In this episode, Diane August, Ph.D. shares her journey and expertise supporting multilingual learners, focusing on her transition from a Spanish language teacher to a widely recognized expert in literacy and language acquisition for multilingual students. August recounts her initial teaching experiences, her realization of the need for better support for language development, and her subsequent pursuit of a Ph.D. and further research efforts to deepen her understanding of second language acquisition and content integrated language teaching. August emphasizes the foundational importance of supporting multilingual learners through asset-based approaches, bilingual programming, and research-based instructional strategies, advocating for educational policies and practices that recognize and leverage the linguistic and cultural assets of multilingual learners from the very early grades all the way through the later grades.
Show notes:
Quotes:
“We found there is no indication that bilingual instruction impeded academic achievement, either in the native language or in English. What we observed on average, [was] that kids that were in bilingual programs did a lot better in literacy.” —Diane August, Ph.D.
“There's some sounds in English that aren't present in a first language. Or there are orthography letters that sound different in one language versus the other. So you just have to realize you have to take into consideration the kid's language background when you're teaching foundational skills.” —Diane August, Ph.D
“We develop kids' oral language when they're older in conjunction with teaching them to read and teaching them content area knowledge. You can't not do that from the beginning, you have to support kids in foundational reading skills.” —Diane August, Ph.D.
“Second language learners also come with a lot of knowledge in their first language, which is really important to consider. It's not like they don't have background knowledge.” —Diane August, Ph.D.
Episode timestamps*
1:00: Introduction: Who is Diane August?
6:00: National literacy panel on language minority children and youth
13:00: Importance of longitudinal research
15:00: Exploring different models for supporting biliteracy development
20:00: The Importance of Oral Language
27:00: Intersection of research on learning on how to read for native english speakers and learning how to read for multilingual learners
30:00: Insights from the 2017 Report on Multilingual Learners
33:00: Understanding the Diversity of Multilingual Learners
36:00: Effective Strategies for Supporting Older Multilingual Learners
47:00: Importance of syntax
52:00: Concluding Thoughts on Supporting Multilingual Learners
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute
In this episode, Diane August, Ph.D. shares her journey and expertise supporting multilingual learners, focusing on her transition from a Spanish language teacher to a widely recognized expert in literacy and language acquisition for multilingual students. August recounts her initial teaching experiences, her realization of the need for better support for language development, and her subsequent pursuit of a Ph.D. and further research efforts to deepen her understanding of second language acquisition and content integrated language teaching. August emphasizes the foundational importance of supporting multilingual learners through asset-based approaches, bilingual programming, and research-based instructional strategies, advocating for educational policies and practices that recognize and leverage the linguistic and cultural assets of multilingual learners from the very early grades all the way through the later grades.
Show notes:
Quotes:
“We found there is no indication that bilingual instruction impeded academic achievement, either in the native language or in English. What we observed on average, [was] that kids that were in bilingual programs did a lot better in literacy.” —Diane August, Ph.D.
“There's some sounds in English that aren't present in a first language. Or there are orthography letters that sound different in one language versus the other. So you just have to realize you have to take into consideration the kid's language background when you're teaching foundational skills.” —Diane August, Ph.D
“We develop kids' oral language when they're older in conjunction with teaching them to read and teaching them content area knowledge. You can't not do that from the beginning, you have to support kids in foundational reading skills.” —Diane August, Ph.D.
“Second language learners also come with a lot of knowledge in their first language, which is really important to consider. It's not like they don't have background knowledge.” —Diane August, Ph.D.
Episode timestamps*
1:00: Introduction: Who is Diane August?
6:00: National literacy panel on language minority children and youth
13:00: Importance of longitudinal research
15:00: Exploring different models for supporting biliteracy development
20:00: The Importance of Oral Language
27:00: Intersection of research on learning on how to read for native english speakers and learning how to read for multilingual learners
30:00: Insights from the 2017 Report on Multilingual Learners
33:00: Understanding the Diversity of Multilingual Learners
36:00: Effective Strategies for Supporting Older Multilingual Learners
47:00: Importance of syntax
52:00: Concluding Thoughts on Supporting Multilingual Learners
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute
This is Susan Lambert, and welcome to Science of Reading: The Podcast, from Amplify, where the Science of Reading lives. This is Episode 4 in our miniseries, Exploring How the Science of Reading Serves Multilingual and English Learners. On this episode, we hear from Dr. Diane August, a longtime researcher on literacy and multilingualism. In fact, Dr. August edited the seminal 2006 report Developing Literacy in Second Language Learners.
Diane August, Ph.D.:A lot of what we found in the 2006 report still holds.
Susan Lambert:But before her career as a researcher, she was a college student majoring in Spanish.
Diane August, Ph.D.:My parents were supporting my tuition, but I had to earn money to support myself. So one of the things I was doing was tutoring multilingual learners in Redwood City. And at the time, I earned $5 an hour <laugh> for doing that. But I really loved what I was doing.
Susan Lambert:So she went on to take a job teaching multilingual learners.
Diane August, Ph.D.:So when I started working in the school, at the time, behavioral research was a big thing. And I was given the DISTAR language program to support multilingual language learners' language development. And the program was designed to teach young children basic vocabulary concepts, sentence forms used in classroom instruction. The problem was, I couldn't stand it and neither could the kids < Susan laughs > . So the idea was, I would sit there and repeat things like, "I give you a cookie." "They give you cookies." And for every sentence I read, the kids had to repeat it. And so we did this for about three weeks. And I noticed that none of the kids were using the grammatical forms that I was teaching them. And so I decided there must be some better way to support these kids' language development. So at that point, I decided to learn more about second-language acquisition. And I was also very interested in how students acquire content knowledge, their cognitive development. So I didn't really know what I was getting into, but I decided <laugh> to get into a PhD program.
Susan Lambert:<laugh> Dr. August spent the next years earning her PhD while continuing to teach. In her studies , she focused on how to best support students in language acquisition and content-area knowledge. And from the moment she earned her PhD up through the current moment, Dr. August has continued focusing on those two critically important topics: supporting multilingual learners in language acquisition and building content-area knowledge along the way. She's had many roles. She's worked as a Congressional Science Fellow, she's been Director of Education at the Children's Defense Fund, Senior Program Officer at the National Academy of Sciences.
Diane August, Ph.D.:And I was the study director for the Committee on Developing a Research Agenda on the Education of, what we called these kids then, "limited English-proficient students." Now we have different names for these kids. And we had a report that came out in 1997, I think, called Improving Schooling for Language-Minority Children: A Research Agenda.
Susan Lambert:She went on to work for the Center for Applied Linguistics and was managing researcher at the American Institute for Research. And during the early part of her career, Dr. August says there wasn't much research happening in this space.
Diane August, Ph.D.:So there wasn't much work happening there, because when I was working for the National Academies, one of the things we did was review the research literature on various topics. And the reason the book was focused on a research agenda was that we thought more research was needed, just across all kinds of areas. Like assessment, how best to assess these kids, how best to instruct them in heterogeneous classrooms. Because, you've got these kids, usually they're integrated into classrooms where students speak English. So there wasn't a lot of research focused on content-area teaching, how best to support their second-language acquisition , policy studies, what kinds of policies should be enacted to support these kids at the state district and school levels. So, it's a long history of supporting these kids through research policy work and professional development. So I thought I was gonna retire, like, three years ago. <Laugh> Because I just wanted some breathing room. But I ended up with two grants.
Susan Lambert:She now has her own organization, D. August & Associates. She's partnering with The Danielson Group, and she's a co-principal investigator at a center funded by the US Department of Education that's focused on improving outcomes for secondary-level multilingual learners. There, Dr. August is examining science intervention for kids in seventh and ninth grade. Later in our conversation, I spoke with Dr. August about her current work, but to kick things off, I wanted to go back to that 700-page report that was published in 2006.
Diane August, Ph.D.:So the volume was sort of a culmination of a process that began in the spring of 2002, when the Institute of Education Science selected a panel of 13 experts in second-language development, cognitive development, curriculum instruction, assessment, and methodology, to review the quantitative and qualitative research on the development of literacy in second-language learners. And so those 13 people formed this national literacy panel on language-minority children and youth. And Tim Shanahan and I were chairs of that panel.
Susan Lambert:How did this relate to the National Reading Panel report? Because it came right after that, right?
Diane August, Ph.D.:Yeah, it did. And Tim had a big role in that National Reading Panel report. So, yeah, clearly when we look at this research, we take into consideration what we know about teaching students who are not multilingual learners. We always do that. A nd all the intervention research we do — because classes consist of both multilingual learners a nd English proficient kids — we really need to take into consideration first what works for students that are English-proficient and then, what do we need to do to make sure that those methods work for second-language learners? And also, what, in addition, do we need to do, besides things that work for—
Susan Lambert:Makes sense.
Diane August, Ph.D.:Yeah. So for that first report, the charge was to identify, assess, and synthesize all this research. Which is what we did. And the panel identified five domains to investigate. And there was a National Academy study after that, in 2017, that I can also talk about, called Promoting the Educational Success of Children and Youth Learning English: Promising Futures. And the following report that I just referenced sort of focused on the same topics. So the development of literacy and language, minority children and youth cross-linguistic relationships, socio-cultural contexts, literacy-development instruction, and professional development and student assessment. And then for each of those domains, the panel identified research questions that guided the review. And so we were divided into five subcommittees, and each subcommittee focused on a particular domain and just sort of read what those domains were. But <laugh> I was looking for, like, "What is a good summary?" <Laugh> So basically the panel's review indicated that many factors influence second-language literacy development. Among them: the age at which skills are acquired — 'cause that makes a big difference — individual differences in second-language oral proficiency and cognitive abilities — so, student-level factors — students' first-language oral proficiency in literacy, clearly some sociocultural variables, and classroom and school factors. So, the review looked at those factors that influenced literacy, and also focused on what have we learned from the research at the time. And, one of the things I really wanted to focus a little more on was the work we did on language of instruction.
Susan Lambert:OK.
Diane August, Ph.D.:Just because at the time, the research indicated that students had better outcomes if they were instructed solely in English.
Susan Lambert:Interesting.
Diane August, Ph.D.:Yes. And it was a huge concern to people who cared about these kids. And the research at the time was really not very good. It was not high-quality research. And another issue was, some reason people came to those conclusions was that they didn't follow kids long enough.
Susan Lambert:Oh, yeah. Longitudinal research is so important.
Diane August, Ph.D.:Yeah. They didn't follow kids long enough to give them time to acquire, fully acquire, two languages. And the result of all that was that administrators were very hesitant to provide bilingual programming. There was a real emphasis on English-only instruction. So we took a really close look at the impact of bilingual education compared to English-only instruction. And I convinced David Francis, <laugh> who wasn't really focused on this population of kids, to do a meta-analysis. And we set criteria for inclusion to make sure the studies we included in the meta-analysis were vetted, that they were relevant, and they met these stringent methodological standards. And then David used meta-analysis to analyze findings across the studies. And so the 15 studies yielded, like, 71 effect sizes. But just in summary ... I mean, the reason I wanna talk about this is it really did have a huge impact on the field. We found there is no indication that bilingual instruction impeded academic achievement, either in the native language or in English, whether they were language-minority students or students receiving heritage language instruction. So those are kids who may have parents who spoke their home language, but the kids necessarily did not. We also looked at kids enrolled in French immersion programs in Canada. And what we observed, on average, is that kids that were in bilingual programs did a lot better <laugh> in language and literacy. It was a very positive ... sorry, it was a moderate effect size. And one of the interesting things is, in that report, we also looked at intervention studies, like teaching reading to these kids, or science to these kids. And what we found with regard to the effect size, the effect size was, like, 0 .4 for teaching the kids bilingually. And it was a larger effect size than any of the other intervention effect sizes that we found.
Susan Lambert:Interesting .
Diane August, Ph.D.:And so this really did change the field. Because it gave people the evidence they needed to actually start focusing on bilingual programs. There were some good bilingual programs at the time. And it went on for years, this debate about which is better: to teach the kids only in English or to teach the kids bilingually. And there were studies done after this in the other report I mentioned to you that did really good experimental longitudinal research, following these kids for longer, and they also found positive effects for bilingual instruction.
Susan Lambert:I have a couple questions to ask you about that. So , one is what we know language develops slowly, right? It takes time for language to develop. And so, have you seen since then more longitudinal studies or more longitudinal work looking at impacts of bilingual education? Just because of the time it takes to really develop language?
Diane August, Ph.D.:Yes. I mean, people realize that you have to follow kids for longer. one of the results of that first study is that NIH decided to fund research focused on the development of language and literacy and language minority students. And I was the PI for an NICHD [National Institute of Child Health and Human Development] program project grant. I was actually PI for two program project grants. But the first one focused primarily on the development of language and literacy in multilingual learners. And so, that second report that I'm talking about does include some of those findings. But yes, it did encourage people to do it — well, people wanted to do this research, but they needed the resources. So, that first report that we did at the academy really led to, not just the US Department of Education, but NICHD, to provide funds for people to look at longitudinal development in second-language learners.
Susan Lambert:And you mentioned ... and I went back, actually, and I skimmed this chapter of the report that talks about the language of instruction. You mentioned English-only classrooms. You mentioned classrooms that support biliteracy development. But there's all kind of different models for that, right?
Diane August, Ph.D.:Yeah, yeah. So in that first report, we focused on — where David did the meta-analysis — we focused on ... there are really different kinds of programs. But we focused on programs where kids were taught in two languages. So, language-minority kids acquiring a second language, we focused on heritage speakers. Those are kids whose families have a background in another language, but the kids aren't necessarily proficient in that language.
Susan Lambert:OK.
Diane August, Ph.D.:And then we focused on immersion programs in Canada where kids are immersed in a second language. In Canada, that is in French, generally.
Susan Lambert:I think sometimes ... and we're gonna talk in a few minutes about diversity, of kids that are considered multilingual learners. But I think programmatically, there's a diversity. And sometimes we think all of them are the same, but there's a different focus in terms of an immersion program or supporting heritage languages.
Diane August, Ph.D.:Yeah, basically, it's very confusing, really, until you start thinking about it < Susan laughs > . So there are programs, there are two-way dual-language programs, where you've got two groups of students acquiring two or more languages. So you've got English-proficient kids and students who are not English-proficient. Each of of those groups of kids are acquiring another language. So the English-proficient kids may be acquiring Spanish, may be acquiring Mandarin, right?
Susan Lambert:Yep.
Diane August, Ph.D.:And then you've got the other kids who are multilingual learners, who come from those language backgrounds. So you've got two groups of kids, each group acquiring another language, and also learning more in their home language. Then you've got programs where you've got one group of kids acquiring another language. And so, generally, those are multilingual learners acquiring English, in this country. But also, those programs support those kids also in developing their home language. So you've got the programs with two groups of kids. You've got the programs with one group of kids acquiring a second language, which is usually English, but also, then, you've got heritage-language programs where you've got kids from, as I said, backgrounds where families spoke the language at home, but the kids never really learned to read it, never learned the academic language associated with it. And those programs are also a different kind of program.
Susan Lambert:Hmm . OK. Phew. It's complicated. <laugh>
Diane August, Ph.D.:Yeah. And it's really especially complicated, because — in one of the reports we sort of unpack this — because everybody has different names for these programs. That's why you find it complicated.
Susan Lambert:Yeah.
Diane August, Ph.D.:Because there are multiple names for the same kind of program. And in one of the reports we tried to standardize it. Or one of the policy studies we did. Let's at least use consistent language for each of these types of programs. But those are the general types of programs ... I mean, you also have programs where you've got English-speaking kids sort of learning another language, and they may not be heritage speakers of that language. Right?
Susan Lambert:Yeah.
Diane August, Ph.D.:And those are, like, world-language programs, right? Like, for example, in Maryland, there's a world-language program in one of the counties that really focuses on supporting kids in learning Spanish who don't have any background in Spanish at home.
Susan Lambert:Yeah . That's my granddaughter. She was in a Spanish immersion school.
Diane August, Ph.D.:Yeah, right. Exactly. So that would be Spanish immersion, but just for that group of kids. Right?
Susan Lambert:Right. Correct. Yep .
Diane August, Ph.D.:And they have those programs in other languages, also, clearly. Parents have become ... and there's some states that are really more focused on this than others.
Susan Lambert:Yeah, for sure. And , somebody said to me once, "Isn't that great that there's an awareness that being bilingual is actually ...well, some people call it a superpower." Right? But then there's other kids that come to this country that we're not supporting, or grow up in this country in a second-language environment, that we're not supporting. And so, making sure that we focus on all is really important. So, thank you for the work that you've done over the course of your career with this . Before we go forward, I'd love to have you talk a little bit about the important role of oral language when it comes to language development.
Diane August, Ph.D.:Yeah. So basically, kids develop oral language in the context of doing other things. Oral language in the context of learning to read, oral language in the context of learning content, you find sort of an emphasis on just oral language in really young kids. So, I did a study with , actually, three-year-olds, funded by the American Institute for Research. And that was just purely focused on whole language. Because these students were like, three. And I was working in high-poverty schools in the Southwest. And what we did to support those kids' language development is we found books ... we did it bilingually, actually. So we found books that were authentic, bilingual. And it took a long time to find books <laugh> that were actually bilingual that that had a good storyline, where they could actually be used to support kids' language development. <Laugh> Some were really poetic < laugh>, which were lovely, but they weren't gonna really support the kind of language development we were interested in. So it took a long time for me to select the books. And I went to one large publisher in New York, and I remember sitting on the floor there in the library. They had a library full of books. And I spent a whole day taking each book f rom t he shelf and reading it, thinking, "Can we really use this to develop the kids' language proficiency?" It was a great project, because what you do, really, is you do interactive reading ... and we gave the schools a choice: Do you want us to do this in English or in Spanish? So they had an option. I mean, we preferred that they do it in Spanish, actually, because most of these kids that we were working with were from Spanish-speaking families. But some of the principals really wanted us to do this program in English. So, anyway, we g ave the principal an option as to whether to use t he Spanish or the English version. And this was amazing: We did a very scripted curriculum. That is, we gave the teachers t he books, and we gave them a curriculum to use to read the books to the children. And what we did a lot of is, we would read a sentence; we would point to the illustrations to sort of clarify what the sort of text meant; we would define t he sort of vocabulary we thought they didn't know, so that they could understand what those words meant; and we a sked t hem questions about what they were listening to. So, that was the bulk of the program. And I think we had quite a number of books. One of the interesting things is that, in some cases, I had instructional a ides doing the teaching, rather than teachers. And so, what we did was, w e assigned some teachers to our core content and some teachers to just read the books to the kids the way you usually did. B ecause this was an experimental study. And we did other things, like, we asked the kids to summarize what they had read. And what we did to assess the kids was, we did oral retells.
Susan Lambert:Oh, OK. Right.
Diane August, Ph.D.:Because we wanted authentic language. And these were three-year-olds. So we altered ... there's a program called SALT [Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts], where it analyzes oral language of kids. And we used SALT. And there were oral retells in Spanish and English, and they were coded for various characteristics. And we found that we didn't get much development in syntax. And I think it was because the kids were really young. But with regard to vocabulary, we had significant results, in terms of all aspects of vocabulary. Sort of semantic knowledge, and other aspects of vocabulary for the kids in the intervention.
Susan Lambert:Hmm . That's amazing. What do you think came as a result of a result of that work? Did it change your thinking? Is there more work that was done around that?
Diane August, Ph.D.:Well, it just showed that ... you're asking about oral language. And this sort of scripted interaction with kids is really helpful, but it really helps to give teachers something to actually read. It would be fun to read in a way that sort of develops that language: points to the illustrations, defines words, provides a summary and asks kids to summarize things, like that. And , it would've been really great to do a follow-up study to see whether teachers who had participated in using our scripted curriculum then could apply that to other books they were reading to kids. That kind of a follow-up study would've been really good. But it did show that that kind of interactive dialogic reading really did support kids oral-language development. The other question you asked is usually we develop kids' oral language when they're older, in conjunction with teaching them to read and teaching them content-area knowledge. Because you can't not do that from the beginning. You have to support kids in foundational reading skills. And so usually you focus on oral language in conjunction with teaching kids to read, foundational reading, and teaching kids core content.
Susan Lambert:And what do you mean by core content?
Diane August, Ph.D.:Science, social studies, math, <laugh> English language arts. English language arts also, right?
Susan Lambert:I just asked you to be specific about that because I think sometimes we forget what content is. There's two big things that I talk to teachers about and educators about. One, I find they don't understand the context of language. Like, I'll ask them define what language is, and people don't know how to do that. And then, when you talk about content, it's like a word that we use that everybody assumes we know what we're talking about, and that's just not true. <Laughs>
Diane August, Ph.D.:Yeah. Well, it's sort of complicated. Like, I went to get this doctorate to learn more about second-language acquisition, and < Susan laughs > there's still a lot of controversy in the field about how best to help kids acquire language. But I think with young children, it's through interacting with native speakers.
Susan Lambert:Yep . And one more question and then we'll jump to the 2017 report. But maybe this is part of it, too. You mentioned the fact that there's a lot of controversy in the field about what it takes for kids to both learn language and then learn how to read in a language they're simultaneously trying to acquire. I think this is right; correct me if I'm wrong? But I think as an extension of the Natural National Reading Panel report, there's a lot of elements of learning how to read in English that are also applicable to teaching multilingual learners how to read. Am I right?
Diane August, Ph.D.:Oh, yeah, definitely . I mean , when I do intervention research, we always start with looking at really strong experimental and qualitative studies that focus on that topic. So in terms of what we were doing with these three-year-olds, we looked at some really good intervention studies conducted with kids that were monolingual. And when I do work in English language arts, I do the same thing. We look at the research, solid research, and look at what the findings are for English-proficient kids. And then we build on that. In terms of, mostly, if kids are learning in any second language, we help them understand what they're reading. We help 'em write about what they're reading. We help them with oral language and also literacy and also content knowledge related to what they're learning. But we always start with thorough reviews of what's been found out for English proficient kids, and then we build on that.
Susan Lambert:Yeah. And then a question for you: If it's good for — just looking at the word recognition piece of it, so — phonemic awareness, explicit phonics, building from the sounds to the words, word-level skill, that's important for second-language learners as well, isn't it?
Diane August, Ph.D.:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Definitely. That is really important. One of the things, though, you have to consider is differences for kids. Like, there are some sounds in English that aren't present in a first language, right? Or there's orthography letters that sound different in one language versus the other. So you just have to realize, you have to take into consideration, the kids' language background when you're teaching foundational skills. Right?
Susan Lambert:Yeah.
Diane August, Ph.D.:And the other thing you have to do, that most people don't do in those foundational skills programs, is when you have kids reading, you have to make sure they understand what they're reading. So again, you have to develop their vocabulary as you're developing the oral language. And a lot of programs just focus on those foundational skills and don't really ... well, you have to really take into consideration the kinds of things I was just talking about in terms of orthographic and phonological differences.
Susan Lambert:Yeah.
Diane August, Ph.D.:But you also really need to make sure that they're understanding what they're reading. You also have to give them lots of opportunities to interact with native speakers. So there's a lot of ... you try to partner the kids with students who are proficient in the language that they're learning, to give them opportunities to interact in that language.
Susan Lambert:So if we jump to the 2017 report, what is the learning and the highlights that you would say between that time period of 2006 and 2017?
Diane August, Ph.D.:Yeah, so that report covers similar topics. So , we focused on the policies governing the instruction of multilingual learners, demography of the population; we focused on effective early-care programs. We focused on the development of language proficiency in these students. You might be interested in that chapter, since you're interested in language acquisition. We looked at promising programs for multilingual learners, and we focused on pre-K through 12 and also effective programs for other populations, like students with specific learning disabilities, for example. And we looked at promising methods for assessment and building the workforce.
Susan Lambert:Was there anything in the 2017 report that conflicted with the 2006 report?
Diane August, Ph.D.:No, we really built on a lot of what was in the 2006 report, but we had more recent research. And, one of the things since I was involved in that report was we added additional studies focused on the effectiveness of bilingual programming studies that came after what we had reviewed in the previous report. And those studies —there were two in particular there, with different models of instruction, for longer periods of time — found the same results.
Susan Lambert:Hmm . Very interesting.
Diane August, Ph.D.:Yeah. there were slightly different things. We focused on demographics, which is important to try to understand the population. And there was more of a focus on students with specific learning disabilities or speech-language impairments. So there is more focus on that. And both of these reports are free, so we should make sure that we we'll link.
Susan Lambert:Yep .
Diane August, Ph.D.:Provide people with links.
Susan Lambert:We'll link listeners in our show notes to both of these. And I think it's really important , because I think there's a misconception about what it means for science to build on each other. And so I kind of planted that question for you, to say, "Did you learn anything that in 2017 that conflicted 2006?" And you said, "No. We continue to build and we continue to do research in areas that we need more research in." So that's great. And I'm so glad that they're both free. And like I said, we'll link our listeners. So we've been talking mostly about reports, the research, the programs, bilingual programs are really great for kids ... let's talk about those kids, though, that are in those programs. The multilingual learners. Because they're a really diverse group.
Diane August, Ph.D.:Right.
Susan Lambert:And sometimes there's a danger — we maybe think about them all sort of needing the same kinds of things. So what should we consider as we think about diversity with multilingual learners?
Diane August, Ph.D.:Well, one major thing to consider is the languages they speak at home. Because, depending on the language, some languages don't have the same orthography as English. So you need to take that into consideration. So, in the US, there are 400 different home languages.
Susan Lambert:Wow.
Diane August, Ph.D.:And you know what we're ... <laugh>, so, you have to really think about differences and similarities between the student's home language and the language of instruction.
Susan Lambert:Yeah . Yeah.
Diane August, Ph.D.:So that's one really important thing to think about. But also, multilingual learners come to school with a real variety of background knowledge. Their individual differences. Some of these kids have had interrupted schooling.
Susan Lambert:Yeah.
Diane August, Ph.D.:So they haven't learned skills that are important for acquiring grade-level knowledge. So, you have to really think about, how much have they learned? In terms of, how well do they read? And how much have they learned in terms of sort of math, science? In social studies, in math, a lot of the issues some of these kids have is that they've had interrupted schooling, or they've been taught only in English and they haven't understood what was being taught. So they've missed things, even if they've been exposed to them.
Susan Lambert:Yeah . Yeah.
Diane August, Ph.D.:But it also is, they're kid factors, right? < laugh>. Kid factors. How proficient are they in English? You have kids coming in in the middle grades, and they're just put in classrooms where the language and texts are quite challenging. And the kids haven't been exposed to that, and they haven't learned to read in English. They haven't been exposed to English or language literacy. They haven't had an opportunity. So you've got to think about the kids, as I said, their background knowledge and their skills, but also their schooling factors. How good has the schooling been for these kids? How supported, how much support they've had. Do you have to look at their past emotional experiences in school? Have they been supported in socio-emotional ways? You have to look at their home environments. Their home factors, t heir school factors, that impact these kids, as well as their levels of foundational knowledge.
Susan Lambert:So , one of the things that you mentioned is kids that come in in middle grades or older — some of the older grades, middle school or high school. What are some ways — when we're thinking about English language arts instruction, for example — what are some ways some educators can support our multilingual learners when they're coming into us as older students?
Diane August, Ph.D.:Yeah, so you're talking mostly about newcomers, right?
Susan Lambert:Mm-hmm.
Diane August, Ph.D.:And you're talking about kids at the secondary level?
Susan Lambert:Yeah. Older students. You know that it's a lot more challenging to jump in to learn a new language when you come into an English middle school or high school.
Diane August, Ph.D.:So, one of the things we always do with those kids, we try to give them grade-level content. One of the things we do is we actually translate that content into their home language. So, in the work we're doing, in secondary schools right now through the center, we have side-by-side versions of the core content. So, we take the core content and really summarize it. So most of what the kids are doing is very interactive. But we take the core content that they really also need <laugh> , and we have bilingual versions, and we have bilingual versions in six or seven languages.
Susan Lambert:Wow. Wow, wow, wow.
Diane August, Ph.D.:We had to do that. So they've got that core content in their home language. And a lot of the programs we're working with, the kids are being instructed in English. So that's why we do those bilingual side-by-side versions. But just similar to what I've been talking about, we make sure kids really understand what they're reading. So for example, for vocabulary, we provide a lot of labeled visuals. And visuals take many different forms, right?
Susan Lambert:Sure.
Diane August, Ph.D.:So you can have illustrations, you have multimedia clips, you can have tables. So again, we provide visuals that are labeled. If they're not labeled, the kids can look at the visual and they really don't know what they're looking at. And a lot of visuals are not labeled for these kids. So we go ahead and label them . We do a lot of previewing of vocabulary. So, it's not exactly how we teach it, but we make sure that the kids have some idea of what these words mean. And, so we provide a visual. Like, I'll give you an example, like the word "glacier." We have a visual of a glacier. We provide a definition. And one of the challenges here is that a lot of definitions that you find in dictionaries or in textbooks are incomprehensible <laugh> . Like, we might as well not bother <laugh> . So basically we usually we use this great app called Wordsmyth.net — it's s-m-y-t-h dot net — and they do a really good job of defining words for kids at different levels of language proficiency. So we use that a lot. So we have to provide, first, a visual that's labeled. We do a connection of the visual to the definition. Like, for "glacier," "a large piece of the glacier falls into the ocean." So, you know, here's a picture, and we describe the picture. First, we define glacier as, like, "a large area of ice that moves very slowly across land." So then we have a picture that's labeled; we connect the visual to the picture; we do translations. And then sometimes we have the kids spell the words, just to make sure they're paying attention. And then we always do partner talk, where we ask kids to talk with a partner, where they answer questions, where they have to understand the core word and draw on their background knowledge. So for this particular example I'm showing you, the partner talk was, "Why do you think a piece of the glacier fell off into the ocean?" So, they have the word "glacier," and they have to think about why did it fall off? What was happening at the time? When they were learning about glaciers. And this, by the way, was taught in ... this was informational text. Not the kind of work that we're doing in , Grade 9, which is a little more advanced. So we just preview the vocabulary. We also define vocabulary in context or in the margins. So in context, we provide teachers with comprehensible definitions that they can use to clarify challenging words. Sometimes they're content-specific words. Sometimes they're just general academic vocabulary. And the other thing we do is when we prepare text for kids, we define these words in context.
Susan Lambert:I was gonna ask you that. Yeah , yeah , yeah .
Diane August, Ph.D.:We put them in parens, to help the kids understand what it is they're reading. So, define things in context that way. And we usually do it in lighter font so that the other kids aren't distracted who may know what these words mean. So again, we focus on vocabulary with comprehensible definitions, and defining words in context. We also define words in the margins, where we take these words ... like, you have a little passage, and then on the side there are all these words defined . So they're highlighted in the text, like "glaciers," and the word is highlighted. And then we provide a definition in the margins, a short definition: "Glaciers: large areas of ice that are found in many regions or parts of the world." Or, the word "unique" is the general academic word that appeared in this text. And we define it: "one-of-a-kind, unusual." So kids, as they're reading, have these words and phrases defined in the text for them, and in the margins. The other thing we do at the secondary level that teachers generally don't focus on that much is like syntax.
Susan Lambert:OK. Tell me more about that.
Diane August, Ph.D.:Yeah. So basically, complex syntax is really challenging for English learners. And teachers, they know that they're supposed to focus on vocabulary, and they do that. Going back to vocabulary for a minute, one of the things we also do with vocabulary is ensure teachers understand which words to select to teach.
Susan Lambert:Oh, that's important. Yeah.
Diane August, Ph.D.:Because a lot of teachers aren't selecting words that are the right words to teach . So we created this app when I was at AIR, it's called the Word Analyzer, The AIR Word Analyzer. You put any text into it and it shows you which words are most frequent in English.
Susan Lambert:Oh! Interesting.
Diane August, Ph.D.:Oh, yeah. It's really great. So, frequency. It really is to see which words are the most frequent. But that's just one criteria for selecting words, frequency. But the other is really, "How important is the word to understanding the text?" You can't define every word. So pick words that really kids need to know to process what's going on.
Susan Lambert:Yep . That makes sense.
Diane August, Ph.D.:And the third thing is, we did a lot of research on vocabulary development at one time. And , the other thing that's really important is how conceptually complex the words are. Because kids will acquire ... well, it's much harder for kids to acquire conceptually complex words on their own. And conceptually complex means, say, a word is very hard to visualize.
Susan Lambert:Ah, OK.
Diane August, Ph.D.:Or to understand with your senses . Like, if you can't hear it, see it, smell it, somehow touch it <laugh> . Right?
Susan Lambert:Like the phrase "conceptually complex." I had a hard time trying to—
Diane August, Ph.D.:Yeah, exactly. Like "conceptually complex." What does that mean <laugh> ? So, yeah. You can't sort of visualize what that means . So we did a lot of research looking at types of words and which words kids learn. And we were really surprised, because we've learned that kids actually acquire a lot of concrete words on their own. They tend to. With sufficient exposure. But they don't acquire these conceptually complex words. So, we teach teachers how to figure out which words we give them . Practice figuring out which words are conceptually complex and which words aren't. And with this analyzer, I think we went overboard a little bit, because it also, I think, scores words on how conceptually complex they are. And also whether they're cognates. Because, I didn't mention before, but second-language learners come also with a lot of knowledge in their first language. Which is really also important to consider. It's not like they don't have background knowledge in English. But they've got a lot of knowledge they've acquired in their first language that really needs to be taken into consideration. So there's some kids that have had interrupted schooling and poor schooling, but there are a lot of kids that have had good schooling, and so they've got a lot of knowledge in their home language. And that really also has to be taken into consideration. And part of that knowledge is like cognate knowledge. So, languages that share cognate status with English, like Spanish and English, about a half or a third of the words in English share cognate status with Spanish. And so we've done research with this also, teaching kids to capitalize on their cognate knowledge when reading text in English. And a lot of the words that they know in Spanish tend to be words that are difficult for English-proficient kids. I wish I could, off the top of my head, think of ... like, "exhibit." Exhibit. Kids might not understand what that means, but "exhibition" [she pronounces it as the Spanish word], in Spanish, is a word that kids are familiar with. "Familiar" is another word: "Familiar." [Again, she says it in Spanish, with the accent on last syllable.] Kids might not know in English what "familiar" means, but in Spanish, they certainly know what it means. So a lot of the words in Spanish ... disturbance! " Disturbancia" in Spanish. They'll know what the word means in their home language, but not in English. So there's so many words like that. And so, you just teach kids to bootstrap on their home language, and it gives them a lot of information that they can use in trying to understand English.
Susan Lambert:That's great. So, back to syntax. Vocabulary. Thanks for that. Go back to syntax, and why is that important?
Diane August, Ph.D.:Well, it's important because complex syntax is really challenging for second-language learners. So, just as an example, what we do with complex syntax is we teach students to identify the subordinating conjunctions. So there are a lot of subordinating conjunctions , or frequent subordinating conjunctions, so we give them a chart with those subordinating conjunctions. We teach them. And this we only do with older kids. We teach them to identify the subordinating conjunction, and then based on that, what the dependent clause or clauses are and what the independent clause is. And I'll give you an example in a minute.
Susan Lambert:Great.
Diane August, Ph.D.:And then we ask them questions about the independent clause and the dependent clause. So, we're trying to teach them, "Look, when you see a complex sentence, try to find this subordinating conjunction. Then try to find the independent clause, what it is. Then try to find the dependent clause. And the dependent clause will generally provide more information about the independent clause." So just going back to this glacier example ... <laugh> .
Susan Lambert:Yep. OK. Back to glaciers.
Diane August, Ph.D.:OK. "As they melted, glaciers left behind unique land formations." So, first we ask the kids to find the subordinating conjunction and circle it, and teachers demonstrate this. And then we ask another student to find the dependent clause and underline it. Then we've asked the third student to read the independent clause aloud, and then we ask them questions about the independent clause and the dependent clause that they have to answer. So we'd ask the kids, with regard to the dependent clause that was "glaciers left behind unique land formations," you could ask, "What left behind unique land formations?" Or you could ask, "What did glaciers leave behind?"
Susan Lambert:Right.
Diane August, Ph.D.:You ask them questions, and then for the dependent clause, you'd ask them , "When did glaciers leave behind these unique land formations?" And before you did this, remember, the kids would have read about glaciers. They would've helped understand the vocabulary that we're talking about. So you don't do this before, you give kids this vocabulary in context. They learn about what these words mean. And in this case, it would be focused on glaciers. You'd have to talk about what "formations" are. You'd have to talk about what "unique" is, by probably defining these in context, or writing context, probably, in the margins. Then you would focus on this idea of helping them try to understand these complex sentences.
Susan Lambert:And I would think that this is also good for native English speakers, because I think native English speakers in the middle and high school also struggle with complex sentences. <Laughs>
Diane August, Ph.D.:Yeah. Yeah. So they do. And it's not easy, but it really ... I listened to Tim's presentation and he talked about this. There's not enough focus on supporting kids in understanding complex sentences. So the other thing that is really challenging for second-language learners, just in terms of ... not necessarily syntax, but are these referential chains? "Referential chains" refer to the way pronouns or other expressions in the text connect to and represent entities mentioned earlier in the text. So, just as an example: " Mark went to the store with his mother and her friend." So, these are really challenging for English learners, because they don't understand in, "Mark went to the store with his mother and her friend," that "his" refers back to Mark. Or "her" refers back to "mother."
Susan Lambert:Right, right, right. Yeah .
Diane August, Ph.D.:And so we really do work with kids to help them identify these referential chains—
Susan Lambert:Hmm. That's really important.
Diane August, Ph.D.:—and understand them. So, we've done work with referential chains, also, because those are the things that, besides vocabulary, tend to derail kids.
Susan Lambert:Yeah, I've heard that a lot. I've heard people say that sentence-level comprehension is so important —understanding what's happening within a single sentence — because if you don't understand that, you can't put that sentence in the context of the whole paragraph, and your comprehension then just implodes.
Diane August, Ph.D.:Right.
Susan Lambert:Well, we've talked about a lot here. We've talked about two reports, <laugh> we've talked about programs that work for biliteracy, we've talked about the range of multilingual learners and some strategies that are great for some of those older kids. As we wrap up here, I wonder if there's any final thoughts or words of advice you would have for our listeners as it relates to multilingual learners?
Diane August, Ph.D.:Well, I think one really important thing to know is that these kids bring a lot of knowledge in their first language to learning in a second language. Right? That's really important. So, not just to focus on deficits they may have because of poor schooling, interrupted schooling, is that they do have a lot of assets. Background knowledge, experiences, in terms of understanding a second language, cognate knowledge for languages that share cognate status with English, is really important. I think that that is really important. Just, also, that we find that bilingual programming really does lead to good results, but you need to give kids time to learn both languages. And one of the issues we have in the US is that kids are assessed for English proficiency, early on. And those scores are taken into consideration in evaluating schools. And so, ideally, policies would be in place where there's some policies that mitigate that a bit. But the fact that schools are held accountable for assessing kids starting in third grade in English language arts, it's problematic. There are clauses that, for kids that are bilingual, they're given a few more years, but it takes kids generally longer to acquire the same levels of English proficiency as native speakers. So assessing them before they've had time to acquire proficiency creates a situation where schools, because of accountability, steer kids into English-only programs. That doesn't mean that you have to develop their English proficiency too , don't get me wrong, but it creates an incentive for schools to teach these kids in English only.
Susan Lambert:Yeah. Yeah. It seems fitting that we close out the podcast with sort of the same thing we started the podcast with, which is your support of those students that are multilingual learners. And your asset-based approach to that, remember that they bring with them some really great things that we can leverage in the schooling. I just appreciate that message. And I appreciate the work that you've done. So, thank you again for joining us.
Diane August, Ph.D.:Oh , you're welcome. It was fun to talk with you.
Susan Lambert:Thank you so much for listening to my conversation with Dr. Diane August, principal at D. August & Associates and co-principal investigator at the Center for the Success of English Learners. Remember to check out the show notes for links to some of the resources we discussed. Also, join the conversation about this episode and this series in our Facebook discussion group, Science of Reading: The Community. Next up in this miniseries, we're hearing from the principal of an elementary school in a resettlement community for refugees.
New speaker:I don't think there's another school anywhere I know in Texas like us. We have mainly just refugees. And so I do have mainly second-language learners. We currently have 39 languages spoken on my campus.
Susan Lambert:That's coming up next time on Science of Reading: The Podcast. Science of Reading: The Podcast is brought to you by Amplify. For more information on how Amplify leverages the Science of Reading, go to amplify.com/CKLA. Thank you so much for listening .