Multilingual Learners in the Lower School Mainstream

Do you wonder what to do when the English Language Specialist is not in the classroom? This one-day session will provide practical strategies that support multilingual learners in every part of the mainstream curriculum from reading and writing to maths and unit of inquiry.

Why come?

Do your multilingual learners need some additional scaffolding and support in your homeroom classes? Do you wonder what to do when the English Language Specialist is not in the classroom? This one-day session will provide practical strategies that support multilingual learners in every part of the mainstream curriculum from reading and writing to maths and unit of inquiry.

Who is it for?

• Kindergarten- 5th grade homeroom teachers
• Kindergarten-5th grade EAL teachers
• Teams of general education and EAL teachers, who co-teach, co-plan, or work together in any way

Workshop Description:

In this hands-on workshop, you will experience practical scaffolds and strategies that support multilingual learners at different levels of language acquisition in grade-level lessons. You will also have time to integrate those strategies into your lesson plans for reading, writing, and maths. In addition to creating the conditions so that multilingual learners comprehend mainstream lessons, these strategies will also deliberately build their academic English skills. By the end of the one-day session, you will have a toolbox of strategies that support multilinguals in the mainstream.

Workshop goals:

• Appreciate the assets multilinguals bring to the school and classroom
• Scaffold reading instruction for multilingual learners
• Scaffold writing instruction for multilingual learners
• Scaffold maths instruction for multilingual learners
• Accommodate classroom assessments

Beth Skelton

Beth Skelton provides professional development, coaching, and consulting for schools around the world focused on creating equitable education for multilingual learners.

She believes that all students are academic language learners and that all teachers are language teachers.

She holds a Master’s Degree in Multicultural Teacher Education and has worked with early childhood, elementary, middle, high school and adult language learners in rural, urban, suburban, and international school settings for over 30 years. She is a WIDA certified trainer and has extensive experience and training in Kagan cooperative learning, Harvard Project Zero and Visible Thinking Routines, SIOP, International Baccalaureate English B course, Marzano’s Strategies that Work for English Learners, Total Physical Response Storytelling (TPRS) for English Learners, and student-centered instructional coaching. She has published materials for teaching adult English Learners with the TPRS method entitled Putting it Together, which have been translated into Spanish, Dutch, French, and sign language.