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Schoolutions: Curious Educators. Evidence-Based Strategies. Classrooms Where Every Child Thrives.
Do you need innovative strategies to strengthen your school culture and spark student growth? This podcast is your go-to resource for coaches, teachers, administrators, and families seeking to create dynamic and engaging learning environments.
In each episode, you'll discover how to unite educators and caregivers to support students, tackle common classroom challenges, and cultivate an atmosphere where every learner can thrive.
With over 25 years of experience as a teacher and coach, host Olivia Wahl curates episodes with insights from more than 150 expert interviews, offering practical tips that bridge the gap between school and home.
Tune in every Monday and Friday for actionable strategies and inspirational stories that can transform your approach and make a real impact on learning.
Start with a fan-favorite episode today (S5E1: Inside the Secret Moves of Expert Teachers with John Hattie) and take the first step towards transforming your educational environment!
Schoolutions: Curious Educators. Evidence-Based Strategies. Classrooms Where Every Child Thrives.
Breaking Down Language Barriers in the Classroom
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
What does it cost us when experienced multilinguals never receive the explicit academic language instruction they need, not just to pass a class, but to fully participate in school, in careers, and in life?
In this short from my S5E39 Schoolutions conversation, I sit down with authors Beth Skelton and Tan Huynh to unpack their newest book, Integrated Literacy for Experienced Multilinguals. Together they challenge the deficit-laden label "long-term English learner" and replace it with something far more accurate and empowering: experienced multilingual.
What does "stuck" actually look like in a classroom? It looks like a ninth-grader saying, "It gets bigger when it gets closer," and a well-meaning teacher accepting that answer and moving on. It looks like assuming students should already know academic language simply because they've been in the system for years. It looks like protection masquerading as support, and acceptance masquerading as high expectations.
Tan and Beth argue that every content teacher (science, math, social studies) is also a language teacher, whether they know it or not. The language of geology is not the same as the language of literary analysis. The language of a lab report is not the language of a hallway conversation. And when we stop assuming and start teaching explicitly, we close gaps and open futures.
As Tan says it best: "An experienced multilingual is not a struggling student. They are students in need of academic instruction."
Watch, reflect, and share Part 1 & Part 2 of our @schoolutionspodcast S5E39 interview.
📧 Book a coaching session with me here if you’d like a thought partner to help you cultivate curious learners who advocate for what they believe in.
Chapters:
0:00 – The Cost of Silence: What Society Loses
0:08 – The Danger of Assumptions in Schools
0:18 – What Could Students Do If We Just Taught Them?
0:28 – Reframing the Label: Not Struggling, Just Under-Taught
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When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, they create schools where everyone is inspired and every student is fully engaged, supported, and ready to thrive.
