Research-Aligned Characteristics of a Successful and Sustainable Secondary Dual Language or Transitional Bilingual Education Program, Part 1: Dual Language Leadership Teams

There are many challenges to planning for and implementing a secondary (grades 6-12) dual language (DL) program given the different structures and systems inherent to secondary schooling (e.g., departmentalized teams, master schedule, competing academic and sports programs). In my work supporting secondary DL programs across the US, a pattern of characteristics emerged that the most successful and sustainable programs exhibited. Drawing upon what I learned from these programs and what I gleaned from the Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education, 3^rd Edition, I authored the book, Fulfilling the Promise of Biliteracy: Creating a Successful and Sustainable Secondary Dual Language Program (published by Velázquez Press, 2022).

Recently, in collaboration with the New York City Department of Education, I was tasked with creating a reflection tool based on these characteristics to guide our support for the secondary DL and transitional bilingual education (TBE) programs in New York City. The purpose of this reflection tool was to assist programs in identifying their areas of strength as well as areas for growth. Programs were encouraged to celebrate their areas of strength and to create action plans for one or two areas for growth to focus on over the next school year that would have the greatest impact on the success and sustainability of their program.

I have also shared this reflection tool with the secondary DL programs at multiple bilingual education conference presentations across the US. Each presentation has been well received, and the reflection tool continues to support secondary programs across the US. Hoping to make this reflection tool available to more secondary programs, I will be sharing with you one section from the tool each month to support the planning and implementation of more successful and sustainable secondary DL programs across the US, including yours!

How the Secondary DL Program Reflection Tool is Organized

The reflection tool includes 23 characteristics of successful and sustainable secondary DL programs arranged in the following categories:

• Leadership Team Characteristics
• Community Engagement Characteristics
• Course and Curriculum Planning Characteristics
• Secondary Student Recruitment Plan Characteristics
• Secondary Teacher Recruitment Characteristics
• Professional Learning Characteristics
• Systems to Support Program Success and Sustainability Characteristics

For each characteristic, its alignment with the Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education, 3^rd Edition, is cited along with the page number(s) where more information on the characteristic can be found in the Fulfilling the Promise of Biliteracy: Creating a Successful and Sustainable Secondary Dual Language Program book. This month, let’s unpack the first category, Leadership Team Characteristics.

Having a district DL leadership team that includes site-level leadership teams from each secondary site with a DL program is a critical to support a successful and sustainable secondary DL program. At the secondary level, the implementation of a DL program is more complex than at the elementary level. Some of the challenges that secondary programs face include teacher recruitment, student retention, courses to offer, curriculum for the courses, and incorporating the DL courses in the master schedule. Decisions on how to meet these challenges are best made through shared, collaborative leadership. Site leadership teams provide a conduit between the district and each site to bring forward ideas and suggestions to address the challenges and what the possible implications are for each site and the district.

It is recommended that members of the DL leadership team include representatives from stakeholder groups at the district level such as Educational Services, Multilingual Education, Secondary Education, Curriculum and Instruction, Assessment and Accountability, Human Resources, and Parent/Family Engagement. At the site level, representatives include principals, academic counselors, instructional coaches, teacher representatives from World Language, mathematics, science, history/social science, or any other course that may be taught in the partner language in the DL program. Other suggested members include a certificated union representative and parents/family members of students enrolled in the DL program.

If your secondary program is under development, then it is also recommended that the middle/junior high schools along with the high schools that the program will feed into be represented on the leadership team, as well. Decisions that the team will make regarding the language allocation plan, the courses that will be taught in the partner language, and the curriculum for these courses will impact the high school sites as well, so it is important that they have a seat at the table and that their voices are heard as the decisions are made. The high school representatives should include administrators, academic counselors, instructional coaches, and teacher representatives from the departments listed above, especially the World Language department.

Here is a visual representation of the DL District Leadership Team (DL DLT) that includes the DL Site Leadership Teams (DL SLTs):

It is critically important that the DL Leadership Team meet at regular intervals. It is recommended that the team meet at least four times per year. During the planning year(s), the team may find it necessary to meet more often as many decisions have to be made when planning to move an elementary DL program to secondary, and many of these decisions have to be approved at the district and/or board of education level.

It will be important that the team be well versed in your state’s educational policies regarding DL education programs. Engaging a consultant with expertise in secondary DL programs, your state’s policies, and the Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education, 3^rd Edition, may be advantageous to ensure that team decisions align with the current research and state policies and effectively address the needs of the school(s) and their DL students.

The language allocation plan for secondary DL programs looks a bit different than at the elementary level. Typically, it is described by the number of class periods that the students will receive content area instruction in the partner language versus the number of periods taught in English.

Most secondary DL programs start out with at least two class periods per day (or per instructional cycle if the school uses block scheduling), with the remaining periods taught in English. So, for a 6-period school day/instructional cycle, the language allocation plan would be 30:70 (rounded to the nearest ten), meaning that they would receive approximately 1/3 of their instruction in the partner language and 2/3 of their instruction in English.

To be a secondary DL program, at least two class periods a day/instructional cycle need to be taught in the partner language (Lindholm-Leary, xxx). Many secondary programs start out at the 30:70 language allocation plan and are able to move to a 50:50 allocation plan as the program becomes more established and opportunities to hire more teachers authorized to teach in the partner language arise.

It is important to note that the language allocation plan does not apply to an individual class period. For instance, in a 30:70 language allocation, the teacher would not teach 1/3 of the class period in the partner language and 2/3 of the class period in English. Each class period taught in the partner language is taught entirely in the partner language, and each class period that is taught in English is taught entirely in English.

These core goals are the pillars of DL education (Howard, et al, 2018). It will be important for the leadership team to use them to frame their discussions and decisions in planning for and implementing a successful and sustainable secondary DL program.

Understanding the difference between bilingualism (speaking and listening in the partner language and English) and biliteracy (speaking, listening along with reading and writing in the partner language and English) will be important for the DL leadership team. In a future installment in this series, I will share a framework for a system to monitor DL student academic achievement and language proficiency. Others in the field are developing tools to measure students’ development of sociocultural competence, which we look forward to with great anticipation.

Gentrification in DL programs is a challenge that many programs encounter. Recognizing that DL programs were initially developed to support the academic and linguistic needs of students learning English as a new language, it will be important for the leadership team to ensure that the overwhelming number of seats available in your DL program are available to these students and the remaining seats go to students who are native English speakers or dominant in English.

Conclusion

The shared and collaborative leadership of the DL district leadership team (including the site DL leadership teams) forms a critical foundation for the planning, implementation, and support for the success and sustainability of a secondary DL program. Vertical articulation from elementary to middle/junior high school to high school promotes the strength of the program. Attending to equity in student recruitment for DL programs provides opportunity for those learning English as a new language to attain high levels of literacy in their home language as well as English. Having a strong K-12 DL program supports all DL students’ success, retention, and engagement as well as their pursuit of their State Seal of Biliteracy.

*Key to the Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education, 3^rd Edition citations:

References

Howard, E. R., Lindholm-Leary, K. J., Rogers, D., Olague, N., Medina, J., Kennedy, D., Sugarman, J., & Christian, D. (2018). Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

For a free PDF download of the Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education, 3rd Edition, go to: https://www.cal.org/publications/guiding-principles-3/

Lindholm-Leary, K., & Adelson-Rodriguez, N. (2015, March). Dual language education.  In STARlight: Research and Resources for English Learner Achievement (p. 1).

For support in implementing a successful and sustainable secondary DL program, contact Dra. Kris Nicholls, Nicholls Educational Consulting

nichollseducationalconsulting@gmail.com

Author: Kris Nicholls