Breaking Down the Wall: Essential Shifts for English Learners Success

About Andrea HonigsfeldDebbie ZacarianDiane Staehr FennerIvannia SotoMargarita Espino CalderonMargo GottliebMaria G. DoveShawn M. Sinclair-SlakkTonya W. Singer

Dr. Margarita Espino Calderón born and raised in Juárez is a Professor Emerita/Senior Research Scientist at Johns Hopkins University. Her research and development projects have been funded by the US Department of Education National Institutes of Health the US Department of Labor The Carnegie Corporation of New York and various State Offices of Education. One of her empirical studies The Bilingual Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (BCIRC) is featured in the What Works Clearinghouse. The Carnegie Corporation of New York funded her five-year study to develop Expediting Comprehension for English Language Learners (ExC-ELL) to train math science social studies language arts and ESL teachers on integrating language reading and content in core content middle and high school classrooms. With a Title III National Professional Development grant she implemented A Whole-School Approach to Professional Development with ExC-ELL in Loudoun County VA. She replicated this approach in 29 schools in TX and NC. She served on the National Literacy Panel for Language Minority Children and Youth the Carnegie Corporation of New York Panel on English Language Adolescent Literacy Panel among other panels and national committees. She has over 100 publications on language literacy and professional development.  Maria G. Dove Ed.D is currently a Professor in the School of Education and Human Services at Molloy College Rockville Centre New York. Prior to working in higher education she spent over thirty years as an English-as-a-second-language teacher in public schools and adult English language programs. She is well-known for her professional development work across the United States focusing on culturally and linguistically diverse students. Doves work has led her to publish books articles and chapters on collaborative teaching practices and instructional strategies for English learners. In collaboration with Andrea Honigsfeld she has co-authored four best-selling Corwin Press books including Collaboration for English Learners: A Foundational Guide to Integrated Practices (2019). Diane Staehr Fenner PhD is the president of SupportEd (SupportEd.com) a woman-owned small business located in the Washington DC metro area that she founded in 2011. SupportEd is dedicated to empowering multilingual learners and their educators. Dr. Staehr Fenner leads her team to provide ML professional development coaching technical assistance and curriculum and assessment support to school districts states organizations and the U.S. Department of Education. Prior to forming SupportEd Dr. Staehr Fenner was an English language development (ELD) teacher dual language assessment teacher and ELD assessment specialist in Fairfax County Public Schools VA. She speaks German and Spanish and has taught in Berlin Germany and Veracruz Mexico. Dr. Staehr Fenner grew up on a dairy farm in central New York and is a proud first- generation college graduate. She has written eight books on ML education (and counting) including coauthoring Culturally Responsive Teaching for Multilingual Learners: Tools for Equity and authoring Advocating for English Learners: A Guide for Educators. She is a frequent keynote speaker on ML education at conferences across North America. She earned her PhD in Multilingual/Multicultural Education at George Mason University and her MAT in TESOL at the School for International Training. You can connect with her by email at Diane@SupportEd.com or on Twitter at @DStaehrFenner. Margo Gottlieb Ph.D. is a staunch advocate for multilingual learners and their teachers. As co-founder and lead developer of WIDA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2003 Margo has helped design and contributed to all the editions of WIDAs English and Spanish language development standards frameworks and their derivative products. Being a bilingual teacher facilitator consultant and mentor across K-20 settings she has worked with universities organizations governments states school districts networks and schools in co-constructing linguistic and culturally sustainable curriculum and reconceptualizing classroom assessment policy and practice. Margos passion has always been assessment in its many forms starting with her dissertation a K-12 multilingual test in Spanish Lao and English that integrated content and language. Since then she was appointed to national and state advisory boards served as a Fulbright Senior Scholar and was honored by the TESOL International Association in 2016 for her significant contribution to the field. In her travels Margo has enjoyed keynoting and presenting across the United States and in 25 countries. Having authored co-authored or co-edited over 100 publications including 20 books and guides Margos 3rd edition of her best-selling book Assessing Multilingual Learners: Bridges to Empowerment is the latest addition to her Corwin compendium. Andrea Honigsfeld EdD is Professor in the School of Education at Molloy University Rockville Centre New York. Before entering the field of teacher education she was an English-as-a-foreign-language teacher in Hungary (Grades 58 and adult) and an English-as-a-second-language teacher in New York City (Grades K3 and adult). She also taught Hungarian at New York University. She was the recipient of a doctoral fellowship at St. Johns University New York where she conducted research on individualized instruction and learning styles. She has published extensively on working with English language learners and providing individualized instruction based on learning style preferences. She received a Fulbright Award to lecture in Iceland in the fall of 2002. In the past twelve years she has been presenting at conferences across the United States Great Britain Denmark Sweden the Philippines and the United Arab Emirates. She coauthored Differentiated Instruction for At-Risk Students (2009) and co-edited the five-volume Breaking the Mold of Education series (20102013) published by Rowman and Littlefield. She is also the co-author of Core Instructional Routines: Go-To Structures for Effective Literacy Teaching K5 and 612 (2014) published by Heinemann. With Maria Dove she co-edited Coteaching and Other Collaborative Practices in the EFL/ESL Classroom: Rationale Research Reflections and Recommendations (2012) and co-authored Collaboration and Co-Teaching: Strategies for English Learners (2010) Common Core for the Not-So-Common Learner Grades K5: English Language Arts Strategies (2013) Common Core for the Not-So-Common Learner Grades 612: English Language Arts Strategies (2013) Beyond Core Expectations: A Schoolwide Framework for Serving the Not-So-Common Learner (2014) Collaboration and Co-Teaching: A Leaders Guide (2015) Coteaching for English Learners: A Guide to Collaborative Planning Instruction Assessment and Reflection (2018) Collaborating for English Learners: A Foundational Guide to Integrated Practices (2019) Co-Planning: 5 Essential Practices to Integrate Curriculum and Instruction for English Learners (2022).  She is a contributing author of Breaking Down the Wall: Essential Shifts for English Learner Success (2020) From Equity Insights to Action (2021) and Digital-Age Teaching for English Learners (2022). Nine of her Corwin books are bestsellers.   Tonya Ward Singer is the founder of Courageous Literacy LLC an organization that helps K-12 educators advance literacy and language learning in culturally and linguistically rich schools. Teachers and administrators describe Tonyas work as groundbreaking dynamic practical relevant and impactful. Tonya is the author of bestsellers EL Excellence Every Day and Opening Doors to Equity. She co-authored Breaking Down the Wall and literacy curricula for international publishers. Tonya has taught across multiple grade levels and excels as an international consultant helping schools build collective efficacy of all teachers through job-embedded impactful professional learning. Beyond her work in schools Tonya co-facilitates dialogues in non-profit organizations committed to truth seeking  and transforming legacies of racial oppression. Contact Tonya at:  @TonyaWardSinger www.tonyasinger.com   Shawn Slakk is the CEO and Founder of ABCDSS Consulting Consortium and works with teachers administrators school & state agencies to offer strategies and supports for emergent bilinguals and their classmates both K-12 and adults. He is co-author and developer of new professional development sessions for all levels of educators focusing on whole-school implementation administrative support and coaching.  As a former Certified WIDA Trainer and Title III SIOP Coach Shawn brings a wide understanding of a variety of strategies and how they relate to ELs language acquisition and lesson delivery.  He served as the Rethinking Equity and Teaching for English Language Learners (RETELL) Coordinator for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education where he and his team were responsible for developing implementing training trainers and evaluating a Sheltered English Instruction endorsement course for administrators and classroom teachers.  The RETELL endorsement is required in Massachusetts to obtain or retain an educator license with more than 40000 teachers and administrators earning this endorsement.  Throughout his career Shawn taught ESL in grades K-University Spanish across all grade levels and curriculums and even once taught Japanese to K-2 students.  He has served as an elementary and middle school administrator served at the Central Office level as a district coach and as a state level coordinator.  He started his teaching career teaching Adult ESL at Spokane Community College in Washington state. Shawns curriculum and instruction doctorate from the University of Virginia will focus on supporting the needs and instruction of additional-language learners and teachers in reading and writing. He holds an MA in TESOL from Eastern Washington University a Master of School Administration from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a bachelors in English and Spanish education from Whitworth University. Ivannia Soto PhD is a professor of education and the director of graduate programs at Whittier College where she specializes in language acquisition systemic reform for English language learners (ELLs) and urban education. She began her career in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) where she taught English and English language development to a population of 99.9% Latinos who either were or had been multilingual learners. Before becoming a professor Soto also served LAUSD as a literacy coach as well as district office and county office administrator. She has presented on literacy and language topics at various conferences including the National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE) the California Association for Bilingual Association (CABE) the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the National Council of Urban Education Associations. As a consultant Soto has worked with Stanford Universitys School Redesign Network (SRN) WestEd and CABE as well as a variety of districts and county offices in California providing technical assistance for systemic reform for ELLs and Title III. Recently Soto also directed a CABE bilingual teacher and administrator program across California. Soto has authored and coauthored 12 books including The Literacy Gaps: Bridge-Building Strategies for English Language Learners and Standard English Learners; ELL Shadowing as a Catalyst for Change a best seller that was recognized by Education TrustWest as a promising practice for ELLs in 2018; Moving From Spoken to Written Language With ELLs; the Academic English Mastery four-book series; the Common Core Companion four-book series for English language development; Breaking Down the Wall; and Responsive Schooling for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students. Together the books tell a story of how to equitably engage and include multilingual learners by ensuring that they gain voice and an academic identity in the classroom setting. Soto is executive director of the Institute for Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching (ICLRT) at Whittier College whose mission it is to promote relevant research and develop academic resources for ELLs and Standard English learners (SELs) via linguistically and culturally responsive teaching practices/ Dr. Debbie Zacarian founder of Zacarian & Associates provides professional development strategic planning and technical assistance for K-16 educators of culturally and linguistically diverse populations. She has served as an expert consultant for school districts universities associations and organizations including the Massachusetts Parent Information Resource Center and Federation for Children with Special Needs. Debbie has worked with numerous state and local education agencies and written the language assistance programming policies for many rural suburban and urban districts.  Debbie served on the faculty of University of Massachusetts-Amherst where she co-wrote and was the co-principal investigator of a National Professional Development grant initiative supporting the professional preparation of educators of multilingual learners.  Debbie also designed and taught courses for pre- and in-service administrators and teachers on culturally responsive teaching and supervision practices multilingual development and ethnographic research.  In addition she served as a program director at the Collaborative for Educational Services where she provided professional development for thousands of educators of multilingual students and partnered with Fitchburg State University in co-writing and enacting a National Professional Development initiative that supported STEM education. Debbie also directed the Amherst Public Schools bilingual and English learner programming where she and the district received state and national honors.  The author of more than 100 publications her most recent professional books include: Beyond Crises: Overcoming Linguistic and Cultural Inequities in Communities. Schools and Classrooms; Responsive Schooling for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students; Teaching to Empower: taking action to foster student agency self-confidence and collaboration; and Teaching to Strengths: Supporting Students living with Trauma Violence and Chronic Stress.