The answer is as simple as it is complicated.  Simply put, we are required to take them by law.  The more complicated answer has us looking at two major events: Proposition 203 and Flores v. Arizona.  These two laws have forever impacted the lives of students and their teachers with respect to the delivery of educational services to English Language Learners.

While most long-time citizens of Arizona are very familiar with Proposition 203 (the ‘English for the Children’ movement), it was pre-dated by the lawsuit known as Flores v. Arizona.  Specifically, in 1992 Miriam Flores filed this suit on behalf of her daughter in the federal district court, citing that schools were not adequately funded to provide equity of access to programs that would help ELLs become proficient in English was its major issue.  The suit also cited that adequate processes for identifying and monitoring students who were labeled as language learners needed to be put into place.  Finally, the suit alleged that teachers were not adequately trained to educate language learners.

In the year August 2000, the Flores Consent Decree was signed with respect to the original suit arising Nogales, and in 2001, the District court extended the order to apply to the entire state.  It would add stricter monitoring guidelines and assessment procedures for current and former ELLs, and mandated compensatory education for ELLs who were not making progress.  However, it left to the legislature and state board of education the task of working out the issues of funding and teacher training.  Regarding funding, a cost study was ordered to discover the true costs of educating English Learners.  Several districts participated.  Its results were so disparate that another was ordered.  While some increase was seen in ELL funding as a result, the issue was still being worked out in the legislature, as was the issue of teacher training.

In November of 2000, Proposition 203 was passed.  This superceded the 1968 Bilingual Education Act’s provisions in Arizona, enacted as a result of the Lau case, which gave districts flexibility in the types of programs it could administer to meet the needs of a linguistically diverse population.  Students in our state would now be required to be taught in English for all subjects, unless the student’s parents signed a waiver for which s/he qualified.  The three types of waivers are for:

• Type 1:  Students who demonstrate ‘good’ English language skills.
• Type 2:  Students who attained the age of 10, and for whom a language program
  in the native language would be in the best interest of the child.
• Type 3:  Students who have special individual needs.

Note that while parental waivers may be requested, the district Superintendent has final authority on whether they will be granted.  The overwhelming majority of English Learners in Arizona are not on waivers and are taught in a Structured English Immersion program.

At issue, once again, was the requirement in Proposition 203 that teachers receive training in educational techniques that would help students learn English.  Coupled with the Flores Consent Decree’s provision that teachers need training in these strategies, the Structured English Immersion Endorsement was proposed by the Arizona lawmakers.

After much deliberation by members of the Arizona Legislature, the Arizona State Board of Education, the Arizona Department of Education, and other interested parties, it was decided in 2004 that a provisional SEI endorsement (15 hours) would be required of all certified individuals by August 31, 2006, and a full SEI endorsement (requiring an additional 45 hours, for total of 60 hours) would be required by 2009.

In late 2007, however, the State Board law language changed to say that in order to get a reciprocal provisional teaching certificate (if coming from another state) or to get recertified in the state of Arizona, one must have taken either the 15-hour Provisional SEI Endorsement course (if certified prior to August 31, 2006) or one the two 45 hour courses, the 45-hour Augmented Provisional course or the Completion 45-hour course (if certified after 8-31-06).  Every teacher would then have 3 years from the date of their Provisional SEI Endorsement to complete their Full SEI Endorsement and have it added to their certificate.  The chart below explains the requirements quite nicely:

Certification date	Click on a training below to learn more or register:
Certified before 8/31/06: (in AZ or home state with no lapses, or AZ cert currently lapsed less than one year)	15 hour Provisional SEI Course plus 45 hour Completion Course
Certified or certifying 8/31/06 or later, or prior certified whose AZ certificate has lapsed for more than one year	45 hour Augmented Provisional Course plus 45 hour Completion Course

Hopefully you have a better understanding of why you’re required to take SEI courses.  In addition to staff development, we offer many Structured English Immersion courses throughout the year which are reasonably priced and expertly facilitated.  Please don’t hesitate to contact us with additional questions you may have about SEI!

So often, we as teachers approach testing as a scary thing.  Our students end up feeling it.  I remember how much stress I felt when I was teaching prior to testing week.  Several of us got together and studied testing preparation, which differs from testing practice.  Preparation gives students strategies, verbiage to pay attention to, and discussions about strategies for test taking.  Practice is getting the rhythm and form of testing.  Engaging in it looks and feels just like the test – except there may be feedback involved.  Together, we settled on some strategies that worked, and those were ultimately shared in teacher professional development workshops for English Language learners and regular education students alike.

Hannah liked Study Island, but many of the questions were too hard for her at the beginning.  They should have been.  AIMS is a criterion referenced assessment, meaning that it is possible for 100% of the students to get 100% on the test.  These are the skills that a 3^rd grader is supposed to know at the end of third grade.  A standardized test places students on the bell curve, and includes skills that are well beyond the third grade year.

So, we used it lightly, taking the tests that followed her curriculum in each subject area.  But come January, and it was time to turn up the heat.  She was required to spend 15 minutes per day, Monday through Thursday, practicing skills on Study Island.  She began to resent me just a little (a mom always knows!), and so I had to help her understand the ‘why’ behind the ‘what.’  I’d succeeded in providing test practice, but I’d not yet done the test preparation.  I decided to employ one of those strategies we’d come up with to help my daughter.

“You know that I’m a teacher trainer, right?  And that Aunt Kathy is a resume writer?  Well, Hannah, there are people in this world who get paid to trick kids.”  Her eyes widened.  “Do you know how?”  She shook her head.  “On tests.  They get paid to trick kids on tests.”

“How, Mommy?” she queried.

“Well, Hannah,” I continued, “you know how each question has four possible answers?  There are usually two answers that couldn’t be right, one that is right, and one answer that’s meant to trick kids.  Do you want to beat the kid trickers?  Because that’s all testing really is – finding ways to beat the kid trickers and showing them what you really know.”

I could see that this held some appeal.  “Want me to show you how to beat the kid trickers?”  She nodded enthusiastically.  “Cool.  Let’s get started.”

I showed her that in nearly every problem, there was one answer that was partly correct.  That was the ‘kid tricker’ answer, and the one to watch out for on tests.  So I had her exclude the two that couldn’t be right, and we settled in to find the one that was.  And, here’s the important part:  She had to tell me WHY the partly correct one was so, and what the difference was between that and the correct one.

From March to April (the month in which kids in Arizona are tested), Hannah’s time (and independence) increased on Study Island from 15 to 30 minutes each night.  She would frequently call out, “I found it!”  I knew what she meant.  She was getting every answer correct the overwhelming majority of the time.

I happened to see her teacher after the first day of testing.  I asked her how Hannah did. “She was the first one done every time,” she responded.  We all know that can mean one of two things – either she was really getting it, or she was marking just about anything.

“Did she seem confident?” I asked.

“Very.”

I wasn’t surprised.

Phoenix, AZ (PRWEB / Vocus) July 30, 2009 — Educational Training Specialists, LLC, the leading private provider of Arizona’s required Structured English Immersion training, is now offering these workshops nationwide. Anne Swigard, the company’s president, expanded its offerings to bring much-needed information and strategies to teachers who are working with English Language Learners.

“While many teachers can help students get to a basic level of proficiency in the English language, it takes an entirely different skill set to help English learners succeed at levels which will one day prepare them for higher education and the workforce,” says Anne Swigard, President of Educational Training Specialists, LLC. “Our research-based professional development workshops provide teachers with up to 70 new strategies to help English Learners succeed in their English-speaking classrooms.”

Swigard’s thematically-based, proprietary training programs, ‘From Many Nations to One’ and ‘Around the World in 15 (or 45) Hours’ include proven methods to reach the ELL student population. Program components include:

English Language Learners are the fastest-growing population of public school students in the U.S. Currently there are approximately 5 million ELLs enrolled in US schools. Having to learn a new language and adapt to a new culture presents a wide range of academic challenges; therefore, in many states, ELLs consistently lag behind other students in achievement, contributing to higher dropout rates. Research has shown that teachers are often unprepared to work with this portion of the student population. This combination of unprepared teachers and students struggling to learn a new language foretells an uncertain future for the United States.

“Most experts agree that if our schools are going to produce a competitive labor force, something indeed has to change,” said Swigard. “That change, in my opinion, is how we prepare both preservice and inservice teachers in the methods to effectively teach all of their students – especially those who are learning English.”

For more information about Educational Training Specialists and training for teachers of English Language Learners, visit www.training4teachers.com.

About Educational Training Specialists:
Educational Training Specialists, LLC is a nationally recognized educational consulting company that provides personalized English Language Learning consulting to schools and districts across the U.S. Backed by more than a decade of research and development, the company’s unique programs address the pressing needs of today’s ELL teachers and administrators, helping participants improve their classroom strategies while earning valuable continuing education hours. For more information, visit www.training4teachers.com or call 1-800-279-7135.

###

Response to Intervention seemed like just such an initiative.  Although it was tied to the No Child Left Behind Act, it still seemed, at first blush, like something that would get left on a shelf somewhere, evidence of the last Presidential administration’s well-intentioned, but unfunded, federal mandate.  I remember sitting at my first large-scale conference on Response to Intervention.  I fidgeted in my seat, trying to make sense of a program that seemed to do the impossible: put the responsibility of many levels of intervention on the classroom teacher before a making a referral to Special Education.  But how?  And how could I write professional development to help teachers with just such an initiative.  In 2004, it seemed like no one knew.

A lot has changed in the past 7 years.  Language surrounding RtI has become part of the regular education teacher’s working vocabulary.  Words like ‘tiers’ and ‘interventions’ and concepts like ‘progress monitoring’ come into sharp focus as we see just how Response to Intervention is to be implemented.  And, in the schools and districts where it is widely used, it appears to be working: ‘typical’ students are on the receiving end of these interventions so that they don’t fall through the academic cracks, as well as students who have a specific learning disability, are being served appropriately.

There are so many reasons other than a specific learning disability that students may appear to have problems: trauma can be mistaken for a receptive language disability; a language other than English can appear to be language delay or a cognitive processing problem; and a refugee student suffering from culture shock can appear to have a behavior disorder to the untrained eye.

Enter the Response to Intervention process.  All students are screened (or their data is reviewed) and receive Tier 1, or Universal Interventions.  In short, teachers are asked to use research-validated curricula and methods to deliver their curriculum, with fidelity checked by a peer or administrator.  In Tier 2 Interventions, teachers or trained designees give extra help to students who need it, but in a different way, and in addition to, the Tier 1 Interventions.  Fidelity is checked, and progress is monitored, as it is with students who initially were identified with a screener.  Finally, in Tier 3, students who are not responding to Tier 1 and 2 Interventions will receive individualized and intensive intervention in the hopes that they may show progress.  If progress is not shown, a student study team is requested, and the process for referral to Special Education begins.  While this is simplified, and may vary slightly or somewhat from how your district or school has interpreted RtI, the idea is still the same.

We at Educational Training Specialists get so excited when we have the opportunity to share our information and flexible, effective interventions pertaining to Response to Intervention.  Our teacher professional development has gone a long way toward helping teachers to understand what is required of them, just how much of this they’re already doing, and how, by making some small but realistic changes, they can implement tiered interventions and progress monitoring to truly assess and assist their struggling students.

So, what’s so great about RtI?  Finally, the correct students will be identified with a learning disability.  It’s not that students with a specific learning disability weren’t identified in the past – most were; however, other students who may not have been truly learning disabled sometimes found their way into Special Education.  Now English Learners and those with educational deprivation (and others who, at first blush, appear to have a learning disability) will have a chance to catch up and get focused instruction that they can understand.  And classroom teachers will create authentic opportunities to vary their instruction in the form of interventions to meet the needs of all students.

I’d love to hear how your district is doing with its RtI implementation.  Feel free to make comments, ask questions, or start a discussion pertaining to this timely topic!

First, I think that we, as teachers, can agree that our students’ parents are their first teachers.  This is a point I would drive home to my students in front of their parents during parent-teacher conferences.  The concept would often catch both students and parents by surprise.  It caused both to see the role of the parents in a new light – one of heightened respect, and parental ownership and accountability in the educational process.  It also laid the groundwork for what I was about to tell them next:  “Speak in your native language at home.”

Many a parent’s eyes would widen in disbelief.  Was the teacher really telling me it was okay to be who I was?  That my language was valued?  That I didn’t have to speak the preschool-level English I’d learned in my English class this term?  Without them saying a word, I would answer their unasked questions.  “Your language is a large part of who you are, who your family is.  It shapes how you see the world, and gives meaning to your experiences.  Given that you’re just learning English, you can practice your English at home.  However, you should still tell stories, do activities as a family, spend time with extended family, read, praise, and discipline your child all in your native tongue.”  Relief set in, and calm was often restored.

If I stop here, many teachers may not understand why all of this is so important.  For this reason, I would ask you to journey with me in your minds to Changsha, which is a city in the Hunan Province of China.  Your husband or wife has just accepted a fantastic job there, and you know you have to go.  The offer will ensure your family’s financial security for many years to come.  Your children are mostly sad, and a little excited for the adventure that awaits them.

Upon arriving, you note that there are no international schools within reasonable distance of your home, and the traffic in Changsha is terrible.  You elect to enroll your child in a Mandarin-speaking school.  You, on the other hand, want to learn to speak Mandarin, so you, too, enroll yourself in a class.  Aside from the predictable issues of culture shock, you are faring well, learning to count and pronounce colors correctly in Mandarin.  You’re even learning a few key survival phrases.  All in all, it’s going well.

Then, the teacher asks to meet with you.  Your children are behind – way behind.  He informs you that you will have to help him with his Chinese History homework, as well as his Chinese characters.  No English at home, only Mandarin, if your children are to succeed.  You panic, as you have only been taught a small amount of spoken Mandarin – that equivalent to the level a preschooler would learn.  All sorts of things run through your head, none of them positive.  You feel like a failure, a feeling you never had back home.

I have a theory – one of ‘hooks and holes.’  (Swigard, 1999)  Rather than making an impossible request of a parent (to communicate with their child in their second, and presumably less proficient, language), I thought of concept formation, and schema (Anderson; Piaget).  In short, what you know is arranged in relationship to topics, and you bring those to the classroom.  The more you know, the larger your schemata.

Now, it’s easier to take a child with well-formed schemata in their first language, and ‘hook’ words in the new language to the existing words in the native language.  Extremely economical for an educator, as well, second language acquisition is facilitated by a strong background in the first language.  As Cummins (2000) states: “Conceptual knowledge developed in one language helps to make input in the other language comprehensible.”

MUCH harder is trying to hook new vocabulary to holes in a child’s schema.  The conceptual framework isn’t there, so the new words don’t have a place to go.  Unless a teacher spends a tremendous time building background, or teaches the new words in a highly comprehensible, contextualized way, the new vocabulary just ‘disappears’ because there were no hooks onto which the words in English could be hung.

So, have your parents talk to their children in their native tongue – explaining everything that they do to their child.  This will make your job as an educator much easier, and make the child’s school experience much more successful.  If you are not a speaker of the family’s primary language, you may have to have this conversation through the use of a qualified interpreter, which you should be able to secure through your school or district.

Even those educators with years of experience tend to fall into a rut.  It’s natural human instinct to stagnate.  A refresher course or learning something new can benefit all teachers, whether their focus is the refinement of content area teaching skills or moving into a new area of study. Three of the most beneficial staff development offerings are Literacy Workshops, Six Traits of Writing and Special Education workshops.

Literacy workshops are an essential component of 21^st century success.  The future of a child depends highly on learning to read and write.  Lacking these skills will put a burden on our future as a society when these individuals remain unemployed, homeless, and/or unable to contribute to society. Literacy is not just an issue in our country, it exists worldwide.  Literacy workshops provide teachers with effective strategies to monitor children’s progress with information and tools for quick and meaningful assessment of a student’s knowledge and abilities.  Additionally, literacy workshops increase teacher knowledge of balanced literacy activities as well as create techniques designed to accelerate student acquisition of reading and writing skills.

Another staff development “must” is The Six Trait Writing Workshop.    Unlike any other model out there, the Six Traits are a wonderful way to objectively score student writing in any subject. The Six Traits provide a common language and greatly help with revisions and editing.  Moreover, the rubrics are guidelines for quality writing and scoring. Because the descriptors for each of the traits are easy to understand, scoring a student’s writing is a much simpler task for the teacher.  Best of all, the Six Trait’s can be used across the curriculum.  The model works well in all subject areas and writing assignments.  Students will find the Six Traits are not just something applied in English class, but in all areas.  Finally, the Six Traits are a wonderful tool for ESL students.  Teachers who have ESL students will find that their students writing will grow more rapidly when they apply the Six Traits, and teaching will become a lot less problematic.

Finally, Special Education staff development workshops are some of the best classes an educator can take, whether they have special education students in their classroom or not.  As schools become more inclusive, it is crucial that both special education teachers and general education teachers work together to adapt curriculum materials and teaching techniques to meet the needs of students with disabilities.  An inservice focusing on Special Education will train educators to work cooperatively and maintain joint responsibility for specified educational instruction. The general education teacher and the special education teacher will learn that they can collaboratively bring their skills, training, and perspectives together to strengthen teaching and learning opportunities. Collaboratively, their goal will be to provide appropriate classroom and homework assignments so that each student is learning, being challenged and participating. The ultimate goal of Special Education staff development is to achieve a balanced classroom.  Additionally, general education teachers will learn more about specific learning and behavioral disabilities and will use this knowledge to perfect their current responses to intervention (RTI).

Professional staff development is a continual process.  Teachers as well as principals need to be kept fresh and informed.  For more information about one or more of the classes mentioned, please contact Educational Training Specialists at 1-800-279-7135 or www.training4teachers.com.

While each state has its own set of guidelines for what counts as a teacher continuing education course, the most important qualification seems to be that it helps a teacher become better at his or her craft, or to be more effective in some way with students.  In most states, the course does not necessarily have to be from a college or university.  ETS has gone the extra mile to ensure that our courses will count in any state: we have sought continuing graduate credit from Chapman University that teachers can elect to receive (at a nominal additional fee, and after completing all necessary requirements of that course) after attending one of our teacher workshops, so as to ensure that every teacher training we offer will qualify in every state.

Yet, this extra step (and expense) is not always necessary.  For example, in Arizona, State Board (of Education) rule states that teacher professional development can be a combination of college credits and teacher workshops in a shorter period of time (say, during the last two years before certificate expiration), or teacher staff development or teacher workshops only if done over the 6 years between renewal.  Either way, the ability of teachers to choose provides some flexibility in how they approach their teaching license renewal.

While ETS offers trainings in the public, we often are contracted to perform in-district or schoolwide trainings.  What’s nice about either option is that each teacher in the training can choose whether or not they want to pursue the college credit on their own.  Let’s face it – those of us who have been in education for a long period of time know that, in many cases, opting (and paying for!) college credit is unnecessary once we reach the top of the salary schedule.  We are happy to receive the certificate for having attended the course.  Sitting at the same table during a staff development training, however, might be a second- (or fifth-, or seventh-) year teacher who needs that credit to move across the pay scale.  At ETS, we understand this only too well, and have committed ourselves to offering teachers that choice.

Finally, however you decide to pursue your continuing education units or staff development clock hours, I have only one piece of advice for you:  Make sure it’s time and money well-spent!

Phoenix, AZ (PRWEB / Vocus) September 8, 2009 — Educational Training Specialists, LLC has announced that it has received approval from Chapman University to offer optional teacher continuing education college credits for all of the company’s teacher professional development offerings. Teachers can earn one to three credits per course, depending upon which workshop they have attended.
“Teachers should have the opportunity to choose whether they would like to receive continuing graduate credits for attending our workshops,” says Anne Swigard, President of Educational Training Specialists. “There seem to be few options for teachers to receive continuing graduate education courses without going to a traditional college or university. We offer training and practicum options that are immediately applicable in the classroom, strategies-packed, and void of tests and unnecessary research papers.”

Originally specializing in high-quality staff development for teachers of English Learners, Swigard says the company began planning to offer additional topics when her workshop trainees repeatedly asked her what else Educational Training Specialists had to offer. After doing a 3000-person survey, a core of topics emerged that seemed to have the widest appeal. The company now offers a number of training opportunities that can be held in a district or school, and that feature a wide array of topics. These include teacher workshops on:

According to Swigard, the company has gone to great lengths to ensure that each instructor is highly trained in the topic which she presents. The trainers all have a great deal of experience presenting to and teaching adults. Additionally, each trainer is a seasoned classroom teacher. This combination, she maintains, makes for an authentic, exciting learning experience for the attendees of ETS’s workshops.

“We have had the good fortune to have received almost 500 testimonials about how our trainings are changing teachers’ lives by imparting new strategies into their teaching,” reports Swigard. “My passion is to help educators to feel successful with all of their students, every day. At Educational Training Specialists, our credo is personal and professional excellence. In short, we love what we do.”

About Educational Training Specialists:

Educational Training Specialists, LLC is a nationally recognized educational consulting company that provides personalized English Language Learning consulting to schools and districts across the U.S. Backed by more than a decade of research and development, the company’s unique programs address the pressing needs of today’s ELL teachers and administrators, helping participants improve their classroom strategies while earning valuable continuing education hours. For more information, visit www.edtrainingspecialists.com or call 1-800-279-7135.

For more information, contact:

Anne Swigard, President
Educational Training Specialists, LLC
800-279-7135
anne (at) edtrainingspecialists (dot) com