Empowering Multilingual Learners: Transformative Strategies for Educators with Katherine Hamilton

How can creating language-rich environments empower multilingual learners and elevate the educational experience for everyone in the classroom? Join us for a transformative discussion with Katherine Hamilton, former Vice President of Programs for Ensemble Learning, as she reveals powerful strategies to achieve just that.

Summary:

In this episode, Katherine Hamilton shares her inspiring journey from high school math teacher to a leading advocate for multilingual education and STEM. With a focus on creating inclusive and language-rich classrooms, Katherine reveals practical strategies that educators can use today to support multilingual learners with vocabulary, content areas, and engaged learning. She discusses the role of technology, the importance of professional development, and how fostering strong relationships can inspire joy and wonder in learning. Katherine's insights offer a roadmap for educators striving to unlock the potential of multilingual students and transform their classrooms for every learner.

Chapters:

• 2:03: Multilingual Learners and Language Development: We explore the strengths multilingual learners bring to the classroom and the importance of language-rich environments.
• 14:24: Supporting Multilingual Learners in Education: Explore techniques like sentence stems and frames to support students with varying English proficiency. 
• 23:14: Empowering Teachers to Connect Multilingual Education with Math, Science, and other Content Areas 
• 28:33: Building Connections Through Play and Relationships

Resources and Links:

Visit Ensemble Learning for more resources and insights on multilingual education. Contact Dr. Julia Lara for programming inquiries.

Katherine Hamilton is now Executive Director of Friends of GALA (Girls Academic Leadership Academy)

Join us as we explore innovative strategies to support multilingual learners and inspire educational success for all students.

Transcript

00:03 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So welcome to the Adventures in Learning podcast. I have such a treat for you all today, especially for my educator friends who are out there and listening. We have Katherine Hamilton on with us today and Katherine is the Vice President of Programs for Ensemble Learning and we're going to have a really cool conversation about multilingual learners, about professional development and about math and STEM and STEAM and how we build those connections. So, Katherine, welcome to the show. 

00:31 - Katherine Hamilton (Guest)
Thank, you for having me. I am excited. All three of those topics are my favorite things, so very excited. 

00:37 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Well then, we are a match made in heaven. So, Katherine, let's start by talking a little bit about you. I love to know about the adventures and learning of my guests. How did you wind up doing what you do? Because I'm assuming you didn't grow up and say I want to be vice president of programs at Ensemble Learning. 

00:54 - Katherine Hamilton (Guest)
Not at all. I actually started in education as a high school math teacher. I was someone who really loved math. I grew up playing math games and really loved like the visual nature of it and, you know, learned that that wasn't the case for everyone and that I was someone who you know had that unique view and a really great mindset about learning math. I felt really capable and so I wanted to go back into the classroom as a teacher and kind of think about how do I help all kids feel this way about math, cause most don't. And while teaching math, um, I, I live in Los Angeles, I still work in Los Angeles. This is where I taught. Um, I realized I loved also working with adults and as much as I still love working with students and seeing their brains just come alive and then kind of make connections, there's nothing also in my mind as wonderful as a teacher seeing that and a teacher feeling really confident in their work and so kind of seeing how I enjoyed spending my time. I loved collaborating, I loved being able to lead peer PDs and so I moved into like instructional coaching, kind of leading, kind of the academic instructional work. On that side of things I had the opportunity. 

02:20
In Los Angeles I was kind of leading teaching and learning work at a group of schools and a nonprofit came to us called Ensemble Learning and said hey, we're doing work to help schools better serve English learners or multilingual learners. Do you want to be a part of it? And you know we, like many schools across the US, especially here in Los Angeles, had a large population of multilingual learners. We were always looking for better ways to serve them and so we jumped in. 

02:51
We learned as part of this cohort that Ensemble Learning put together and I was just really excited about the work. It was my second year kind of taking over managing our English learner programs and I knew that we could do better. I wanted to learn more and it was just really a kind of career-changing opportunity to be able to focus in on that group of students and totally lucky that when our time with them was winding down they had earned a really big federal grant to continue the work across the country. I needed someone to come in and do that work schools and currently not even historically, just currently this year we're in about 80 schools and it's just exciting work to support teachers and leaders as they think about supporting multilingual learners. 

03:57 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So for those who are listening, who maybe are going wait. Multilingual learners what is that? Can you sort of help give us a definition and then talk about sort of the strengths that they bring to the classroom, as well as the needs and how you can do that? Because I know one of the things that I've seen is classrooms that really work well. Because you're dealing with multilingual learners, the strategies apply across the board. It's not just for the learner who is experiencing multiple languages, it's for all of your students. So can you kind of give us some examples? 

04:29 - Katherine Hamilton (Guest)
Yes, so you got it. So we say multilingual learners. A lot of you know schools and districts are moving to and states are moving to the term multilingual learner. It's an umbrella term that includes maybe what has historically been like ESL English as a second language English learner In Texas they say emergent bilingual. But we use this umbrella term multilingual learner because many of our students actually come in already knowing two languages, so English is not their second language, they actually know more than one and we really feel like it elevates and celebrates multilingualism, which in our increasingly global world is a huge asset and a huge strength. 

05:15
And I think you're right. When we serve multilingual learners well in the classroom, it's really serving all students Because at the end of the day, you know I'll say I have two children. One of them is in like a transitional kindergarten, a four-year-old kindergarten, and even the kids like him who speak English at home, they're still learning academic English and so really I think serving multilingual learners elevates language and reminds teachers that, oh, I can't take language for granted. It's something we have to actually actively teach and practice in the classroom. And what's so cool about multilingual learners in our classrooms? An asset that we need to really like, focus on and bring in is that they bring in kind of this perspective about language, also about just culture and background knowledge that makes our classrooms richer. They have things we use the term translanguaging, but they have this wealth of language that they can pull from to make connections and speak and share in a rich manner. 

06:24
A couple of the things we recommend I think I start with for you know, helping teachers who might be initially overwhelmed how do I reach these students is just saying let's really look at how do we make the classroom language rich, and so where are those opportunities to just elevate language? And it's things that teachers know about. It's saying hold on, let's take a step back. Do you have anchor charts in your room? Do you have word walls, other ways of just when you think about teaching, are you putting language and content kind of on a same level. Language and content kind of on a same level. When you have a math lesson and it's about word problems and it's about, you know, let's say, like first grade, like addition, are we really really like teaching students how to read and unpack the word problem and elevating that as much as how do we actually do the addition? You know, what model are we using with our students? I like that and yeah, I'm thinking as you're talking about that. You know what? 

07:24
model are we using with our students?

07:25 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I like that and yeah, I'm thinking as you're talking about that. You know, science is one of those areas that we tend to silo science and social studies into these separate compartments, that, if you're lucky, they get taught once once a week, and I've seen school districts where they alternate them, like you might get science for two weeks and then social studies for two weeks. That's a whole nother issue, but what we're missing there is the power that both of those topics have for building language, I think, with multilingual learners, because there's so much vocabulary and so many ways to model and scaffold that you know I jump into that kind of coming at things from a science, stem point of view. I totally see where you would jump into it from your math point of view, that there's language everywhere across the curriculum and it's not just confined to your ELA period. 

08:15 - Katherine Hamilton (Guest)
Yeah, it's the way we think about when we talk about teaching vocabulary. A common practice is to talk about tiered vocabulary where you have, you know, tier one is like more of the social language, like can students interact on the playground? And then you think about often we jump directly to what we call tier three, which is like the domain specific. So in science you know things like photosynthesis and force and you know all the real content specific pieces and we often skip this second level, the kind of tier two that are academic words, words that, like, I'm not using every day with my kids at home but are not domain specific. So that's, we often get to things like analyze or explain, like these, what we call and define as language functions, and it's really like, how do we use language academically across all content areas? 

09:13
And and you're right, it's sad when we don't really dive into social studies and science, because those are often super high interest subjects for students and those are places we can actually elevate language, because kids are so excited to talk about what they see. 

09:27
You know, when you talk about the phenomena that you get in, you know NGSS, like that's, students will happily produce language and practice language, and so that's kind of the other piece we have to really help people think about like how do we help students practice the language? Covid really set us back in so many ways, but one of those really being in the opportunities for students to speak in the classroom. You know, being on Zoom people didn't want to unmute, of course, all this stuff happening, but we still go into classrooms today where students aren't talking really at all and we need that opportunity to practice before we formally share in front of the whole class or formally write something Like talk is such a foundation and so that's kind of the other piece. I'm like that helps every student, especially our language learners, who are really need to feel what does that feel like to say these like academic phrases and words and everything, as they're talking about content. 

10:30 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
No, 100 percent, and I think that you're right. Covid has set us back. I've seen it in the little guys as I've been traveling the country and working with teachers. You can sort of see the delays in their executive function. But speech is a huge part of that as well, and just the ability to be able to talk with your peers and have these conversations. How do we go about setting up our classrooms so that we're creating more opportunities for conversation? 

10:59 - Katherine Hamilton (Guest)
We some research. I really like that is also very humbling, I will say is some researchers I think it's Saunders and Goldenberg have a whole study about student talk and basically are like, if students are just casually talking which I think about my own math teaching and I was like, oh, there were so many opportunities where it's like we were working on something, they were practicing a new strategy we learned, and I was like, great, you can work with people around you and I was like, wow, this is so great, they're talking about math, but their research shows that if the talk is unstructured, it's actually not enough to help students really, really master the language. And their research highlights three things that I think are just they're not like inaccessible. And if we think about these three things when we plan our classrooms and it's structure, language supports and accountability, and so it's really like when you have these opportunities, when you want students to talk, it's giving them a structure like an A-B partner. It's who's talking first, who's talking next. If you're doing like a think pair share, just being really clear about the structure, who's speaking how long, kind of all of that. 

12:10
That's a real culture piece. 

12:11
It lowers the effective filter and really says like you know, we're all sharing and here's how we're going to do it and we don't waste time kind of with that nervousness. 

12:20
Because it's a structure, it's also thinking about language supports and so, whether it's a common one, we like to use our like sentence starters because it just gets everyone going. It kind of again reduces the stress of what do I say, how do I start it, and allows kids to focus on what they're going to say versus exactly kind of the right structure. And then it's accountability. And ultimately the accountability is not the gotcha, you know, popsicle stick class dojo, like, ooh, like everyone be nervous. I'm going to call on you. It's how do you build that classroom culture where everyone is encouraged to speak, everyone is accountable. So I could call on a student and they know that they're accountable for trying. They're not always accountable for the right answer and that's where, when we allow that peer to peer conversation, it really builds up. I know, as a student, I always have someone to help me and then I can be held accountable because I've been set up for success. 

13:22 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Oh, I like that a lot. And you mentioned the sentence starters, which I know I think is a super important part as well. How would you structure sort of sentence starters in, let's say, a science class or a math class to help a teacher out? 

13:37 - Katherine Hamilton (Guest)
Yeah, in, let's say, a science class or a math class to help a teacher out. Yeah, well, I think the best way and what we actually incorporate into, like when we do professional development on this, is we have teachers actually plan for one in their classroom and I say, well, we could do a whole session on what makes a question discussion worthy, but say, let's pick a question you want your students to discuss and then I want you to write an exemplar response. I want you to think about, like if a student really mastered the content and the language of this, what would they be saying? And then to analyze the language of that. Do you want them using certain tier three academic vocabulary? Then maybe your sentence using certain tier three academic vocabulary, then maybe your sentence your language supports includes hey, use one or two of these words For sentence starters. 

14:24
I usually go back to thinking about in an exemplar answer, like kind of the differentiation. Like if I have a student who just doesn't even know how to start, how kind of what's that level one? Like what can I just do to get them started? Then if I have a student who they know how to start, what's that level one? What can I just do to get them started. Then if I have a student who they know how to get started but maybe they're not sure how to put evidence in their answer or something like that, then I'll add a second one that has more of that justification. And then I always think about, if I have a student who you know, that student who's like me, I'm ready and they're so excited, how do I take what they might say and then provide them with more sophisticated language, possibly a new sentence structure, a new kind of transition or linking word for evidence? And so I always like to think about, like how can sentence stems or frames serve the range of students that you have? And I'll add in a secret option too Many of our teachers and our schools are serving newcomer multilingual learners who are coming to the US with very little English. 

15:29
You also may want to provide a sentence stem in their home language so that they have a chance to access the content, and then you can provide that translation into English. Okay, you said this in Spanish, great job. Like you're practicing, you know we're talking about photosynthesis, you're practicing what you're learning. Now let me help you translate it and you can practice saying it in English, and that is fine to do. I think people aren't sure how to use translation, but that's a great option too if you have a student just starting to access English in the content too. 

16:01 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And so how do you work with students and teachers where there is perhaps a language barrier? Maybe you've got a teacher who is English only and doesn't have the comfort of the facility with another language, the comfort of the facility with another language. I'm always envious of multilingual learners because I look at them and think you all are brilliant to be able to speak so many different languages. But you know, particularly for teachers of a certain age, you might have taken certain amount of high school foreign language, but that may be it. Yeah, how do you help them bridge the gap so that they're being an effective teacher? 

16:36 - Katherine Hamilton (Guest)
Yeah, well, something you said is most important and I think it's that teacher, building the relationship with the student and saying I think you're brilliant and my job is to help you learn English, but I think it's amazing, you know this other language. And it's first about that culture piece. First about that culture piece, and to have that conversation, you might need to bring in you know another adult and say hey, can you help me have this conversation with a student? Or I discovered this I was in an Uber with a gentleman who only spoke Armenian and we were using the like microphone function on our phone to communicate with each other through Google Translate. So even using tech, I think as a teacher it's also important to show that effort. So say to the student use your technology, say you know, I don't, I don't speak Spanish, but I think you're brilliant and I'm going to do my very best to you know, speak Spanish to help you, because I know you're working so hard to speak English, because you're here in our classroom and that's the language we're speaking. So it's first and foremost that culture, that belief in students. When we talk about culture we use a lot of Zaretta Hammond's research about being a warm demander and building the relationship, but having the high expectation. 

17:58
The second piece is like, I think it's looking at your whole school community and, and with an influx in newcomer students, many schools are, um, you know, have some protocols or have supports, and you might have someone on staff who does receive a stipend to help support with some of that home language, um, and so making sure, like if you're having another adult on campus help, you know, making sure they're compensated for it. 

18:24
You know, we don't want that unpaid labor of folks that are bilingual. And then, third, like I just say, use technology. It's imperfect, but it's better than nothing, and so what a lot of my fluently bilingual teacher friends would ask of me is if I needed something translated. Um, because I am like I took Spanish for many years but I didn't practice it enough. I'm not a hundred percent um, they're like run it through Google Translate and then I'll just edit it, versus me having to like translate the whole thing. And so I think it's being thoughtful about that. But it really does come back to the attitude, and if you show to a student hey, I'm going to learn some Spanish, I'm going to work with you because I know you're working hard, like that is the most important foundation. 

19:14 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I love that and I like the idea that it's building on relationships, because I think so much of what we do today as educators is connection and being able to build those kinds of connections. You were saying that ensemble learning started with a federal grant and you know now is working with 80 different schools. As you're sort of looking out and you guys have some experience now in building these relationships, what do you see as some of the biggest challenges and opportunities for growing what you do and for reaching more students and more teachers? 

19:50 - Katherine Hamilton (Guest)
Yeah, I think I mean we're at a really interesting political landscape right now, with unsure about what's happening with the Department of Education, and so you know, what we're trying to do right now is stay focused on students and say, no matter what happens with everything, we have teachers, we have leaders and teachers working with students who need us to continue to improve our instructional strategies to support them, and so we're trying to find a North Star right there right now, with everything being tumultuous, and I think the biggest things that we're looking at and aware of really two things are one there continues to be a large influx of newcomer, newcomer multilingual learners and they're arriving at schools. You know they've worked so hard to, you know, come to the US like they're amazing students and like many teachers with the best of intentions just have don't have any tools yet, and so trying to really partner with schools and we're working on kind of a newcomer playbook and some supports that schools and then teachers can take and use, because we just think that's an area that I didn't learn about in my credentialing courses, like I didn't even learn about on the job, because that wasn't the population at that point. The second piece that I'm super, super excited about is the promise of dual language bilingual schools and classes, and we've actually been working on a second federal grant in Texas helping them take state policy around. Basically, if a school has 20 emergent bilingual is what they call it emergent bilingual students, they have to provide a dual language bilingual class, an option for those students, and so we've been helping them, helping schools, you know, help that come to fruition. 

21:54
Coaching teachers and the outcomes of dual language education are just fantastic, like students are a becoming bilingual, like totally bilingual, biliterate, all of that and outperforming English only peers, like amazingly, and it's, you know, it's because the brain research, we know, like when you are bilingual, your brain actually like fosters more connections, you know, fires more synapses, all that. So figuring out how we can support more schools that want to provide dual language education and helping them with the infrastructure, how do you plan that? How do you launch those programs? So those are the big things on our agenda, but you know we also, as a nonprofit, have to kind of see the landscape and we just we go where there are students and teachers and leaders that that need support and try to do as much work as we can. 

22:52 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Well, and I love the notion that, in a time of turmoil which, heaven knows, that's what we're in right now. I like the idea that we keep our eye on the students and on the teachers and that that's our North Star is making sure that we're providing equitable and rich education for our students, and I think that what you just said is so important. If folks want to reach out to learn more about the playbook, to learn more about the programs that you all do, how do they find you Sure? 

23:21 - Katherine Hamilton (Guest)
The best way is either through LinkedIn or through our website. We're at ensemblelearningorg and we do. We like to say, like I said, we ground ourselves in students and teachers, and so if you are interested in any of this, you can find contact info for me or for other of my colleagues and just email us. Reach out, we will share resources, point you in the right direction. We like to do calls with folks to kind of help them get on the right track or see if working with us is the right pathway, and then, on LinkedIn, we share a lot of our resources. So we're Ensemble Learning and again, we have some blog posts, some tools, some things that we share out because it is about the students posts, some tools, some things that we share out because it is about the students. 

24:09 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
It's about, you know, building this amazing like multilingual population that we know is going to be the future, and I'll make sure we share links to all of that in the show notes so that folks can find you all. So I want to sort of switch gears for the very last question and I wanted to ask you what currently brings you hope. 

24:28 - Katherine Hamilton (Guest)
Oh, I mean. So, as I mentioned, I live in Los Angeles. We had a really tough January with fires. 

24:34 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Yes, you did, are you okay? 

24:36 - Katherine Hamilton (Guest)
Yes, we're good. Things are just it's a great question. I think what brings me hope are teachers. I mean, I think a lot of people would say like students, and I do believe that. But I look at the folks that are in the field right now, who have weathered COVID, who have weathered, who are currently weathering uncertainty, and I get to work with really amazing teachers and school leaders who manage really to find, you know, within structures of standards and testing and just a lot put on teachers. They continue to really find and build the relationships with students, the belief in students, helping students access their content and language, and so it's really the people doing the work, both the people I get to work with professionally my own children's teachers. 

25:34
I actually went into my son's preschool today and just I'm in awe of these folks who educate these two to five-year-olds. I volunteered at the library at my other son's public school and I'm just like these people who work in our public school institutions are amazing and I'm I'm lucky to work with them every day and try to really find their strengths and build on them. But that's that's. My hope is that we continue to recognize teachers for the great work they're doing, pay them for the great work they're doing. Pay them for the great work you know pour into them. Give them professional development that actually helps them. So that's my area of hope. 

26:15 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I love that. Okay, so I lied. There's going to be one more question. I have a math person with me, so I have to take advantage of this. Math, like science, is probably one of the hardest things for a teacher to teach. Based on your years of experience, how would you get a system that wasn't made for all students and told them math is just? 

26:35 - Katherine Hamilton (Guest)
hey, there are many ways to be good at math and really like breaking open and this is the intent of Common Core that I don't think happened in most places but really showing them ways to teach that show math from different angles. 

27:30
And some of my favorite ways to do that are well, a is increasing that like ability to talk and ask questions and grapple, but also really helping teachers play with math, like in ways where they understand oh, I see how I'll take like a later elementary, middle school example like oh, I see how, like a table and a graph and a pattern, like oh, I see how those are connected. Now, as a kid, I just memorized y equals mx plus b and like memorize this stuff? I had no and I was just like maybe if I plug in a number. But as an adult, wow, I have these tools at my fingertips and I feel like I'm empowered by this versus uh, shut down by this and um, I just think you know, taking opportunities to, to play with math, do games you know so many people love Sudoku and things like Wordle and all those ways of thinking. That's math and I think, helping them connect that as well. 

28:33 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Katherine, I love that because, as I'm thinking about this whole conversation, you've given us a lot to think about in terms of building connections, because it's all about building relationships with each other, but also playing whether we're playing with language, playing with math, playing with the curriculum, finding sort of that sense of wonder and discovery, and let's figure it out together. And I feel like if you can do all of that, then you can overcome just about anything. 

29:02 - Katherine Hamilton (Guest)
I love that. I hadn't thought about that connection and I love that and I think that's what's hard. Teachers, you know, feel a lot of external pressure, but if you know they can say, no, I want to. I want to introduce play and hope and relationships Like that's really the core of our work. 

29:19 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Well, Katherine, thank you so much. It has been a delight to have you on the Adventures in Learning podcast. Everybody you're going to want to check out ensemblelearningorg. Make sure you check all the show notes and reach out to Katherine, because there's so many cool things they're doing. 

29:33 - Katherine Hamilton (Guest)
Thank you so much. Love, love, learning about your work too, and being here with you.