From Equity Insights to Action: Critical Strategies for Teaching Multilingual Learners

Your Greatest Assets are Right Before Your Eyes: Your Multilingual Learners!

Equity for multilingual learners (MLLs) means that students’ cultural and linguistic identities, backgrounds, and experiences are recognized as valued, rich sources of knowledge and their academic, linguistic, literacy, and social–emotional growth is ensured to the fullest potential. This ready-to-use guide offers practical, classroom-level strategies for educators seeking thoughtful, research-informed, and accessible information on how to champion equity for MLLs in a post-COVID era.

Focused on the deliberate daily actions that all teachers of multilingual learners can take, this resource guide captures a compelling advocacy framework for culturally and linguistically responsive equity work, including

• Authentic examples of how educators understand and support MLLs through an equity lens
• Student portraits of multilingual learners’ experiences
• Accessible answers to essential how-to questions
• Robust professional learning activities
• Access to print and online resources for additional information

Thoughtful probes throughout the guide help teachers develop student agency and foster pathways in their own practice and communication with multilingual learners.  

Andrea Honigsfeld, EdD, is a TESOL Professor in the School of Education and Human Services at Molloy College in Rockville Centre, New York. She teaches graduate courses in linguistics, TESOL methods, and cultural and linguistic diversity. Before her current position, she was an English-as-a-foreign-language teacher in Hungary (Grades 5-8 and adult) and an English-as-a-second-language teacher in New York City (Grades K-3 and adult). She also taught Hungarian at New York University. Andrea earned a doctoral fellowship at St. John′s University in New York, where she conducted research on individualized instruction. She received a Fulbright Award to lecture in Iceland in 2002. Over the past 20 years, Andrea has presented at conferences in multiple countries, including the United States, Canada, China, Denmark, Great Britain, Italy, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates. She frequently offers staff development, primarily focusing on effective differentiated strategies and collaborative practices for both English-as-a-second-language and general-education teachers.

Maria G. Dove, Ed.D, is currently a Professor in the School of Education and Human Services at Molloy College, Rockville Centre, New York. Prior to working in higher education, she spent over thirty years as an English-as-a-second-language teacher in public schools and adult English language programs. She is well-known for her professional development work across the United States, focusing on culturally and linguistically diverse students. Dove′s work has led her to publish books, articles, and chapters on collaborative teaching practices and instructional strategies for English learners. In collaboration with Andrea Honigsfeld, she has co-authored four best-selling Corwin Press books including Collaboration for English Learners: A Foundational Guide to Integrated Practices (2019).

Audrey Cohan, EdD, is the senior dean for research and scholarship at Molloy College, Rockville Centre, New York. She has been at Molloy College for twenty-six years, during which time she served as professor, chairperson of the Education Department, and interim dean for the Division of Natural Sciences. Dr. Cohan has taught in the undergraduate and graduate programs and is currently teaching Critical Issues at the doctoral level for the EdD program, Leadership for Diverse Learning Communities.

She began her career as a special education teacher in New York City working with students with special needs in both self-contained and resource room settings. Her first book was published in 1995 titled Sexual Harassment and Sexual Abuse: A Handbook for Teachers and Administrators. This coauthored book was an outgrowth of her dissertation work, which focused on child sexual abuse within schools. Dr. Cohan coedited a five-volume Breaking the Mold of Education series about educational innovation with Dr. Andrea Honigsfeld. She has published numerous peer-reviewed articles about English language learners including “Differentiating Between Learning Disabilities and Typical Second Language Acquisition: A Case Study” and “Piloting a Pre-referral Data Collection Tool: A Documentary Account,” as she has New York State certification in special education and TESOL. The textbook published in 2016, Serving English Language Learners, earned the Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA) Most Promising New Textbook Award. Her other coauthored book publications include Beyond Core Expectations: A Schoolwide Framework for Serving the Not-So-Common Learner (2014), America’s Peace-Minded Educator: John Dewey (2016), and Team Up, Speak Up, Fire Up!: Educators, Students, and the Community Working Together to Support English Learners (2020). Dr. Cohan is also the principal investigator of a National Science Foundation (NSF) Robert Noyce grant for $1,450,000, which is designed to recruit bilingual STEM teachers for high-needs schools. While at Molloy College, Dr. Cohan has been the recipient of the Faculty Leadership Award, the Faculty Recognition Award, the Research Award, and the Distinguished Service Award.

Carrie L. McDermott Goldman, Ed.D.,  is Associate Professor, Coordinator of Graduate and Post-Graduate TESOL/ Bilingual Programs, and Director of Bilingual and TESOL Grants at Molloy College, Rockville Centre, New York. She teaches pre-service and in-service teachers equitable pedagogical approaches, research-and asset-based practices, and embedded language theory. Prior to higher education, she taught Pre-K - 12 in high needs settings and college-level ESL.  She continues to collaborate with schools as an instructional coach and mentor for teachers and administrators.  Throughout the pandemic, she also created and implemented an online teaching mentoring program.

 

She is involved in several projects. She co-authored and serves as the director and Principal Investigator for the New York State Grant for the U.S. Department of Education, Clinically Rich Intensive Teachers Institute in Bilingual Education and TESOL (CR-ITI BE/ESOL) for $550,000 over 5 years to meet the growing needs of MLLs throughout the region. Her most recent works include, “Co-Taught Integrated Language and Mathematics Content Instruction for Multilingual Learners,” co-authored chapter with Andrea  Honigsfeld in Effective Teacher Collaboration for English Language Learners: Cross-Curricular Insights from K-12 Classrooms (Yoon, Ed., 2021); “Positive outcomes for ELs in an Integrated Social Studies Class,”co-authored with Andrea Honigsfeld in Co-teaching for English learners: Evidence-based practices and research-informed outcomes (Dove & Honigsfeld, Eds., 2020); “Classroom Management for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners” co-authored with Lisa Peluso in Approaches to Classroom Management for Diverse and Inclusive Schools (Alcruz & Blair, Eds., in press) and “Preparing Social Studies and ESOL Teachers for Integrated Language and Content Instruction in Support of ELLs with Andrea Honigsfeld and Kelley Cordeiro in Teaching History and Social Studies to English Language Learners: Preparing Pre-service and In-service Teachers (de Oliveira & Obenchain, Eds., 2018) and “Preparing Science Teachers for Project-based, Integrated, Collaborative Instruction” co-authored with Andrea Honigsfeld in Teaching Science to English Language Learners: Preparing Pre-service and In-service Teachers (de OIiveira & Campbell Wilcox, Eds., 2017), and “Culturally Responsive Teaching in a Secondary, Integrated Mathematics Class” (2021) in New York State ASCD Impact Journal.