Administrative support is a key element in establishing effective implementation of any program or initiative, including Dual Language and teaching for biliteracy. However, there is a misconception that in order for administrators to effectively support a Dual Language and/or a biliteracy program, they have to speak the languages of that program. In this post, Alyssa St. Hilaire, the Bilingual Coordinator for the Kennewick School District, shares how a walk through process allowed monolingual administrators have some powerful take-aways about how they could continue to support the dual language program in their schools.

About the author: Alyssa St. Hilaire

Alyssa St. Hilaire is in her 4^th year as Bilingual Coordinator for the Kennewick School District.  A graduate from University of Eastern Washington, Alyssa has taught high school world language Spanish for eight years.  During that time, she earned a Masters of Arts in Spanish Language and Literature through the University of Northern Iowa.  In 2008, Alyssa transitioned to administration and has worked as an assistant principal and principal at a middle school with a dual language strand.  Alyssa is fluent in Spanish and English and is passionate about promoting biliteracy.  Her husband speaks Spanish and they are raising their two daughters bilingually.

Alyssa St. Hilaire trabaja como coordinadora de programas bilingües para el distrito escolar de Kennewick, es su 4º año en este puesto.  Ella se graduó de la Universidad de Washington al este.  Antes, ella enseño Español en la secundaria como idioma mundial por ocho años.  Durante su enseñanza, ganó su maestría en la literatura y lenguaje de Español de the Universidad de Iowa al Norte.  En 2008, cambió su profesión a administración escolar y trabajó como directora asistente y directora de una escuela con un programa dual. Alyssa habla Inglés y Español y tiene una pasión para el biliterismo.  Su esposo hable Español y ellos crecen sus hijos en una casa bilingüe.

Part 1: How a Susan (bilingual educator) can help a Kelly (monolingual educator)  learn about middle school dual language: Building advocacy for your K-8 dual language program.

Anyone who has been to the Teaching for Biliteracy Summer Institute remembers the Reader’s Theater activity and learning to identify with Monica (U.S. born Latina; simultaneous bilingual), Elena (Foreign born and trained; sequential bilingual), Susan (U.S. born, learned Spanish as a second language; sequential bilingual) or Kelly (monolingual English speaker).  For me it was Susan.  I started studying Spanish in high school, continued in college and become a high school Spanish teacher.  I’m pretty good at spelling with the hache muda, b de burro y v de vaca,  accents on the right vowels and can teach the difference between preterit and imperfect in my sleep.  But I do feel intimidated around the Monicas because I speak Spanish with a very heavy English accent.  Sometimes it takes me a few tries to get Spanish from my brain and out of my mouth.  But I love Spanish.  I love traveling.  I love culture. And I love that learning Spanish has helped me see the world from a multilingual lens.

Fast forward 10 years.  No longer a Spanish teacher. Life has taken me from teaching, to building principal to my present role as a district bilingual coordinator.  Our district has four dual language elementary programs and two middle school programs.  Dual language has been in the district for 12 years and had a transitional bilingual program before switching to dual language.

In my current role as bilingual coordinator, my “Susan background” helps when looking at curriculum, programs and professional development.  Not having learned Spanish foundational skills as a child, I rely on the Elenas and Monicas who teach in our dual language programs and attended bilingual programs as children.  With a multilingual lens, it’s easy to see why it’s important to teach these skills authentically and not a la inglés.

As with most districts, many administrators are like Kelly.  Kennewick doesn’t have many bilingual administrators but we do have excellent administrators who support bilingual programs.  It’s my responsibility to help them understand and learn about looking at programs through a multilingual lens.  We do this through committee work and professional development.  Some of the more powerful professional development for Kelly’s are learning walks in dual language classrooms.

This year, our middle school principals at our two schools with dual language programs set goals to visit each other’s schools and complete a learning walk in the dual classrooms.  Our first learning walk occurred in November and our second one will take place in February.  There are two documents attached to this blog to help set up the learning walk: One is background into that was shared with principals.  The other is a biliteracy journey guide that was created by one of our biliteracy coaches.  Here was the agenda of our learning walk.  Psst: If all you look at in this post is this (Where Should I be in my Biliteracy Journey), it will be worth your while.

Here was the agenda of our learning walk:

When we were visiting each of the classrooms, we would discuss what we saw on the walls, what students were working on, Spanish we heard in the class, etc.  Below are the big takeaways I observed from our administrators:

Three takeaways for the “Kelly Administrators”:

1. PLC time with general education (gen ed) strands will look different.

During our introduction, we discussed the challenges of having a strand at a school on the master schedule, common planning time, keeping pace with gen ed counterparts. The dual classes work on all of the same standards but may look different.  If they are working on a standard in Spanish Language Arts, they may not have data to share on a common assessment.  This is a struggle and flexibility (with accountability) is needed.  This occurs in both the elementary and secondary programs.

2. Not all Spanish Learners will be Caucasian.

One of the administrators was surprised to see so many Hispanic students in class.  It was a great time to remind him that we do have Hispanic students enter the program on the English lottery placement side of the program.  We also talked about placing recently arrived Spanish speakers into dual programs whenever possible to help with their language acquisition while having access to content.  Because of these two reasons, a dual language middle school class will not look like 50% Caucasian and 50% Hispanic.

3. Language scaffolding (pictures and realia) is very important for learning.

The administrators were able to follow along with the lessons because of the GLAD (Guided Language Acquisition Design) strategies the teachers were using.  They knew what subjects were being taught by the information up on the walls and pictures that were up in the classroom.  The learning walk occurred during Spanish time and the administrators needed those supports to follow.  It was an excellent way for them to feel what a difference the biliteracy and GLAD strategies make for our biliteracy students.  In a dual language program, these supports are needed for both the Spanish and English learners.  It also ties into the biliteracy journey handout that is attached. Even though administrators are monolingual English speakers, they can recognize strategies and help encourage their staff to keep building on their biliteracy instructional strategies.

In February, we will get together again to visit another school.  The middle school we will be visiting is in its first year of a dual language program.  It has two one-way dual language programs that feed into it.   Stay tuned for lots of pictures of a middle school classroom using biliteracy strategies.