teachers to encourage the students to use their full linguistic repertoire when uh it's not natural or they might not understand, or it might be weird to say it out loud in front of the all students because only three students can access more than one language. So it doesn't come totally natural. But I think that it's possible when the teacher is being encouraged and is aware of the benefits of that. So I think that um I would add to yours to you what you said to uh people who are listening encourage others to do it and build the confidence to just go for it even if they don't understand that language, the other language.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

Yes, yes, yes. And and it's great for all of us to model for students that we're always learning and we're always curious, and you know, students of any age enjoy being the teacher to their teachers and helping their teachers feel like, oh, yeah, even if we're just learning a few words and then in another language that we don't already know. I think that that is really powerful for students.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

Yeah, it's an opportunity for connection, building relationships. Yeah, yeah. Um, thank you so much. I put a little music, can't hear it, but it's there. Um I I really appreciate your time. I I would love to email you again so we can do this. Um, I want to see get better uh doing this. I even thought, what if I ask her to do this often and we can collaborate on this and invite a third person? Yeah, just throwing it out there. But thank you so much. Um