Connecting & Collaborating to Support MLs' Success

Collaboration with educational colleagues has had the most significant impact on my professional growth and, incidentally, on my multilingual learners’ success. 

Often, collaboration is thought to be synonymous with co-teaching. While the two are connected, they are not one and the same. 

In the context of working with multilingual learners, educators can work together towards a common overarching goal of serving and supporting them. Through COLLABORATION, educators come together to devise a vision for success, intentional plans, and daily actions for reinforcement. Together, collaborators share in the successes and challenges along the way.

The main element that collaborators have in common is the student(s). Therefore, collaboration happens across departments to serve MLs. Educators understand that the responsibility to educate MLs is shared. Acquiring language and learning content do not occur in isolation. Language is a vehicle for learning all things, including math, science, social studies, etc. 

A common misconception is that collaboration must happen in the same physical space. Sometimes it does, but often it doesn’t. It can happen over emails or on digital lesson planning. One language specialist explained how she met with grade-level teams for long-range planning at the onset of each grading period to look ahead at the units of study and offer linguistic supports. This opportunity also gave her a chance to prepare resources for MLs. In the following weeks, she continued to collaborate with teachers via the school’s online lesson planning system. 

The collaboration between a language specialist and a mainstream teacher is the most common; however, collaboration among multiple stakeholders can have a greater impact on multilingual learners. 

Collaboration Partnerships 

• Language specialists and mainstream teachers
• Language specialists and special education teachers
• Language specialists and GT teachers
• Language specialists and art teachers
• Language specialists and music teachers
• Language specialists and P. E. teachers
• Language specialists and librarians
• Language specialists and counselors
• Language specialists and instructional coaches
• Language specialists and administrators
• Language specialists and families
• Language specialists and front office staff
• Language specialists and nurses
• Language specialists and cafeteria staff
• Language specialists and bus drivers

Collaboration takes many forms and is not only co-teaching. 
There are many ways to collaborate in the interest of multilingual learners. 

• Coaching: Instructional coaching offers a potent method to enhance teacher capability in assisting multilingual learners. Educators with specialized training in language acquisition can collaborate directly with general education teachers during instructional planning. The guidance provided by coaches enriches a teacher's instructional toolkit.

 

• Mentoring: Teachers who collaborate and support each other gain numerous advantages. Experienced mentor teachers can act as a guide for newer educators, much like a GPS. They can provide answers to questions, suggest solutions, and help their partners navigate challenges, offering insights from someone who has already been on a similar path.

 

• Planning: Collaborative planning between grade-level teachers and language specialists (or ESL teachers) ensures that both content and language objectives are addressed. This approach increases lesson accessibility for a wider variety of learners and enhances teacher capabilities.

 

• Sharing: Collaborating effectively often involves sharing successful ideas and strategies with colleagues. Building a culture of open communication and sharing within a team can encourage others to reciprocate, increasing the collective benefit of shared knowledge. 

Collaboration for multilingual learners is like a boat we row together. It works best when we are rowing in synchronization with a shared direction. 

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