At Partners in School Innovation (PSI), we believe that all students should have access to rigorous instruction. Making sure this happens includes looking out for and considering how student populations like Multilingual Learners (MLL) can be better supported.

This case study highlights our collaboration with a large intermediate school in East San Jose, California, during the 2022-2023 school year. The school, which educates over 700 students in grades 7 and 8, was looking for more expertise and support on how to better serve its significant population of Multilingual Learners (MLLs).

An infographic that shows demographic details about this Intermediate school located in San Jose, CA. It includes the school's district (Oak Grove School District), grades served (7-8th grade), and total number of students (700).

During this year of collaboration with Partners in School Innovation (PSI), they experienced significant results: 14% of the total Multilingual Learner (MLL) population was reclassified to Fluent English Proficient Status, and the number of students identified as Long Term English Learners was reduced by 36%.

A School’s Challenge: More Intentionally Supporting Multilingual Learners

This intermediate school is led by a dynamic principal and assistant principal that is supported by a leadership team made up of counselors and administrators. An interesting aspect of this school’s academic program is that they have adopted the AVID approach – Advancement Via Individual Determination, with a dedicated group of teachers who lead this program at the school.

In the early stages of our collaboration, this school team expressed their goal of focusing on their Multilingual Learners. They were honest about the opportunity to better engage with this student population, and eager to understand how to better improve their outcomes and school experience.

An analysis of standardized assessment data and a curriculum review by PSI coaches revealed opportunities for growth in areas like structured language practice, vocabulary development, and overall language instruction for MLLs.

Laying the Groundwork: Focus Areas For Change

The initial focus of this collaboration was to ensure that all teachers knew who their MLL students were, gained a better understanding of these students’ experience, and were equipped with tools to better support them.

PSI worked with this school team to set the following goals:

Increase the number of MLLs reclassified to Fluent English Proficient Status for 2022-23 by 15 - 20%
Decrease the number of students labeled Long Term English Learners by 20%.

To start work towards these goals, the instructional leadership team and select teachers at this school participated in three Multilingual Learner shadowing days.

Actions Taken

Multilingual Learners (MLL) Shadowing

Student shadowing allowed educators to see firsthand what the experience was like for this student group in the classroom, and it created urgency around the instructional and language needs of MLLs. During shadowing, the instructional leadership team focused on observing each Multilingual Learner’s academic speaking, listening, and off-task behavior.

A visual graphic explaining student shadowing as a practice where educators follow a specific student throughout the day to closely observe and experience their academic and social interactions. It includes an image of a student and teacher working together in a classroom setting.

Data collected from shadowing revealed that these students had limited collaboration with their peers despite teachers' lesson plans designed for interactive learning.

A quote from a teacher who participated in the MLL shadowing that reads: “Seeing where they were doing well and where they needed help gave us concrete examples to develop better intervention techniques.”

Shadowing highlighted to PSI and the instructional leadership team that just because a lesson was designed to be collaborative didn’t mean the student experience was engaging and collaborative.

This also highlighted for the PSI coaches and the leadership team that improving support for MLLs needed to go a bit beyond focusing on language practice strategies–It also required facilitating lesson planning support and professional development on bridging the gap between lesson design and the student experience.

*A quote from a teacher who participated in the MLL shadowing that reads: “Without the MLL shadowing protocol, these students may have flown under the radar for more years using coping techniques.”*

Professional Development on Teaching Multilingual Learners

English Language Development teachers at the school participated in professional development days. These days focused on adapting lesson plans to center student experience and structured language practice strategies teachers could use with Multilingual Learners in the classroom.

Teachers received resources and strategies meant to support Multilingual Learners (MLL) with participating more in class and using academic language during discussions.

Some examples of strategies that Partners in School Innovation shared during professional development included:

The Frayer Model

The Frayer Model is a vocabulary-building tool that uses a graphic organizer to help students learn new words (see an example below). In this model, students are asked to define the word, list its characteristics, and provide examples and non-examples. They can also draw a picture to show what the word means. This information is organized into four sections of a chart, making it visually easier for students to understand and remember the word.

*An example of a Frayer Model graphic organizer sourced from Adolescent Literacy (Adlit.org*)

“Thinking Verbs” and “Discourse Sentence Frames”

Thinking verbs are action words used in classrooms that encourage students to engage critically with content, pushing them to analyze, evaluate, and synthesize information rather than simply recalling facts. Students are coached to understand thinking verbs like “analyze”, “apply” or “compare,” and given sentence frames that provide a way for them to structure their language during a classroom discussion.

For example, a teacher might use the thinking verb "analyze" to frame a lesson objective like "Analyze the causes and effects of the Industrial Revolution." The teacher can explain what analysis means in this context, and provide structured language, or discourse sentence frames, to support students to engage in discourse around this topic.

A graphic showing how to use the thinking verb "analyze." It includes the definition of "analyze" and examples of discourse sentence frames, which guide students on structuring their language when discussing their analyses in class.

The concept of Thinking Verbs is explored in the book Long Term Success For Experienced Multilinguals by Tan Huynh & Beth Skelton.

Results and Reflections

The school nearly reached its goal of increasing the number of Multilingual Learners reclassified to Fluent English Proficient status by 15-20%, achieving a 14% reclassification rate. This was a significant improvement compared to the previous year's rate of 4%.

A graphic representation of the results achieved by this intermediate school, showcasing a 10% increase in the number of multilingual learners reclassified to Fluent English Proficient status, and a 36% reduction in the number of students classified as Long Term English Learners from the previous year.

Additionally, the number of students identified as Long Term English Learners was significantly reduced by 36%, far exceeding their 20% target.

This intermediate school continues to work with Partners in School Innovation on refining and expanding its strategies to better support MLLs across their school. Ongoing student shadowing, professional development, and data analysis continue to guide the adjustments and improvements to their instructional practices.

Inspired by This School's Journey?

If you're interested in learning more about how Partners in School Innovation can support your district’s and school's path to transformation, or want to explore how our staff can empower your team to achieve exceptional outcomes, contact us today.

How a San Jose School Transformed Their Support for Multilingual Learners