This article illustrates how two fourth-grade bilingual teachers transformed their writing instruction for bi/multilingual learners by integrating a functional approach to language and literacy teaching and learning. The authors use a systemic functional linguistics genre pedagogy to explore and elucidate the teachers' innovative instructional…

In December 2020, the WIDA Consortium released the "WIDA English Language Development Standards Framework, 2020 Edition." In the coming years, the 2020 Edition will be implemented across 36 states, the District of Columbia, and four territories and agencies in the US. The 2020 Edition also arrives at a time when the field of TESOL is…

Nationally, there is a rise in students who are dually classified as emergent bilinguals and students with disabilities. While conversations around disproportionality and the over-representation of emergent bilinguals in special education are important, that discourse does not address the needs of students currently classified. Overwhelmingly,…

Academic English has drawn criticism for its hegemonic status, and its dominance and legitimization as an "appropriate" language variety within academic and mainstream discourse communities have been problematized for stigmatizing home languages and dialects of multilingual and multidialectal students. However, students' proficiency in…

With a growing population of emergent bilingual learners in the United States, we are seeing more emergent bilinguals qualifying for special education services. Special education teachers must be prepared to meet the linguistic needs of their students in addition to disability related needs. One way of doing so involves adopting Culturally…

The number of children learning English entering U.S. schools continues to rise, yet the majority of classroom teachers remain English-dominant. Many teachers feel under-prepared to work with the growing number of multilingual students. However, they can draw on a familiar curricular structure, shared reading, to build on children's cultural and…

The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to the burgeoning of online, blended, and hybrid classrooms. The transition to virtual learning has been a challenge for many teachers and learners, but for multilingual learners (MLs) who have to navigate the virtual learning environment in a new language, online learning can be particularly difficult.…

Access to quality early care and education is particularly important for dual language learners (DLLs), as these years represent an important window for exposure and initial development of both English and their home languages. This fact sheet presents information about children under the age of 6 growing up speaking a language other than English…

The aim of this essay is to reflect on an alternative pedagogical model, family workshops, and see how they can serve as an unconventional approach to family engagement, as well as provide a practical recount of the work developed by the LISELL-B Project. This alternative and innovative model may serve as a practical guide for educators,…

This paper argues that home visits can play a critical role in identifying gifts and talents of bilingual students through students' funds of knowledge. Underrepresentation of students who are culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD), particularly bilingual children, in gifted programs has been a long-term concern in education. One problem of…

In this paper we discuss the value of multiculturalism in early childhood settings, barriers to cultural inclusion, and the importance of partnering with families of young children to enrich school learning and engagement. Examples from our work will provide illustrations of research-practice partnerships using asset-based, culturally grounded…

As schools seek to bridge the cultural and linguistic gap between special educators and students at the intersections of learning and language, the case described in this article illustrates how educators can continue to apply one of the key tenets of special education, the strengths-based approach. The hegemony of English has become so pervasive…

Language expresses our values and identities, but in educational spaces, multidialectical and multilingual students' voices are often silenced in favor of Standard English (Lockett, 2019). As writing tutors and future language arts educators, we have developed a research-based inclusive grammar curriculum and classroom-based resources to expand…

The United States is home to a culturally and linguistically diverse population of young children. In 2017, 10% of U.S. learners came from homes where languages other than English are spoken. Students who are learning English in addition to their native language(s) have the opportunity to become bilingual or multilingual in school. Thus, rather…

This curriculum case study describes the design and enactment of the Build a Better Book project with a group of Spanish-English bilingual high school students. Within an enriched literacy project-based learning instructional approach, students collaborated to design and fabricate multimodal 3D printed tactile picture books for children who are…