Special Education Teachers

Considerations when Educating Bilingual Learners with Identified Learning Disabilities

Essential question: What do educators need to consider in order to effectively plan for the education of bilingual learners identified with learning disabilities?

Guiding Questions: 

• Unit 1: What are the learning profiles of bilingual learners with identified learning disabilities?
• Unit 2: What are the laws that address the education of bilingual learners with learning disabilities? What are educators' obligations under these laws?
• Unit 3: What are the factors to consider when planning instruction for bilingual learners with learning disabilities?
• Unit 4: Why is it necessary for educators to collaborate with qualified professionals (i.e., SLP, language specialists) when planning effective instruction for bilingual learners with learning disabilities? How can this collaboration generate educational change for bilingual learners with LDs?
• Unit 5: How do educators identify, administer and evaluate instructional accommodations for bilingual learners with learning disabilities?
• Unit 6: Answer the Essential Question

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Grouping Strategies for Multilingual Classrooms (Grades K-12)*

Essential Question: How can I maximize opportunities for all learners in a multilingual setting?

Guiding Questions:

• Unit 1:  What are the dynamics of grouping and regrouping in a multilingual classroom?
• Unit 2: What is the unique nature of teaching and learning in groups where some students are fluent in the language of instruction and others are not?
• Unit 3: What is the nature of grouping where all students are second language learners of the language of instruction
• Unit 4:  How can I support students learning in their home language and connect it to their learning in English?
• Unit 5: How can I build on the opportunities of a multilingual classroom in my planning?
• Unit 6: Answer the Essential Question

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Language and Concept Development (Grades K-12)

Essential Question: How can I provide bilingual learners the greatest opportunities to acquire both the knowledge and the language needed to be successful in my classroom?

Guiding Questions:

• Unit 1: How do I distinguish the key concepts of instruction from the language used to communicate about them?
• Unit 2: How do I identify and make understandable the essential concepts of the curriculum?
• Unit 3: How can I uncover the language demands of my instruction?
• Unit 4: How can I support students in taking on the language demands of content instruction?
• Unit 5: How can teachers engage families in order to help students (and themselves) access and deepen what students know about the topics of instruction?
• Unit 6: Answer the Essential Question

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Learning Through Two Languages (Grades K-12)

Essential Question: How can we build on students’ linguistic and cultural assets to foster additive bilingualism?

Guiding Questions:

• Unit 1: How does speaking a language other than English benefit students in U.S. schools?
• Unit 2: How do bilingual learners access information and express what they know when they are learning through two languages?
• Unit 3: How is teaching on the “Second Language Pathway” different from teaching on the first?
• Unit 4: How do bilingual learners transfer the knowledge they have gained through one language to express themselves in another language?
• Unit 5: How can I help bilingual students increase their communicative competence in a second language?
• Unit 6: Answer the Essential Question

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Second Language Acquisition (Grades K-12)

Essential Question: How can my knowledge about second language acquisition improve my instruction with bilingual students?

Guiding Questions:

• Unit 1: What are the similarities and differences between learning a first language and second language? Why does this matter in your classroom?
• Unit 2: What are the similarities and differences between social and academic language? How does your school attend to the social and academic repertoires of your students?
• Unit 3: How am I providing cognitively challenging tasks for learners at all language levels? What types of scaffolds am I providing for my bilingual learners?
• Unit 4: How can I incorporate native languages in instruction to support bilingualism and academic achievement?
• Unit 5: How can the knowledge of language proficiency levels help me differentiate instruction for my bilingual students?
• Unit 6: Answer the Essential Question

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What is Language? (Grades K-12)

Essential Question:  How does my understanding of what language is and how it functions guide me to be a more effective teacher for all students but especially for bilingual students who are in the developmental stages of learning English?

Guiding Questions:

• Unit 1: What are ways to think about language when it is not or is in addition to English
• Unit 2: What are the possibilities for the forms, sounds, and functions of language? How do they work?
• Unit 3: How does language function for learning in the classroom?
• Unit 4: What is the role of English in schools and classrooms when it is not the only or not the first language of many of the students?
• Unit 5: What ways of using languages can lead to success in my content area classroom?
• Unit 6: Answer the Essential Question

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“I realized that my MLLs needed more time to work together and be allowed to use languages other than English to share their ideas while they were learning.”

(eWorkshop Completer)