Contact your state rep if you have news you'd like to share!

June 2010

ESL/ Special Ed Resource Guide Completed

The ESL-Special Education working group is delighted to announce the publication of the long-awaited state guidelines for distinguishing normal language learning differences from learning disabilities. The multi-disciplinary group of special educators, ESL teachers, Saint Michael's College faculty and district and state administrators named in the document, guided by consultants from the Equity Alliance at Brown University and the Northeast Regional Resource Center, worked for over two years to develop a shared understanding of the issues and of best practices in ESL instruction and assessment and to then develop guidelines consistent with best practice in the U.S. The document can be retrieved at http://education.vermont.gov/new/pdfdoc/pgm_esl/educ_ell_sped_resource_guide.pdf

CLIMBS Course Planned for Spring 2011

Burlington School District just completed a 15-week CLIMBS course for teams of ESL and general education teachers. CLIMBS is a WIDA-created course, and Beth Evans (NNETESOL past president and webmaster) and Kathy McLean taught the course as WIDA-certified trainers. They plan to offer the course again next spring. Spots in the course are first open to Burlington School District educators and then remaining spots are opened to educators in other districts. This year’s course description is available at http://education.vermont.gov/new/pdfdoc/dept/calendar/educ_cal_climbs_brochure.pdf

ELL Collaboration Workshop Well Attended

Don Bouchard, a trained WIDA consultant, recently led a workshop entitled "Two are Better than One: Collaborative Instruction for English Language Learners" for teams of ELL and mainstream teachers from around Vermont. The workshop was held in two locations, Montpelier and Colchester, to maximize teacher participation and both dates were completely booked.

The workshop addressed several aspects of teacher collaboration including why it is beneficial for teachers and students, what it should look like, and the obstacles to accomplishing it. The set up allowed the teams that attended to discuss their views of collaboration together, while also working with teams from other schools to get different perspectives on the art of collaboration.

Sustainability Academy in Burlington Supports ELLs and their Families

ELL teacher Mary Kay O’Brien wrote to share what has been going on with the ELLs at the Sustainability Academy at Barnes in Burlington. This spring she worked with two groups of 1st grade ELL students to write two projects on penguins (an extension of a math unit in the classroom) and soccer. They created films with music and titles that were presented at the "Celebration of Learning" assembly at the school and they were very well received.

In addition to reading instruction, ELL students have been working on RAZ KIDS, a subset of A-Z Learning. Mary writes, “our students have been very excited about these books with narration and comprehension questions. As they read and pass books, they get points to buy things for their RAZ Rocket. (It's kind of like Webkinz.) If you want to try it out, A-Z learning will give you a day or more free pass to see what it is all about.”

The Sustainability Academy at Barnes has also sponsored many events with ELL families and students in mind. For instance, they have had some "Nepali Teas" where parents can come and relax with the principal and ELL teachers and talk about their concerns. One thing that parents were concerned about was that their children would lose their native language. It was decided that the ELL teachers would work with the Nepali home school liaison to prepare some practice books with pictures for students in English and Nepali with many spaces to practice the writing in Nepali. The Nepali community also put on a dinner for the school community with music and fun and it was very well attended. The Sustainability Academy plans to continue developing similar activities for the other ethnic communities at their school.

St Johnsbury Academy and Lyndon State Present Multicultural Festival

This spring the St. Johnsbury Academy ESL Program and Lyndon State College hosted their third annual multi-cultural festival for families: KIDZ WORLD III. The event is held annually on the 2nd Saturday of March. The international students at the Academy, both current and former ESL students, organize the entire two hour event. This year thirteen countries were represented. Students create booths to share the cultures of their home countries. Among other items most of the booths include facts, crafts, artifacts, traditional costumes and music. Students also teach the games from their home countries to the local children. This year over 100 families attended the event.

Prior to the event the Academy students visited three local elementary schools to preview the games and crafts that would be a part of the festival.

The Academy ESL Program also took their presentations to IROC, the Indoor Recreation Center of Orleans County, in late April. The IROC presentation was an invitational community event focused on teaching North Country school district students about Asian cultures.

Burlington ELL Teacher Recognized by UVM

Lynda Siegel, a long time ELL teacher in the Burlington School District, received this year’s UVM Distinguished Educator Award. Every year UVM chooses an educator to honor for their outstanding contribution to the field and this year they chose Siegel, who teaches in the STEP program (Studying towards English Proficiency) which is a multi-age classroom for newly arrived refugee children. This one year multi-age English immersion experience prepares them for re-integration into the regular classroom. Those who nominated her described Lynda as “a dedicated, creative and dynamic classroom teacher.” Congratulations, Lynda!

February 2010

State Representatives’ Report - Vermont: Rita MacDonald and Kirsten Kollgaard

School districts hard at work on professional development

Burlington School District is running a 15-week CLIMBS course for teams of ESL and gen ed teachers. CLIMBS is a WIDA-created course, and Beth Evans (NNETESOL past president and webmaster) and Kathy McLean are teaching the course as WIDA-certified trainers.

Burlington School District is running a 10-week online introductory course (TRAVELLs) for teachers and staff with limited experience working with ELLs, taught by ESL Teachers Kathy McLean and Amanda Gustafson.

South Burlington School District is in its second year of professional development with Project CREATE at Saint Michael’s College on integrated content-language instruction at the High School level. Two content-area teams (Biology and U.S. History) work with SMC faculty members Rita MacDonald (Applied Linguistics, NNETESOL state representative) and James Nagle (Education) to embed content-relevant language instruction into their general ed classrooms. Each course is co-taught by the content specialist and an ESL teacher, Heidi Western (Biology) and Rebecca Baker (History).

Winooski School District continues its year-long commitment to training all general ed teachers in ESL strategies through embedded training and mentoring. Faculty from Saint Michael’s College Applied Linguistics and Education Departments work with all teachers in the elementary, middle and high schools to develop lessons that are differentiated for ELLs and weave language instruction into content instruction. ESL teachers Nancy Devost, Kirsten Kollgaard, Jean Plass, Andrea Wheeland and Inge White assist their general ed colleagues in analyzing the language demands of content lessons and planning language instruction.

News from the IHE Front

Project CREATE at Saint Michael's College just completed a successful second year of grant-funded school-based projects, aimed at developing integrated content-language instruction in three partner school districts. Eleven teams comprised of members of SMC faculty and teachers from Burlington, South Burlington and Winooski presented their work at the CREATE winter Conference in December. A list of projects and related materials can be found on the CREATE website at http://academics.smcvt.edu/CREATE/Default.htm

Project CREATE at Saint Michael's College hosted a day-long workshop with Dr. Mary Schleppegrell (University of Michigan) focused on the application of systemic functional linguistics to the analysis of academic English in the content areas. The morning was spent with SMC faculty in Applied Linguistics and Education, discussing the challenge of educating pre-service gen ed teachers for increased linguistic awareness. The afternoon was spent with teachers from three partner school districts, demonstrating the use of SFL strategies as a means of analyzing and learning content through analyzing language. Participants were enthusiastic about SFL as a means of developing a shared language between ESL and gen ed, to enhance the collaboration between our two disciplines. Year Three of CREATE-funded school-based projects will focus on the application of SFL in content classrooms.

University of Vermont (The Committee for Diversity Initiatives of the College of Education and Social Services) in collaboration with the Agency of Human Services’ Refugee Office, Burlington School District’s Diversity & Equity Office, and the State Department of Education, is hosting a mini-conference on English language learners and refugee immigrants in Vermont. February 17, 3:30 in the UVM Davis Center. The conference, entitled “Identity and Intercultural Awareness: Responding to the Stories of English Language Learners, will include a local keynote speaker, Denise Lamoureux, (State Refugee Coordinator for the Vermont Agency of Human Services), a panel of young adult refugee immigrants who will share their stories and discussion groups facilitated by community service providers.

Volunteer Opportunities Supporting our Refugee Communities

Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program is celebrating its 30th anniversary on “World Refugee Day” by hosting an event for all its staff, volunteers and refugee clients. It will be held at the Unitarian Church at the top of Church Street in Burlington on Sunday, June 20th. There will be a potluck and performances by different ethnic groups and the local band, “The Fiddleheads.” VRRP is looking for volunteers who are interested in helping with the infrastructure for this event to make this 30th anniversary a special one! If you are interested please email volunteer@uscrivt.org or call (802)338-4633 for more information.

Barre Schools Support Their ELL Students

This fall the Barre ELL teachers have been busy supporting their ELLs with a variety of different activities. On November 4th five ELL students went to visit Champlain College with three of their teachers, Olga Benoit, Lisa Burton and Ya’an Zhang. The students met with an Admissions Counselor who described the college and discussed the variety of courses offered. The students enjoyed the trip and were inspired to begin making plans to make their college dream come true.

Students and teachers also have been organizing “International Days” at Spaulding High School and BCEMS, with the most recent one held on November 19th. This year they chose to celebrate the cultures of Central and South America with Garifuna Settlement Day, which is celebrated in Belize, a small country in Central America. Activities included a Brazilian exchange student sharing a photo story of his life and ethnicity, and a dance performance by African performers Soriba Simbo Camara and Africa Djolie. Many students were surprised to see African culture celebrated in connection with Central American countries, but this question was straightened out when teacher Olga Benoit explained that in Belize the roots of African culture are so strong that Garifuna Settlement Day is celebrated with big parades with African dance and drumming. The celebration at the school was a great way to bring people together, to give them a better understanding of the world around them, and to have them open their eyes to new culture and experiences. The young people of Spaulding and BCEMS seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves and they hope that next year’s international day be just as, if not more, exciting.

Nov. 2009

Likely CLIMBS Course in Spring

Burlington will most likely be offering a CLIMBS course through the Champlain Valley Educator Development Center. Two people were also sent to a CAL training on What's Different About Teaching Reading to Students Learning English? with plans to send two more people. One avenue of delivering professional development for ESL training is to deliver in 10-minute required chunks at staff meetings.

Burlington School District STEP Program Begins 2nd Year

The Burlington School District has just begun their second year of a new, innovative full day program that supports English language learners. The Studying Toward English Proficiency (STEP) program is a self contained intensive English program taught by Lynda Siegel. It is for ELL students who need more time and support than the regular ESL program provides. It serves students in first through fifth grades, who may have had interrupted or minimal schooling in their home countries. Some of these students may be newcomers but participation in the program is not defined by how long someone has been in the country.

Placement is based on the score a student receives on the WIDA-ACCESS Placement Test (W-APT). If they receive a low score on the W-APT test they are referred to STEP and given a more comprehensive test, which indicates if they are an appropriate candidate for the class.

The goals of STEP are to teach fundamental skills in reading, writing, learning the alphabet and the language of math, while gaining basic English skills, before being mainstreamed into a regular classroom. The curriculum includes an accelerated version of the Fundations program to learn letters and sounds (both Kindergarten and first grade curriculums are covered in one year), the first grade Bridges math curriculum, Readers’ Workshop, Writers’ Workshop and an introduction to science and the inquiry model. The social curriculum includes an overview of appropriate behavior in US public schools.

The STEP program is housed in the new Integrated Arts Academy at H.O. Wheeler in Burlington’s Old North End, so Lynda has incorporated the new arts curriculum into her class. Through the use of music, puppetry and other art forms the students are developing their understanding of English and their literacy skills.

Lynda welcomes volunteers and student interns to the STEP class. Please email her at lsiegel@bsdvt.org for more information.

Educating All Future Teachers abut ELLs

Through Project CREATE at Saint Michael’s College, OELA-funded curriculum revision continues, with the goal that all Education majors graduate with the knowledge and skill to work effectively with ELLs in content classrooms. Toward that end, the Secondary Education faculty, together with several faculty members from the Applied Linguistics Department, have spent the summer studying the functional linguistics approach of Mary Schleppegrell as a method for analyzing the academic English required in content classes. A day-long faculty workshop featured an overview of best practice in sheltered instruction and a brief workshop on discourse analysis. Additionally, a CREATE project headed by Dr. Elizabeth O’Dowd in partnership with Nancy Nadel from the Burlington School District, has been researching the scope and sequence of academic English in the middle school setting. In January of 2010, all CREATE teams from SMC and three partner school districts (Burlington, Winooski and South Burlington) will meet for a day-long workshop with Dr. Mary Schleppegrell from the University of Michigan on analyzing and developing academic English for ELLs.

District-wide Training of All Content Teachers

The Winooski School District, in its ongoing effort to train all its teachers in the methodology of integrated content-language instruction, has planned a year-long series of professional development on academic English. Using a combination of presentation, classroom observation and coaching, faculty consultants from Saint Michael's College will train Winooski faculty in the analysis and instruction of academic English in content classrooms, as well as in the methodology of sheltered content instruction.

Respectfully submitted,

Kirsten Kollgaard and Rita MacDonald, VT NNETESOL Representatives

Sept. 2009

WIDA Summer Academy #3 took place August 3 - 6, 2009, Burlington, VT

Designing a Standards-Based Curriculum for ELLs

Description: This was an intermediate academy focused on helping educators incorporate the WIDA ELP Standards to grade-appropriate, content standards curriculum. Participants brought and shared units and/or lessons and WIDA staff guided them through the process of integrating ELP standards to make them accessible for varying ELL proficiency levels in the language domains of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Participants also engaged in collegial exploration of appropriate academic language expectations with regard to language complexity, vocabulary usage, and language control.
Objectives - Participants were able to:

Learn and practice the process of creating model performance indicators (MPIs) for all language domains;
Create and adapt curriculum-specific MPIs by transforming them according to language functions, topics, and supports;
Develop an efficient framework for differentiating grade-appropriate curriculum units and lessons; and
Create content-specific examples to demonstrate the transformation process in differentiating curriculum for ELLs.

We created a wiki that could help some member states out with document needs. You need not be a member to look; only to post. Check it out at http://widastuff.wikispaces.com/

BSD summer ESL/SpEd professional development
I will post more on this soon. Phyllis Hardy of Brown University came to speak. Information can be found here: http://neeac.alliance.brown.edu/ourwork_what.php
Through the Educational Alliance, they provide consultation free of charge in our three states to public and private schools. they are helping us--we hope--work through our underrepresentation of ELLs in SpEd. Apparently there are many more meetings to come. I just wanted to pass this on as a resource.--beth

Burlington School District STEP Program Begins 2nd Year
The Burlington School District has just begun their second year of a new, innovative full day program that supports English language learners. The Studying Toward English Proficiency (STEP) program is a self contained intensive English program taught by Lynda Siegel. It is for ELL students who need more time and support than the regular ESL program provides. It serves students in first through fifth grades, who may have had interrupted or minimal schooling in their home countries. Some of these students may be newcomers but participation in the program is not defined by how long someone has been in the country. Placement is based on the score a student receives on the WIDA-ACCESS Placement Test (W-APT). If they receive a low score on the W-APT test they are referred to STEP and given a more comprehensive test, which indicates if they are an appropriate candidate for the class. The goals of STEP are to teach fundamental skills in reading, writing, learning the alphabet and the language of math, while gaining basic English skills, before being mainstreamed into a regular classroom. The curriculum includes an accelerated version of the Fundations program to learn letters and sounds (both Kindergarten and first grade curriculums are covered in one year), the first grade Bridges math curriculum, Readers’ Workshop, Writers’ Workshop and an introduction to science and the inquiry model. The social curriculum includes an overview of appropriate behavior in US public schools. The STEP program is housed in the new Integrated Arts Academy at H.O. Wheeler in Burlington’s Old North End, so Lynda has incorporated the new arts curriculum into her class. Through the use of music, puppetry and other art forms the students are developing their understanding of English and their literacy skills. Lynda welcomes volunteers and student interns to the STEP class. Please email her at lsiegel@bsdvt.org for more information.

Educating All Future Teachers abut ELLs Through Project CREATE at Saint Michael’s College, OELA-funded curriculum revision continues, with the goal that all Education majors graduate with the knowledge and skill to work effectively with ELLs in content classrooms. Toward that end, the Secondary Education faculty, together with several faculty members from the Applied Linguistics Department, have spent the summer studying the functional linguistics approach of Mary Schleppegrell as a method for analyzing the academic English required in content classes. A day-long faculty workshop featured an overview of best practice in sheltered instruction and a brief workshop on discourse analysis. Additionally, a CREATE project headed by Dr. Elizabeth O’Dowd in partnership with Nancy Nadel from the Burlington School District, has been researching the scope and sequence of academic English in the middle school setting. In January of 2010, all CREATE teams from SMC and three partner school districts (Burlington, Winooski and South Burlington) will meet for a day-long workshop with Dr. Mary Schleppegrell from the University of Michigan on analyzing and developing academic English for ELLs.

District-wide Training of All Content Teachers The Winooski School District, in its ongoing effort to train all its teachers in the methodology of integrated content-language instruction, has planned a year-long series of professional development on academic English. Using a combination of presentation, classroom observation and coaching, faculty consultants from Saint Michael's College will train Winooski faculty in the analysis and instruction of academic English in content classrooms, as well as in the methodology of sheltered content instruction.

Respectfully submitted,
Kirsten Kollgaard and Rita MacDonald
VT NNETESOL Representatives

June 2009

NNETESOL Vermont Spring Mini-Conference Summary

• Attendance—35
• Feedback from participants—very positive!
• Costs, Profit? (John, will this be covered in Treasurer’s Report?)
• Notes on sessions

Keynote Address, Bringing the WIDA Standards to Life in the Classroom—Mark Nigolian (ESL Teacher and Content Specialist for the Burlington School District, Instructor at Saint Michaels’ College) led participants through a clear, teacher-friendly explanation of how the WIDA standards were developed and how they can be used to enhance classroom instruction for ELLs. Mark covered all aspects of the WIDA resources, from the English Language Proficiency Levels to the Can Do charts and the MPIs.
Transforming the WIDA MPIs-Mark Nigolian continued working with a smaller group of participants to further breakdown the WIDA MPIs and construct practical ways to use them in each teacher’s own classroom. He provided practical activities and advice to promote the use of the WIDA MPIs in different classroom environments.
Immediately Useful WIDA Tools—Beth Evans (NNETESOL President, Burlington School District ESL teacher, CLIMBS trainer) held a lively session on how to use WIDA tools and resources to increase the effectiveness of gen ed/ESL collaboration and classroom instruction for ELLs. Beth’s presentation, which was full of tips on how to use technology to enhance teaching, is posted on the NNETESOL website. Beth is also teaching a summer course at Saint Michael’s College on Technology for K-12 ESL Teachers.
Changing Teacher Roles: Implications for ESL—Rita MacDonald (SMC Instructor, Project CREATE Coordinator) presented an analysis of the changes in teacher roles and responsibilities in light of a combination of factors: increased student linguistic and cultural diversity, a growing emphasis on instruction in academic English, the new educational initiatives related to Response to Instruction and Universal Design. Implications for teacher training and licensing were discussed, and ESL teachers were urged to be vigilant and vocal about the changes that may occur as a result of these factors. The PowerPoint presentation is available on the NNETESOL website.
Members’ Meeting, Kirsten Kollgaard (St Albans ELL Teacher) - The spring conference was drawn to a close with the “Members’ Meeting,” an informal discussion about how the Vermont branch of NNETESOL can most effectively assist ELL teachers around the state. Kirsten Kollgaard, the new Vermont State Representative started off the meeting by presenting the responses she collected from her survey on the professional development needs of ELL teachers in Vermont. The survey results were used to initiate small group discussions about what type of professional development teachers want to see in Vermont and what else NNETESOL can do to support ELL teachers across the state. This meeting gave the NNETESOL board members a lot to think about and we are looking forward to addressing some of these issues in the future. Please visit http://www.nnetesol.org/id32.html and click on “Kirsten’s Handout” for a full list of ideas that were discussed.

May 21 Meeting of the VT CLIMBS trainers

Vermont’s CLIMBS trainers (Beth Evans, Jennifer Opel, Denise Parker, Ana Rawson, Kathy McLean, Carmen Cripps and Rita MacDonald) joined WIDA Consultants (Maureen Keithley, Mariana Castro, Daniella Molle), Jim McCobb and Pat Fitzsimmons from the VT Department of Education and several others interested in CLIMBS for a day-long meeting to discuss how to roll out the CLIMBS course in Vermont. The WIDA CLIMBS team is investigating a new online technology platform and enhanced use of technology, as well as low-cost graduate credit options to keep the course affordable at approximately $150/participant. CLIMBS can be offered within a district or across a region, and there is flexibility in the scheduling of the modules. Jim McCobb will work on disseminating info about the CLIMBS course through DOE channels and will contact trainers to check their availability as interest develops. It is fervently hoped that we will be able to offer CLIMBS somewhere in the state during the coming academic year.

WIDA Professional Development Opportunity at UVM this Summer

WIDA is offering a summer academy at the UVM campus in Burlington, VT August 3-6. This academy is meant for educators with some previous understanding of the WIDA standards. It is focused on helping educators incorporate the WIDA ELP Standards to grade-appropriate, content standards curriculum. Participants will bring and share units or lessons and WIDA staff will assist them with the process of integrating ELP standards to make them their units accessible for varying ELL proficiency levels in the language domains of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Participants will also engage in collegial exploration of appropriate academic language expectations with regard to language complexity, vocabulary usage, and language control. The registration deadline is June 29 and the cost is $400. For more information, please visit www.wida.us/academy.

January 2009

VT NNETESOL’s Spring Conference
VT NNETESOL Board members have been doing preliminary planning for the spring state-based conference. The new VT State Representative, Kirsten Kollgaard, will survey VT members to assess their needs and interests and we will use the information gathered to plan the spring, and future, conferences. Possible subjects may include: teaching academic language, collaborative teaching, data driven decision making and issues in low-incidence schools. The conference will be held at Saint Michael’s College and the date has not been set yet. As soon as we have more information we will notify our members.

CREATE Grant
At St. Michael’s College, the CREATE curriculum reform grant has just gone through a round of mini-grant proposals from teams comprising faculty members at SMC, in collaboration with ESL and content teachers from the school districts of Burlington, South Burlington, and Winooski. These projects are meant to improve pre-service teacher preparation and enhance ELL instruction in the schools. The decisions on the proposals will be out by January 31.

CREATE Lecture Series
CREATE is also beginning a lecture series on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 from 4:00-5:30 PM. The first talk will be given by Burlington School District’s Mark Nigolian and is titled “WIDA Standards: What are they and why should I care?” The talk will be held at the International Commons at St. Michael’s College and it is free and open to the public. For more information or to RSVP please contact Stephanie Reynolds at sreynolds@smcvt.edu.

St. Michael’s Intensive English Program
St. Michael’s Intensive English program has received a special U.S. State Department grant which will bring three cohorts of fifteen selected students each to the campus for an intensive English and cultural immersion program. The students are all from Nicaragua and Panama. The first cohort arrived in early January and will stay for 8 weeks. The next cohort will arrive later this spring and the third in late summer.

Testing Window
The WIDA ACCESS testing window will be from March 2 to April 17.

September 2008

The Burlington School District is welcoming students from Bhutan, Burma, and Iraq this fall.

BSD expanded its summer programming for ELLs this past summer with programs for middle school and high school students.

Two new teaching positions were created this school year to support ELLs at the elementary and secondary levels. At the elementary level, the ELL STEP or ELLs Studying Towards English Proficiency program provides focused instruction for ELLs who need more intensive support learning English. At the secondary level, classes in beginning level ESL, literacy, and ESL science were added at the high school.

The Vermont ELL-Special Ed Initiative (a multidisciplinary group of educators and administrators) continues its work on writing guidelines for the analysis and intervention in learning difficulties for ELLs. After 2.5 years, the set of guidelines will soon be in the hands of the second round of outside readers, which means that publication is actually within sight. The manuscript will be produced as a set of guidelines for Educational Support Teams.

As follow-up to a very successful WIDA/CAL CLIMBS course for teams of content and ESL teachers during academic year 2007-2008, Vermont will soon be sending a group of participants to the CLIMBS Training Institute in October. Once trained, this group will work to make CLIMBS training available to school districts across the state. The training initiative is jointly supported by the Vermont Department of Education (Title III), the Vermont Consortium for Language and Academics at Saint Michael’s College, and the individual school districts of the training candidates.

Funded and assisted by the CREATE Institute at Saint Michael’s College, three school districts in Vermont ( Burlington , South Burlington and Winooski) have been actively involved in either ESOL program assessment or ESOL program development. In addition, curriculum revision at Saint Michael’s College has begun, as well, with the goal that all SMC pre-service teachers will develop the skill and knowledge to work effectively in increasingly diverse K-12 classrooms. Participants will discuss their projects and results on December 12 at the CREATE conference at SMC, and all are invited to attend. Contact rmacdonald@smcvt.edu for more information.

May 2, 2008
Forty teachers and administrators (both ESL and mainstream) will soon complete the five-month CAL-WIDA CLIMBS course, co-sponsored by the VCLA at Saint Michael’s College and the VT Dept of Education, title III division and taught by CAL’s Emily Evans and Vermont’s Kathy McLean. This is the second pilot of CLIMBS, and this lively and informative course will undoubtedly be offered more broadly in the near future.
At Saint Michael’s College, the CREATE curriculum reform grant is under way, with the goal of revising curriculum in Education and Applied Linguistics so that all teachers graduating from SMC will leave prepared to teach the increasingly large numbers of ELLs in US classrooms. Teams of teachers from three school districts (Burlington, South Burlington and Winooski) are collaborating with SMC faculty on 8 funded projects that will develop or strengthen instructional programs to allow full inclusion of ELLs in appropriately accommodated mainstream classes; these classes will serve as placement sites for student teachers. The collaborative projects include: the development of a sheltered HS science class and of a fully inclusive HS World History class, cross-teaching in Special Ed and ESOL, a MS ELL Grading Guide, an Early Literacy Program for MS, using video streaming to build background knowledge, and transforming WIDA model performance indicators for MS science. Teams will report on the progress and effectiveness of the new models at the CREATE grant’s fall conference.
ESL teacher Jennifer Opel, classroom teacher Denise Parker and principal Judi Maynard from South Burlington School District did a presentation on team teaching at the spring CREATE conference at SMC. Using video clips and student work and drawing from principles of SIOP and UbD, these educators spoke eloquently about the administrative support and collegiality that enabled them to shift away from push-n or pull-out models into a model of full inclusion for ELLs, and about the benefits they are already seeing for both ELLs and non-ELLs in the classroom. Part of this presentation will be given at the upcoming NNETESOL conference, as well.
VCLA SIOP trainer Carmen Cripps has been asked to teach SIOP in the Education Department at Plymouth State course, so that their prospective teachers will be ready to differentiate instruction for ELLs in their mainstream classes.
ELLs in the mainstream—Mary Ellen Vogt, one of the developers of SIOP, was the presenter at the spring conference of the Vermont READS Institute. She spoke primarily about the development of literacy coaching models, and devoted an afternoon workshop to ELL instruction.
Rebecca Wurdak presented three professional development workshops in January, March, and April at Caledonia North Supervisory Union in Lyndonville, VT. These workshops were an integrated part of the district’s year-long strands of learning for mainstream teachers and focused on ELL students in the mainstream classroom. The groups of teachers were Grades 3-8 Literacy, Grades K-4 Math, and Grades 4-8 Science and Math. The four main points conveyed in the workshops were 1) The status of ELLs today in VT and predictions for the future; 2) Second Language Acquisition; 3) Challenges faced in each targeted subject area and ways to help; and 4) SIOP. All three workshops were a success and have sparked an interest in continuing to be proactive in ELL issues and SIOP. Thank you to CNSU for their support of ELLs and willingness to prepare their teachers for the future.

VT Report to NNETESOL – February 2008
A request for news sent out via the Vt ESOL list-serv netted the following:
1. From ESL teacher Sky Norton (ANESU), the following concerns—
More assessment materials available for districts with small budgets.
More time for collaboration and communication among state teachers, including sharing of resources
Need for guidelines on how to proceed with students who are both ELL and SPED
2. From former president Linda Walsleben, Burlington School District:
BSD is planning an Intensive English Language Program for the 2008-09 school year to address the needs of students who could benefit from more intensive English language instruction. The hiring of 2.0 ESL teachers has been requested to support this program. The program will focus on the elementary and high school levels.
BHS ESL and reading teachers are working on improving literacy instruction at the HS level. They will be meeting with the district literacy coach to review their program and identify and purchase more materials for adolescent readers.
There are presently about 465 students receiving or eligible for direct instruction in English language. About 21% are ELP Level 1, 25% are ELP Level 2, 25% are ELP Level 3, and 25% are ELP Level 4. The remainder are ELP Level 5.
An article by Linda, Signs of Success, appears in the Winter 2008 issue of Journal of Staff Development and details the impact of the QUEST program on teacher practice.
The QUEST website continues to develop as an important tool to support teacher learning about ELLs. The URL changed in the last few months, so you can find it at:
http://hunt.bsdvt.org/~lwalsleben/quest/index.html
I am also developing an ESOL website for parents and community members. It's a work in progress but can be found at http://hunt.bsdvt.org/~lwalsleben/esol/index.php. It will eventually be linked off the Diversity and Equity page on the district website.
Burlington School District will participate in the CREATE grant at SMC. Very exciting!
A group of teachers from BSD will participate in CLIMBS this semester. The Vermont instructor of CLIMBS is a former BSD ESL teacher, Kathy McLean.

From Rita MacDonald at VCLA, CREATE and Saint Michael’s College:
The CREATE grant (curriculum reform, designed so all teachers graduating from SMC will be prepared to teach ELLs) has kicked into gear. SMC faculty from Applied Linguistics and Education met with faculty from our 3 partner school districts (Burlington, S. Burlington, Winooski) to discuss needs in K-12 ESL education and to begin planning collaborative, grant-funded work to enhance local K-12 ESL instruction, provide SMC student teachers placements where they can observe best practice in ESL ed, and inform curriculum revision.

The VCLA co-sponsored CLIMBS course began last week, with 40 teachers from around the state enrolled. The course is the second pilot of the course developed by CAL and WIDA, and is taught by co-instructors from CAL and VT. VT’s instructor is former Burlington ESL teacher and current SMC adjunct Kathy McLean. The course meets once/month for 5 months, with online work in between meetings. There will be a CLIMBS Training-of-Trainers scheduled for the summer, probably somewhere in the Midwest.
Two VCLA co-sponsored lectures by Newbery Medal winner Linda Sue Park (A Single Shard) were well-attended by faculty, students and local teachers. Ms. Park spoke about the importance of using multi-cultural literature in K-12 classrooms.
A one-year post-training visit to the SIOP-trained teachers (VCLA, 2006-2007) in the Barre School District showed some really impressive integration of SIOP into the language, conceptual framework and practice of content teachers! Teachers in Barre have formed some very creative team-teaching arrangements, and their SIOP-trained teachers (with VCLA support) are now exploring SIOP coaching as a means of further disseminating the methodology of sheltered content instruction. ESL Coordinator Elaine Harrington (eharrshs@u61.net ) can provide more information.

From Rebecca Wurdak:
·       The first of 4 in-service workshops designed to facilitate the integration of serving ELL students in the mainstream class happened on February 21 in Caledonia North Supervisory Union. This workshop was presented by Rebecca Wurdak to K-2 mainstream teachers and para-professionals from several different schools. The focus was on teaching math to ELL students. It addressed some of the struggles they may face and ways to help, including using the SIOP method. Integrating ELL issues and approaches into the district’s in-service strands has been two years in the making, starting with a survey of needs and interests, to offering three optional one-stop workshops, to being fully integrated into the in-service plan. The workshop was very appreciated and received a lot of positive feedback. The next workshops will be in February, March, and April and offer a focus on integrating ELL students in grades 3-8 Math, 3-8 literacy, and science.

Submitted by:
Rita MacDonald (rmacdonald@smcvt.edu )
Rebecca Wurdak (rwurdak@yahoo.com, rwurdak@sau88.net )

VT Report to NNETESOL – November 2007
The DOE-sponsored two-day WIDA ELL Data Retreat (September 6 and 7 in Burlington) was excellent. School teams comprised of administrators, ESL teachers and content teachers examined ELL achievement data, as compared to other student groups in their schools. If an achievement gap was found, strategies were used to examine hypotheses about the school-based causes of the gaps and to create Action Plans to address the causes.

The spring 2007 WIDA-CAL pilot of the CLIMBS course (Content and Language Integration as a Means to Bridging Success) is being revised for a VT ‘rollout’ beginning in January. Saint Michael’s College will partner with WIDA and CAL to offer this course, and the NPD-grant program VCLA will underwrite a portion of its cost to make it affordable for VT’s teachers. The course will meet one full day/month for five months, with online work between class days.
A few new hot topics being raised are the following:
1)     What is the effect of the ‘creative spelling’ approach on ELL students? Does it make learning more difficult since many rely on their accented speech for it? Does it then lead to fossilization of ‘bad habits’? What are other people’s experiences with this?
2)    What are other people’s experiences and thoughts on cumulative cognitive deficit (CCD)? With more and more older international adoptees coming into our schools, should we be more informed about this?

VT Report to NNETESOL – September 5, 2007
Many districts are busy preparing for the DOE-sponsored two-day ELL Data Retreat on September 6 and 7 in Burlington. Schools have been invited to form Leadership Teams, composed of both administrators and teachers, to begin the process of working as PLCs (professional learning communities) to analyze their data and work toward improving ELL achievement. The data retreat will be led by Judy Sargent and Jesse Markow from WIDA. Participants will analyze their school’s or district’s NECAP and NSRE data, their individual student NECAP and NSRE reports, their ACCESS data, as well as ESL Program and enrollment data.

During the spring of 2007, six VT teachers were funded by the OELA grant at Saint Michael’s College to participate in the pilot of the CLIMBS project, a professional development course for teachers of ELLs. The CLIMBS project, a joint effort by WIDA and the Center for Applied Linguistics, is a modification of the SIOP model. The VT teachers served as participant-observers over the course of several months, trying out learning modules and offering feedback. At the end of the pilot, a conference call brought all participants and several others together to discuss the project and how it might be adapted to a VT context. Unfortunately, the project did not get funded by OELA, and VT Title II Director Jim McCobb is working to find a way to make a similar project available to VT teachers.

SIOP courses have begun in the Hartford School District and in the Chittenden South School District this year. These courses are once again funded wholly or in part by the Vermont Consortium for Language and Academics.

Saint Michael’s College has received a second five-year NPD grant from OELA. This new grant project will focus on curriculum reform in teacher education programs, with the goal that all pre-service teacher candidates will graduate well-prepared to teach ELLs. As part of this work, SMC faculty form both the Department of Applied Linguistics (MATESL and ESL Licensure programs) and the Education Department will be joined by representatives from partner LEAs to form a professional learning community that will collaborate in the process of SMC curriculum reform. The new curriculum will be made available to all interested schools via a grant website.

The following 4 topics continue to be heavily discussed at networking meetings and other exchanges of ELL people:
1) What does it mean to adequately serve our students translated into time definitions and accommodations, if that is even possible?
2) What are the various practices and processes for exiting and monitoring students that districts are using?
3) What exactly are the laws regarding ELL and what are our obligations to these laws?
4) How can we best educate the various district administrative teams (ie superintendents and principals) on the needs of ELL students?
The next step after answering these questions for ELL educators is getting the information out to the people who need it. Can we, NNETESOL as an organization, comment on these or should we leave it all up to our state directors? Can we collaborate with our state directors as an organization? Can these topics be included at our next conference? Can NNETESOL provide a packet of information/talking points/bulleted lists on ELL which the various representatives can distribute to districts? Can NNETESOL leverage any pressure on districts to adequately serve their ELL students? Would administrators be more apt to listen to us than to teachers? Is this a role of NNETESOL?

April 2007 VT Report to NNETESOL

Statewide Issues and Events
ELLs apparently classified by DOE as “special needs” students. This disturbing information came about when one of the professors at Saint Michael’s College went to a ROPA meeting to hear updates on portfolio requirements for pre-service teachers, and was told that ELLs have been place into this category (previously named and still associated with Special Education.) Apparently, this change was made without discussion with ESOL professionals, and was unknown even to VT’s Title III Director, Jim McCobb. SMC faculty will work with Jim McCobb to investigate the history, rationale and implications of this change.

ESL has been designated a Teacher Shortage area for VT.

VT has just completed its third year of ACCESS testing.

ELL-SPED Initiative Continues. Charged with drafting ELL-SPED guidelines for the VT DOE, this group (which was formed last spring) continues to meet. Members have made a comprehensive review of policies manuals from other states, and have now broken into groups to begin drafting chapters for the new guidelines. The group is comprised of ESL teachers, Special Educators and administrators, members of the VT Department of Education, and ESOL and Special Ed faculty from Saint Michael’s College. The work is co-facilitated by Lucy Ely Pagan of the Northeast Regional Resource Center and Maria Wilson-Portuondo of the Education Alliance at Brown University (our keynote speaker at the spring conference).

Vermont Council of Teachers of Math—At the VCTM spring conference, titled “Teaching Math to ALL Learners”, 3 out of 8 workshops either focused directly on or included a great deal of information about teaching math to students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. VCTM Board Member Dr. Timothy Whiteford (presenter at last fall’s NNETESOL conference) has been instrumental in keeping issues of diversity ‘up front and center’ for the state’s math teachers.

Vermont Teacher Diversity Scholarship Program – the upcoming May conference for VT educators will include several workshops focused on cultural and linguistic diversity. [Don't Hate… Appreciate: A Study of Tolerance and Acceptance from the Winooski School District, which is now 18% ELL; Classroom Success for English Language Learners by NNETESOL Board member Rita MacDonald; Recognizing and Responding to Trauma in the Refugee Immigrant Community, by Sherry Burnette, Ph.D., AHS Trauma Coordinator and Denise Lamoureux, State Refugee Coordinator; and Cultural Beliefs’ Impact on Learning & Teaching by Sherwood Smith, Director, Center for Cultural Pluralism, UVM]

Vermont Adult Learning has received training in Sheltered Instruction for ESOL Students. VAL teacher Beth Hartman and colleague Sue Roediger, both currently studying in the OELA grant-funded program (VCLA) at Saint Michael’s College, provided staff development for the large group of VAL teachers working with the state’s growing number of ESOL parents and pre-K children in either the Adult Learning Program or the Family Literacy Program.

VT teachers observe pilot program in Rhode Island—through a joint effort on the part of VT’s Title III and the VT Consortium for Language and Academics, ten VT teachers will be funded as participant-observers in the Rhode Island pilot of the CLIMBS project, a training series for classroom teachers that integrates WIDA standards into the SIOP method of teaching sheltered instruction. The CLIMBS pilot, if successful, will be the model for training adopted by the WIDA Consortium. VT’s participant-observers will meet later in the year to discuss their impressions of the training and to plan for its adoption in VT.

VT’s Bilingual-Bicultural School Liaisons Receive Training—In 2006, 15 bilingual-bicultural school liaisons and their coordinators (some who are also ELL teachers/coordinators), the State Refugee Coordinator and the State ELL coordinator met for a day-long training focused on their work within the school districts. The training was so successful that two sessions are being planned for this year. From Refugee Coordinator Denise Lamoureux, “ I think that what make these training unique is that it is tailored to the liaison’s work and needs and that it is the only time where liaisons from different school districts get to be together and share their common experience working with refugee children. It gives them a sense of belonging to a unique professional group and discuss their specificity. I also believe that the fact that the training is sponsored by the State Refugee Coordinator and the Dept of Education ELL coordinator make it easier to foster an inter-district collaboration to design and deliver this training.”

Professional Development --Training efforts in VT have been focused primarily on content teachers, and on the collaboration between ESL and content teachers, as evidenced by the following:

VT rep Rebecca Wurdak coordinated a successful series of ELL trainings in the Northeast Kingdom, drawing participants from up to two hours away for workshops on mainstream classroom strategies for ELLs and analyzing possible LD in ELLs. Rebecca has been invited to develop several strands of staff development in her district for the upcoming year, which will integrate ESOL information into staff development for the Literacy, Science and Math teams.

Two-day WIDA Training—Last November, school teams met for a 2-day training on using WIDA standards in mainstream classrooms. WIDA trainers Mariana Castro and Lenore Carnuccio gave content teachers an overview of the standards and how to integrate them into lesson plans for ELLs.

6 SIOP Courses Held around State—VCLA (OELA grant program at Saint Michael’s College) is funding six 11-session courses in SIOP (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol) around the state. The six free courses focused on training content teachers in the 8 competencies needed for successful teaching of ELLs in mainstream classes. The course have been well-attended by teachers and admistrators. VCLA facilitators co-teach with local ESL teachers, to develop sustainability within the districts and to provide the ESL teachers with experience in staff development, while also increasing their visibility within their districts.

Mary Kay O’Brien and Mark Nigolian (ESL Content Specialists from the Burlington School District) are currently teaching a course for K-12 teachers through UVM and Saint Joseph’s College in Rutland. The course (Teaching Content to English Language Learners) is a hybrid course with 1/2 online sessions and 1/2 face-to-face sessions, and is an outgrowth of their successful QUEST grant.

News from VT’s IHEs
SIT—No news, although I’m sure that’s due to the fact that I requested it so late.

Saint Michael’s College
Vermont Consortium for Language and Academics--The first 9 teachers are now completing their two-year license endorsement program, funded by OELA through the VT Consortium for Language and Academics. In addition to the coursework, these candidates did significant additional work in either their communities or school districts to provide enhanced opportunities for ESOL families and students. This work included projects such as the afore-mentioned VAL training in SIOP (Sheltered Instruction) for VAL’s teachers; the creation of a school-based “ESL + Orientation to Our School Community” class for parents of new ESL students; a three-session series of ESL workshops for district Literacy Leaders, and CultureBeat, a multicultural festival in the Northeast Kingdom. The final grant-funded group of 11 teachers will soon begin their two-year program, and will soon be busily engaged in similar work.

John Halliwell, NNETESOL President-Elect, Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics, was invited as a plenary speaker to the 28th Annual TESOL Greece International Conference, March 9-11, as well as to give several workshops with teachers and teacher-trainers. His talk, entitled ‘Process Grammar: Input, Output & Interaction,’ discussed current research in the acquisition of second language grammar and how these findings point to a process approach to teaching as a way to engage and empower students in learning and using grammar.

Math and Diversity - Professor Timothy Whiteford (NNETESOL Presenter last fall, creator of Math and Diversity website) received a Faculty Development Grant to create a course for pre-service teachers on teaching math to culturally and linguistically diverse students. He chaired an April meeting of interested math educators, special educators and ESOL professionals from around the state to develop a list of issues, solutions and resources, and is inviting interested parties to participate in the teaching of this course in SMC’s Education Department.

MATESL and Ed. Dept write joint grant proposal--The MATESL department and Education department have collaborated in an OELA grant proposal to jointly revise curricula so that all pre-service teachers at Saint Michael’s College will be trained in ESOL theory and methodology, better preparing them for the realities of today’s classrooms. They will find out later this spring if the proposal has been funded, but are already beginning to integrate ESOL materials and readings into the undergraduate teacher education program.

Vermont Teachers at Seattle TESOL
Mary Kay O’Brien and Linda Walsleban (ESL Content Specialists from the Burlington School District) presented "Creating the Best Professional Development for Educators”. They used embedded video of students at different WIDA ELP levels to help participants see the difference and discuss ways to differentiate instruction to reach those levels. In addition, they used other multi media to help ESL teachers prepare to train teachers in their own districts to work with ELLs.

Saint Michael’s Professor Dr. Elizabeth O’Dowd and Burlington School District’s Mark Nigolian co-presented "I's to C" Academic Language”, a professional development model, emerging from Burlington School District's recent QUEST program, designed to help content teachers teach the academic language of their content area to ELLs.

Saint Michael’s Professor and President-Elect Dr. John Halliwell, along with SMC professors Dr. Elizabeth O’Dowd and Dr. Mahmoud Arani, presented “Participatory Grammar Instruction.” They described an approach to teaching grammar discovery in which learners collectively construct knowledge of grammar, negotiate meaning and notice gaps in their inter-language in the context created by their own output.

Saint Michael’s Professor Christine Bauer-Ramazani gave an invited presentation, “Technology and Speech: The Effectiveness of Computer Technology in Teaching Speaking and Pronunciation Skills.” Professor Bauer-Ramazani also gave a demonstration of a six-week online workshop on Teaching with PowerPoint.”

School for International Training’s Jon Nordmeyer presented “Wading into the Mainstream” which proposed that effective collaboration between ESL and mainstream teachers depends on ESL teachers coming to understand the experiences of their non-ESL colleagues. The presentation explored the critical intersection of language and content from the perspective of mainstream teachers.

NNETESOL-Related News
Thanks to Rosemary Orlando, VT’s Board now has the membership lists for VT. When able, they will use the list to produce an e-mail distribution list, allowing easy and fast access to all VT NNETESOL members for polling of opinions, dissemination of info, calls for action, etc.

Northern New England Teachers of English as a Second Language * Contact us at nnetesol@nnetesol.org

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