Coaching ESL, ELL, or ESOL with Risa Woods, Ep. 150 Instructional Coaching with Ms. B

Coaching ESL, ELL, or ESOL with Risa Woods, Ep. 150 Buzzing with Ms. B: The Coaching Podcast

Chrissy Beltran  00:01

Hey, Coach, when you think about the beginning of the school year, how do you feel unsure to helpful, overwhelmed, you’re not alone. Since the dawn of time instructional coaches have been left to figure things out on their own, resulting in frustration and failure. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Instead, let’s start the year with a roadmap that tells you exactly what to do each day for the exponentially important first 20 days of school. The things you do that first month of school will make or break your coaching year. Let’s do the right things together. Head to buzzing with mfi.com/startup to join the waitlist for my instructional coaching startup course. The course opens in mid July, but if you join the waitlist, you’ll receive a coupon code for 15% off when the course opens up. I can’t wait to help you start strong and coach better this year. My favorite summer coaching event is just around the corner and I want to see you there. This is the fifth year of the simply coaching summit, the first virtual conference for coaches, and I’ve been a part of it every single year. This online conference for instructional coaches is on July 10 11th, and 12th. And it’ll give you everything you need to change your school one step at a time. The summit is three days of keynotes, live workshops and pre recorded session, I’m giving a workshop about what coaches should do the first couple of weeks of school focusing on building your coaching menu from start to finish. But there’s so much more to this summit that you have to see for yourself. Head to buzzing with buzzfeed.com/summit to save your spot. The best part is that you have six months to watch the videos. So if your summer plans didn’t include some cozy PD at home on the couch, you can watch them when you’re back at school. Check out busy with Miss b.com slash summit and I will see you soon. You’re listening to buzzing with Miss B the coaching podcast where we believe that every teacher deserves a coach. And every coach does too. I’m Chrissy Beltran, an instructional coach, resource creator and coffee enthusiast, and I’m your host, stay tuned for practical tips and honest coaching talk that will help you coach with confidence. Hey, Coach, this is the last episode in our specialty coaching series. We’ve talked with this traveling sped coach, an early childhood coach. And now we’re going to talk to a coach who works with ESL and ELL classrooms. This population of students makes up a huge percentage of schools and it’s growing every day. And honestly, it’s a wonderful thing, that our country is finally doing more to support learning whether one language like so many other countries do as sort of a standard thing. Being bilingual is an amazing gift. And it’s helping students grow their English language skills, and ideally maintaining the home language as well. And that’s really a challenge in a lot of schools. So that’s why I’m excited to welcome our guest today, Risa woods. So welcome to the podcast Risa.

Risa Woods  02:57

Hi. So good to be here.

Chrissy Beltran  03:00

I’m so glad that you’re here to I would love it. If you could introduce yourself to our listeners, maybe talk a little bit about who you are, how you ended up here and what kind of work you’re currently focusing on. Sure. Yeah.

Risa Woods  03:11

So my name is Risa woods. I am an educator I started, you know, I’ve done lots of different roles. I’ve been in education for about 11 years. Anything from being a para, an ELL teacher and instructional coach, contract work. I live in Kansas City, Missouri. I have my Master’s of Master of Arts in Teaching English as a second language and the Minister of Education in language and literacy with an ELL emphasis. The majority of my time and education has been with English learners. Some will know as multilingual learners, depending on the district. But I yeah, I saw in my own work, and in my own experience, I saw a lot of general education teachers who struggled with the English learners in our classrooms. So and the beginning the beginning of my work I did mostly newcomer beginners so that maybe students who just arrived in the country from other countries are refugees, students who had unlimited or limited or interrupted education, and then in the later half of my career, I have done more push and pull out and co teaching with teachers. And that’s when I started to notice, man, like there’s a huge gap in what teachers know, for serving language learners, and did a little bit of my own research and found it wasn’t just my experience, it’s across the country that there’s a huge need for coaching of general Well, education teachers with English learners strategies. And so I went out on my own and started my own consulting business to do this work. Because I think it’s important. And yeah, so that’s I started my own educational consulting business. And yeah, so I do professional developments, one on one coaching, coaching and leadership consulting work. And yeah, so that’s why that’s where I come from today.

Chrissy Beltran  05:32

That’s awesome. Yeah, I actually, I think I mentioned this to you and everyone, we talked a little bit over Instagram, but I am from El Paso, Texas. And so here we have, the majority of people are actually bilingual. And our schools are almost all have some, they all have some sort of bilingual program, whatever that looks like, that looks different in different places. And my daughter goes to one of the larger districts, and they have dual language to weigh, which is really nice, because two way dual language is whenever kids coming from both backgrounds, like we have a lot of kids coming who are monolingual English speakers, and many who are monolingual Spanish speakers. And they’re being exposed to both languages in an academic setting. So like one day, or one part of the day, they do all English one part of the day, they do all Spanish, and then they go back and forth. And then they continue this throughout elementary school and up into middle school, which is nice, because the whenever I was a teacher, the districts that I am a coach as well, the districts that I taught at didn’t feel that they had the population to do a two way program, because that’s a huge consideration. Like, do we have the kids to come in that have strong English and have strong Spanish? And so we didn’t have kids with like lots of academic Spanish. And so we had a lot of kids whose only Spanish was very conversational, and that was their language. Yeah, yeah. So then, like you said, a lot of kids who had been there, their education had been inconsistent to that point. And so we did not have a two way model, we had a one way model, and it was early exit. And so early exit, is by the time they’re in fifth grade, the majority of their day, it’s like 30 minutes of their days in Spanish, everything else is in English. And so we’re not really honoring the home language as much with that model, you know, to a degree, but it’s to phase it out. Right, you know, and so I’m excited that my child can participate in two way model. Yeah, it’s amazing. It it’s not I mean, it’s not an opportunity that you have, just because you don’t have the kids

Risa Woods  07:31

or something you have to pay, you know, for a private school or a pair, you know, something? Yeah, that’s true.

Chrissy Beltran  07:36

Yeah. Yeah, that’s true. My brother and sister in law live in Austin, and they had their kids in, like an early childhood program. That was that was two languages. But other than that, it’s not offered, you know, in the public schools. So the standard public school thing here, and I’m really amazing. Yeah, I’ve loved seeing the different models of, of language acquisition that different places use, and it’s really interesting. So if you would, I would love to hear from you a little bit about what is special about coaching, whether it’s ESL, or like ELL students, we call it here, we call them ELL English language learners.

Risa Woods  08:10

Yeah, there’s so many different terms there are.

Chrissy Beltran  08:13

Everybody has a different name. And as long as it’s respectful, I think, right? I think that’s fine. I know, that’s why ESL was phased out in a lot of places, because it’s not necessarily the second language, or

Risa Woods  08:23

English is a new language. English is another language and English for Speakers of Other Languages.

Chrissy Beltran  08:29

Yes. Yeah. So that’s, it’s interesting. But basically, we’re talking about kids who are not coming into school with an English background, they do not have English as the language tool in their toolbox. So what is special about coaching these kinds of classrooms?

Risa Woods  08:46

Yeah, that’s a great question. Um, I think knowing the language development process is special, it’s, it’s special to know that students will be at different stages of their language acquisition, and that you can meet them where they are, no matter what, that there are strategies that you can use no matter where they’re at. I think it’s also special to hear their stories. And I mean, any student obviously is special to hear their story, but they do come in with unique experiences that maybe we haven’t experienced that we can bring to the classroom and allow them to flourish in the classroom. And I think that’s really special, to hear their story and to hear their background and to and to allow them to flourish and be welcomed in our spaces. And not say you know, I think traditionally in America we’ve said things like melting pot, because the idea is that they become like us and we stripped them of their language and culture and we say okay, all right, you know English English only here we are. But rather it’s special to say no, you can you can be who you are, and you can keep your identity and be welcome here with that I did And yeah, we welcome you here. And we’re so glad you’re here. And yeah, I think that’s really special. It is that opportunity.

Chrissy Beltran  10:08

Yeah, it is to honor the culture of the child and the person that they come to school as, instead of saying, okay, no matter who you are at home, but at will and in the workplace, and it just, you know, you are a different person in society,

Risa Woods  10:21

you have to learn how to function in different cultures and different and different spaces as different people. And so it’s really special to be like, No, you can be yourself here.

Chrissy Beltran  10:32

We have I’m glad you brought up that term melting pot, because I’ve heard it used in a lot of people who are they’re not intending to use it in a negative way. was what we were raised.

Risa Woods  10:42

Right. Yeah. It’s America is amazing. It’s a melting pot.

Chrissy Beltran  10:45

Yeah, from all over come together. And then we make this amazing American culture, right. But But I think like, you know, we’re like a soup, like with a little chunks of things. Separately, like a tossed salad. Maybe Eagles have that fruit salad song, I don’t know. Mention, I have a two year old, that new fruit salad song that came out a few years ago, and they talk about how everybody’s got their own thing, but they’re all in the same bowl. And I think that’s a really nice metaphor that actually represents, you know, what we’re trying to do, you can still remain if you’re, you know, if you’re a piece of pineapple, pineapple, but you’re gonna benefit from being around all the other fruit.

Risa Woods  11:21

Right? Yeah, just holding diversity is something that’s good, and not something that we need to take away from students. And that goes for not just English learners and all students, but I think particularly English learners. And I think a lot of English learners have pressure even from their parents to assimilate. And, you know, I’ve heard that I’ve heard that before of like, only speak English, we’re only speak English at home. And like, you know, no, we’re actually adding to your toolbox. Like you said, we’re adding to your repertoire of what, you know, we’re not stripping away of something you don’t know. But I think that is, you know, that comes even from from their homes, because that’s what they’ve heard. And so it’s, it’s just a, it’s unique and special to say, no, actually, you can still be you and be in my class.

Chrissy Beltran  12:11

That’s a really good point, too. We do see that, that in first generation kids, you know, that they’re, that are adults, they tend to pull away from the culture more because they are trying to assimilate. And that is driven by the parents when they’re younger, and then they don’t realize then later, they get older and realize, oh, man, this has actually driven a wedge between me and my kid. Because now yeah, have we don’t share these things? Or their their Spanish or their, their native language is not as strong?

Risa Woods  12:39

Yeah, I actually, I’m my dad is from Iran. So I’m a second generation immigrant. And yeah, I think I had that experience where, you know, I, it was a kind of a both and of him. And also just feeling like, I didn’t want to be different. I didn’t want to be weird. I specifically remember doughnuts with that, and him coming and being like, it was kindergarten, and being like, oh, none of the other kids look like like, now the other parents look like him. Like, oh, this is weird. This is different. Like, I don’t like that, you know, and, and, you know, through my own journey, I didn’t really learn Farsi because of that, because, you know, my dad spoke to me, I spoke English back because I didn’t want to be different or stranger, you know. So I think that’s another reason I have a passion for No, you can actually be yourself here and your family can you can have your family cultural about, you know, like, even just bringing weird food from home that happened to me, where it’s like, oh, I have kebab. And everyone else says chicken nuggets. You know, that’s weird. I don’t want to do that anymore. Yeah, yeah,

Chrissy Beltran  13:39

that gives you a really great perspective on the kids that you’re working with, and helping them, you know, kind of figure out how to move in this place that is different than where they’ve come from. So I think that’s a really special connection that you have with the kids. And it’s, it gives you a perspective that maybe some of their teachers don’t share, so that you can open that up to them and help them realize no, this is actually maybe they could be feeling this way. Right. It’s great. So what do you think? I think you may have already mentioned this, but what do you think is most important, about about educating kids in adding English to their toolbox?

Risa Woods  14:14

Yeah, I think the education of teachers is really important, I think. So a lot of the data I have is from the four COVID, so I’m sorry about that. It’s a little old. But in in the United States school year of 2019 2020, there are over 5 million English learners or students identified as we’re in identified as English learners. And they’re one of the fastest growing demographics of our country. And my experience and just the research that shows there’s a wreath there’s a study in 2018, my son Dubon, yes and ganda ganda. And they discover that over 70% of general education teachers, especially secondary didn’t feel equipped to teach English learners in their own classrooms. And I think that’s shocking to say, we’ve got a lot of students who are even born here, not just a set not necessarily migrated here who are classified as English learners, and we don’t know how to serve them. So I think that is the biggest thing to say, you know, we call it an achievement gap, but they don’t even have the opportunity, right. I like the term opportunity gap. That, you know, I mean, only 60% of English learners are graduating high schools in our country. So I, to answer your question. I think that’s, that’s what I think is number one, right now is to prepare teachers. And I know, I’ve worked with a lot of schools that say, Well, we have ELL staff, we don’t really, you know, they do they do the job, it’s their responsibility. And it’s, it’s interesting to me, because especially intermediate or long term learners, students who have who have been in the ELO system for a while, they have less and less time with the LL teachers they have the majority of their time is with general education teachers, that’s where they’re receiving their language development. So we really need to equip these teachers and coaches so that they can serve the students absent because otherwise the the opportunity gap is just gonna keep widening. Yes,

Chrissy Beltran  16:17

yeah, you’re absolutely right. Whenever my dad was a kid, he only spoke Spanish at home, whenever he started school, they, for what, I don’t know why they waited till second grade, but in second grade, they held him back because the first year he learned English, and the second year, he learned second grade. That was the the way that they saw it, you know, or sooner, yeah. And then, you know, 2030 years later, my husband went to school, also only having spoken Spanish at home. And he went to school, you know, with that, only that tool in his toolbox. And he was able to learn, you know, the language at the same time as learning the content. Yeah. And now he actually prefers to speak in English kind of what we talked about a while. He’s, his parents came here whenever they were older, right before they had kids. And they came from Mexico. And so he kind of pulled away from that a little bit. And, and he actually struggled in school. I think a lot of the issues were around his parents not being able to communicate with the teacher, teacher, not even knowing what to say to the parents, right. So the parents said, No, that’s not for me. That’s not what is the point of me going to this thing. So the teacher can like gesture at the report card and write it like, Oh, yeah. That’s it. It was like the connection between school and home was just not there. Yes. And, and so it was, and it was it, he really struggled with that, I think, and academically, he probably would have been just fine. If somebody could have communicated with him. The parents did the best that they had not had an education really. So the best thing they need to do is to say, just go to school and do

Risa Woods  17:54

it your teacher. Right? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I actually, I had a lot of students who, you know, we would do home visits, home visits were the best way to really reach families for me. We would do home visits, and they would, you know, I think, as teachers or coaches, we could say, oh, the the family doesn’t care. They never come to this, they don’t care. And I think that’s that that kind of rhetoric is used a lot. But when I would have a conversation with them, they would say things like, what you’re saying if like, well, we don’t really know, school, we just we trust the teacher, we say they say they’d always have a phrase. A lot of my Congolese families, they would say like, well, we’re the, I’m the parents at home. And you’re the parents at school, and we trust you like it was it was it was like an honor for them to say, Oh,

Chrissy Beltran  18:40

we trust wanna cry? That is like, the sweetest thing.

Risa Woods  18:44

Yeah, so I could say, oh, these parents don’t care. They don’t care about their, you know, but no, they trusted me to be their parents at school. And I, you know, had to explain that we actually want to partner with you, and maybe we can build a bridge between home and school. But I think yeah, mindset is so important in this work. And that’s, I mean, that you’re getting to other things I want to say but like, that mindset of, you know, instead of just automatically assuming this, this family does this, or this child, you know, whatever, but actually being curious and asking, oh, okay, why would why? You know, and I think that’s, that was that’s part of the work too. It’s like, we’re, they’re coming from a completely different cultural background. So like, what does their culture say about education? Was their culture say about conferences? Like, are they used to going to a pizza movie night on Friday nights? Like, is that kind of stranger? Yeah, you know, I don’t know.

Chrissy Beltran  19:37

Yeah, yeah, that culture, the home home life of children absolutely impacts their school life. And, and we don’t have the proper bit bridges. In many cases. I remember I had a student whenever I was a teacher who came from Hong Kong, and she spoke Chinese Mandarin and Mandarin Chinese and I struggled to get the resources that I needed to work with her. She had a little bit Using a little translator that her parents had provided her with, like an electronic translator, yes, a long time ago. Like, Wow, that’s incredible. Like, everybody has access on their phone, but and, and she used to, like, translate everything through this little translator. And it was she, it was just a huge struggle for me as a teacher to figure out what to do, and a huge struggle, you know, to communicate with their parents, because the majority of people who speak another language here speak Spanish. So we have those resources, I could grow it teacher from down the hall to train if I needed, you know, yeah, nine out of 10 of them were bilingual, but I couldn’t find somebody to translate for me in Mandarin Chinese. So building those bridges are really important to parents and teachers are not always set up for success in that,

Risa Woods  20:49

right. Yeah, absolutely. And like knowing the resources to use if you know, schools are, the policy of the United States is that schools are supposed to provide an interpreter for, you know, events, like IEP meetings or conferences. I’ve been a part of so many schools, even with a majority English learner, or that they just would use a brother use a sister use a friend, you know, and I’m like, we are legally bound to provide an actual interpreter, a trained interpreter, and, yeah, so it’s, it’s one of the things that I’m really passionate about, but also just is, is it’s a lot of teachers don’t know. And a lot of even administrators don’t know that these are the resources that they have, or can use or need to use. Or fight for or demand fight for it. Yeah, advocate. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that they deserve to hear that in their home language. And not just by you know, I would I speak a little bit of Spanish I’m not, you know, I’m not perfect. I’m conversational. But yeah, I would get pulled in all the time. But can you talk to the parent? There’s a parent meeting, which I’m like, no, absolutely. Not like I I’m no, this is not fair to them to have me stumble through Spanish for them to hear something important from you.

Chrissy Beltran  22:13

Exactly. So yeah, yeah, the quality does matter, for sure. Matter. So what are some of the other challenges that are really unique to the kind of coaching that you do?

Risa Woods  22:25

Yeah, I’d say mindset is a is a big one. I think, honestly, mindset is one of the biggest, you know, I think a lot of people want to get the strategies and not saying that those are important. But first, yeah. What do you believe about the English learners in your classroom? Or in your school? What do you what do you think about them? Do you hold high standards for them? Do you? You know, I know, it’s, we’re several years removed from this, hopefully, but of having them sit in the back and play on their iPad or pulling up color, you know, that, that we’re not that far removed? Actually, from that, hopefully, I hope we are but where I don’t know what to do with this kid, I would hear a lot as a coach, I don’t know, dude, this kid. And so just the mindsets of what teachers believe, is huge. And coaching teachers through just having an asset based mindset towards students that they’re not coming with a blank slate, they’re not coming with nothing. They’re coming with experiences, they’re coming with linguistic experiences and cultural experiences. And yeah, that’s a lot of like, my conversations I try to have first before the strategies because the strategies aren’t really going to do much if you think that they aren’t capable. That they, yeah.

Chrissy Beltran  23:48

Yeah, the more that we can make connections to that home language, the more that we can can help kids use what they already have. You build a bridge to the new language that they’re learning. We’re effective, that’s going to be if we try to silo it off and say, Okay, you’re going to that’s not going to help you here. We’re going to start from scratch. We’re starting. Yeah, the kids, kids with stronger literacy skills in their native languages pick up a second language, right?

Risa Woods  24:13

Absolutely. Yes, that that is, research shows that that students that have that home language base, to pick it up or acquire it a lot faster. But not to say that students that don’t have I mean, obviously, they have linguistic experiences, but maybe don’t have the literacy experiences that right can’t learn as well. But yeah, just mindset work is a lot of I’d have, you know, there’s actually one teacher I worked with, she was Teacher of the Year, she had a lot of accolades, and she, you know, helped write curriculum for the district. And she had a group of students push in, that were English learners, and she would have them sit on the floor. And then she would call them visiting students and just like, all these things that I’m like, Okay, all right, there’s a there’s a disconnect between, like this wonderful pedagogical experience that she has and how she’s treating English learners and what she thinks of English learners. And so that was like the first thing I thought it was like, wow. Okay, what does she believe about these students? Like? Are they as important? Can they sit in the chairs with the other students? And are they as worthy of her education? Or, you know, I don’t know. So that was a lot of conversations I had with her. And that actually was a really great experience to, to, I don’t know, advocate for equity for the students. And she eventually was like, wow, yeah. I, I didn’t know where I didn’t see it, or I’ve never known or I’d never been trained, or I just didn’t know what to do. Right. I hear that a lot. I didn’t know what to do. So I just Yeah, yeah.

Chrissy Beltran  25:50

Yeah, they get kind of thrown into situations. Sometimes. They’re having to make decisions in the moment. So they’re like, I’m okay. Right here. Yeah. Kids, these are our visitors. Establish, and that’s just kind of what they absolutely,

Risa Woods  26:01

yeah, I don’t think, you know, this teachers are being malicious. But yeah, yeah. Once we kind of zoom back and say, Actually, that’s not equitable. That’s, it’s not fair. For these learners, but um, yeah.

Chrissy Beltran  26:18

I think that’s a good point. That the impact, we talk a lot about impact versus intention, right. And the intentions in some of these cases, like we’ve been melting pot, the intention is not an intention. But I can be a negative impact on capsule Lily.

Risa Woods  26:32

Absolutely. Yeah, I think. Yeah, I think teachers. Yeah, they get uncomfortable. They don’t know what to do. And that’s probably similar to like, race conversations, you know, teachers have, I think, there’s like, I don’t know what to do. So I’m just gonna

Chrissy Beltran  26:49

might do the wrong thing, or Exactly, right. Yeah. And the problem is, whenever we’re so afraid of doing the wrong thing, and we don’t have a safe space to maybe to say the wrong thing in then we never uncover, right? It’s just that underneath that is maybe driving us to not realize that that’s the wrong, right. We never really dug past the superficial to get to the biases that we have. And what

Risa Woods  27:09

Yeah, yeah. I know, it ELL teachers I’ve worked with. I know, they are strong, passionate advocates. And I think sometimes they might speaking of bridges, like they might burn that bridge between themselves in the classroom teacher because they see these things. They they know what the right thing is to do, and maybe come across as like a certain way. I’ve heard that from both ends. It’s like, and so that I saw that a lot. And I my work also is just to build a bridge between the ELL teacher and the classroom teacher to say, like, Hey, we’re on the same team. Last one, teacher, man, I know as much as you do. You, you obviously are passionate, or you’re great advocate. But like, how can we build that bridge instead of just like lighting a fire and saying they’re not doing the right thing? Or they need to be doing this? Or this is the law? Like I heard, I heard that a lot of like, this is a lot I need to meet the lead. And like, of course, it’s a law. Yes, yes. Yes, it is. But let’s let’s meet them where they’re at and build them, like build their toolbox.

Chrissy Beltran  28:13

Yeah, yeah. But as easy as that from Special Ed teachers as well. Anybody who’s in other people’s classrooms, sees what’s happening all the time. And you will, I mean, from coaches, you’d like oh my gosh, why not?

Risa Woods  28:26

How did they think this was okay. But yeah, yeah. Yeah. And just taking a step back and, and kind of meeting them where they are? Yeah, definitely. As coaches for sure. Yeah.

Chrissy Beltran  28:34

So what does the majority of your coaching work look like? Like if you think about how you spend your time, what happens most often?

Risa Woods  28:42

Yeah, so I have what happens and what I’m kind of pivoting towards. I consult with schools right now, for EAL compliance and perfect professional development. I really want to focus on general education teachers I do a majority of my work is right now is is like whole school professional development and workshops, and yeah, and the compliance piece working with schools to make sure they’re compliant. But yeah, I’m, I’m pivoting towards the general education teacher. So coaching them one on one, or coaching coaches. Working with leadership, I’ve done a little bit of that right now. Just like coaching leadership and what to do. And, yeah, the majority of my schools that I’ve worked with are smaller schools, like some rural rural schools, it’s hard to say that, yeah, they only have a few students or they don’t have, you know, this huge population where they even have an English language development team. And they’re basically in the general education classroom most of the time. So what do we do? I have a newcomer from Ukraine, and, you know, they’re mostly with us all day long. What do we do? And so? Yeah, so I’ve been working with that that’s the majority of my time. But yeah, pivoting towards, towards general education, teachers and coaches.

Chrissy Beltran  30:11

Yeah, I think that’s really important work. And you’re right, because teachers are so often unprepared. You know, whenever I went to college, I did have several classes and classes on English language development, and, you know, supporting kids who are ELL or, you know, we learned about like, sheltered programs, all different kinds of program.

Risa Woods  30:29

Did you go to Texas?

Chrissy Beltran  30:30

I did. I went to school in El Paso, Texas. That makes sense. So they know, like a lot of the teachers here are from this university. So they tend to prepare people for the place, they’re going to work. Right, right. So that that did give me some background on it and the monolingual teacher, and then I plan closely with bilingual counterparts who were teaching in both languages. But But yeah, I have seen the challenge that that is working with students who are ELL in a monolingual environment. And I’ve seen how hard it is, as well, for bilingual teachers who are teaching both languages every day, you managed to do all the things and get kids really strong in both languages. They get they get like $1,000 stipend, and that’s it. That’s it. That was insanity. To me, the amount of translating these people do like to create materials, because you know, you can never find the same material. We have, we’re less here with a lot of resources in both languages. As far as those two languages go, you’re basically getting

Risa Woods  31:27

two teachers with a price of one. Yeah, it’s why

Chrissy Beltran  31:32

a translator somebody would have to serve with the official school translator, because here we sent home all materials in both languages, English and Spanish, but still, yeah. And that person got like, probably $1,000 stipend do like? No, I mean, General, Ed, teachers have to do all the things and they can be experts in all the thing. Right, right. Yeah, they can be as you’re working with these teachers, who are general ed teachers, and they’re working with ELL students, how are you supporting them? Or how are you going to go about supporting them when they have really limited experience?

Risa Woods  32:02

Yeah, that’s a great question. Um, I? Well, one thing is a lot of strategies that work or that are helpful for English learners or multilingual learners, help a lot of students I love that about the strategies is, for example, visual aids, like, what student is going to be hindered by visual aid, what student is going to be hindered by having, you know, the YouTube video that you’re showing, putting it on point seven, five speed, you know, what student is going to be hindered by acting out? Something that you just like? No one, right. It’s only going to help comprehension. So one thing I do emphasize is that the strategies or tips that that I would give is, it’s not just for this handful of students, and, you know, I don’t know, you don’t have to differentiate and make 30 different lessons, it’s actually going to help the majority, you know, special education students and students that have a fine before that aren’t quite, you know, have an IEP or, you know, all these students. So, that is the majority. There’s a term called comprehensible input. I don’t know if you’re familiar, okay.

Chrissy Beltran  33:16

So basically define it, okay.

Risa Woods  33:20

With your back, but yes, I basically means speaking, or teaching in a way where people can understand and depending, for example, I’ll give you know I have, I have two kids. So the way I talk to a 13 month old, the way I talk to her isn’t I’m not reading the New York Times to her, or, you know, speaking, yes, I am speaking English, and I’m speaking to her but I’m speaking in a way on her level where she understands, right, I’m repeating I’m, maybe, you know, I say, like Peekaboo, peekaboo Peekaboo, I show her over and over, or you’re gonna get your belly and I go to her belly every time. So then she’s like, Oh, this is my belly, right? And it’s the same. Please don’t do that with learners, but it is or additional language learners, but it is the same that we can speak or teach in a way where they understand and if that means visuals, if that means slowing our speech, and unseating better if anyone who’s listening has ever tried learning a second language like it’s it’s a lot more helpful when someone speaks slowly and steadily tension word and space. Words right? Versus just like yeah, I would say I’m conversational Spanish in there. Sometimes I’m like, yeah, no idea what that person just because I spoke so fast or so like, with such slang or whatever, yeah, using less idioms or phrases unless you define them. Like if obviously, if you’re an ELA classroom, you’re looking at figurative language and yes, but, you know, just speaking with students, maybe You can limit those or being more concise in what you say. Yeah, just having all those strategies, where you think about, yeah, I always, I always say this just to teachers and coaches, I want you to picture yourself being dropped in the classroom in China, like, what would help you understand, if they’re just speaking at you, you’re gonna check out like you are, you’re gonna put your head down, you’re gonna check out you’re gonna be on your phone or whatever else. But what if they have actions or gestures, or they slow or they repeat a word or, you know, like, that’s going to be more engaging to you. And even if you don’t know, every single thing, you’re gonna, you’re gonna know what they’re saying. They teach it in a way that’s understandable. So, yeah, comprehensible input is really important. Also, understanding the difference between social language and academic language is really important. where a student is qualified or classified as an English learner, and then teachers alike, but they know English, it’s fine. Like, they’re just, you know, they’re a bad tester, or they’re, you know, and that could be true. I’m not saying there are other factors, but But it’s like, no, actually, they have the social language, they can talk to their friends, they can text, they can make a tic toc video, but can they? How would they do in a classroom setting? Like, I’ll use myself and as like, as an example, I, my minor in college was Spanish. And I felt pretty confident my Spanish and and then I started my first class, it was the history of Spain. It was all in Spanish. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, it was so hard. It was, it was so hard for me. And I thought I knew, I thought I knew a lot. And I almost failed that class, because I was so lost. And I just wanted to check out I wanted to give up, you know, and so I yeah, like conversational language is much different than academic language. And we need to build a mix scaffold, so that academic language is more available to students.

Chrissy Beltran  37:15

Yeah. That you’re talking about kind of like a universal design, where we’re building scaffolds in regularly in our instruction that are often needs. And we’re concerned, what kind of you know, people make up our classroom, right, ensuring we have things to support those kids, and that it’s not going to harm other kids. And then renovating response if we’re differentiating product. And then we’re having different opportunities for kids who do work at different levels, but the input is comprehensible to me, right? I mean, there are kids who are I mean, they’re, they’re gonna miss pieces of it. Right? Right. We’re trying to focus on comprehensible input.

Risa Woods  37:51

And hopefully, those students have a little bit more support, you know, if it’s a newcomer, your classroom, hopefully they have a little bit more support and other ways with if you’re working with an English language development team. But yes, I would say I went through scaffolding. I lost it.

Chrissy Beltran  38:12

Okay, maybe I’ll come to you. So, if teachers or coaches are trying to support their teachers, and they’re trying to get them resources, are there any resources that are especially helpful for teachers or coaches that they could look into for themselves? Or for the teachers?

Risa Woods  38:30

Yeah, I would say focus on do sorry, when you say resources, could you like, define more of what you mean by that,

Chrissy Beltran  38:43

anything that you have found helpful, really, I mean, it can be it can be professional development resources, but it can also be things that have worked really well for kids. You know, like, I know that we had the last year that I was a coach on a campus we were using the wealth program for English language development. And so it was very difficult for our teachers to find the time in the day to do that with a small group of kids who were who needed a lot of English support. So I actually would work with them I would do a push in model and work with those kids. But that was like one specific program that was specifically for English language development, but the progress is very slow is Mike in that program? So you know, if you have any recommendations on resources that they can look into for kids, or is it PD resources as well?

Risa Woods  39:26

Yeah, I think I think it probably depends on your the model and your school. And what Yeah, I think it it depends on your model and your school like what subjects you’re teaching and yeah, I can’t think of any like one blanket resource that would be great for everybody. I do. I don’t know if you know who Valentina Gonzalez is, um, I follow her and she’s got a lot of her own stuff that comes out. And that’s really helpful for teachers. Obviously, you can follow me on Instagram too. But she’s really great too. She’s got a few books out that Larry Ferlazzo also is another one that they’ve got a few books out that that help teachers with general education classrooms that I really respect and have different models. But yeah, I think it really depends on the model. And yeah, it’s a little more. I would hate to just like blanket, say everyone to do this. Because it’s a little more probably more specialist than that. But those are two authors, I would say that I would check out if I were them. But yeah,

Chrissy Beltran  40:45

yeah, that’s a great place to start. Yeah. Thank you so much for all of the information that you shared today. I get now to ask my favorite question, which is, what is your favorite thing right now? And it can be you know, book, movie and activity, anything that you’re enjoying?

Risa Woods  41:00

Yeah, um, I have been really jazzed about Abbott Elementary, have you?

Chrissy Beltran  41:06

I have seen a few. I visited my brother last March or know last October. And we were he he’s always got some new show. He’s watching. So we sat there and polished off tons of episodes.

Risa Woods  41:19

I honestly bummed that there aren’t enough. There aren’t that many seasons. I can binge it. But yeah, I always look forward to it every week. Habit Elementary.

Chrissy Beltran  41:27

Yeah, that’s a good one. It’s cute.

Risa Woods  41:29

Yeah. What about you? Do you have one of my favorite show or something that you’re really into right now

Chrissy Beltran  41:35

that I’m really into right now? Well, I’m actually reading I had never read His Dark Materials, that series that came out, way back when. And so I just finished the first one and like the first of the trilogy, and I’m starting the second one. So I’m really enjoying that. And I’ve been making a point. Because I love TV shows I love really good dramas, those are my favorite thing. Like I recently did this thing where I rewatched all of Breaking Bad, and then all of that. Which was, you know, a lot of work a lot of time and yeah, I really dedicate a lot of time to that, that world. So I’m trying to not start a new show. Because I’m like, No, I need to go to bed earlier, right tend to be like a night owl. And with children, they don’t allow that. I’m trying to force myself to get a bed by like 985 and then read and go to sleep. So that’s been my thing. Okay. Like, like, I’d love to read but you know, TV is a total time suck. So that’s been my thing lately is I’m in the middle of planning because

Risa Woods  42:40

I get into reading at night. I’m like, I just I want to know what’s next. I want to read the next chapter. So I can

Chrissy Beltran  42:45

happen that happens as well. Like the other day I was like, I want to read I started reading it like eight o’clock and I was up to like 1130 Yeah, not great either.

Risa Woods  42:53

Gonna wind down for me, it’s like yeah, like, I don’t know what you’re gonna have a next if it’s dark

Chrissy Beltran  42:57

in the room. It does help because I’m always tired. Oh, I could fall asleep probably at any given time. So I think because I was in my room I just had like the nightstand light on it was really dim. And so I think that helps me to get drowsy but if I read like in the den or any other place No, I’m I have the same. Oh, yeah, I have a two year old you know what a knockout. I could probably fall asleep right now.

Risa Woods  43:20

I can’t sleep. Yeah, whenever I’m like, why don’t you sleep? Please? Why don’t

Chrissy Beltran  43:25

children need sleep? I don’t know. But they don’t. So how can people find you online in the real world? You mentioned your Instagram account a minute ago.

Risa Woods  43:34

My Instagram is Risa Woods underscore ell. So Ri s a w ODS underscore e LL. on there. I’m, I have my website and different resources that you can check

Chrissy Beltran  43:50

out. All right. Well, thank you so much for sharing. Thank

Risa Woods  43:52

you. Yeah, I enjoyed it. Thank you so much for having me. Hey, Coach,

Chrissy Beltran  43:57

I really enjoyed that conversation with Risa. I think she hit on some really important important points that can get lost sometimes whenever we are dealing with the reality of kids being required to test at certain times in certain grades and have mastery of English at a certain point. And sometimes we fail to build the bridges that we need to actually help kids be successful not just this year on this test, but in the world that they’re going to live in, you know the rest of their lives. So I think that was a really great dialogue. And I appreciate Risa joining me today. You can grab a free webinar for your coaching role. If you’re struggling with kind of figuring out what is part of your responsibilities, then I definitely want you to check out my define your coaching role webinar and that’s at WWW dot buzzing with MS b.com slash webinar. Next week, we are starting a new theme which I’m really excited about, you know, I love my themes. We’re talking about establishing a coaching program. So whether you’re new brand new coach, or new to a school, or even a veteran coach, this series will help ensure that you are set This year up to coach successfully, because the things that we can do at the beginning of the year can set us up for success the rest of the year or we can feel like we missed an opportunity. We’re fighting an uphill battle. Definitely Join me next week for our new theme where we talk a little bit about adjusting to being out of the classroom. And until then, happy coaching

Chrissy Beltran  45:26

Thank you for listening to buzzing with Miss B the coaching podcast. Want more coaching ideas? Check me out at buzzing with Miss b.com and on Instagram at buzzing with Miss B. If you love the show, share it with a coach who would love it too. Or leave me a review on iTunes. It’s free and it helps others find this show. Happy coaching!