Moving Beyond for Multilingual Learners: The Blog

 I've had TONS OF REQUESTS for this, and I'm finally getting to it (sorry y'all!)!  I tend to roll in a giant suitcase of hands-on materials that I use during my in-person workshops, and this is what I often bring in my workshop pouches that are on each table!  SIDENOTE: are you looking for a high energy strategy session on serving multilingual learners? Email me ASAP - carlymspina@gmail.com. Yes, I work in Illinois. Yes, I travel to other states.  My pouches are squishy for easy packing in my workshop suitcase. Mine are vanity cases from 5Below . I always have post-its, pens, and markers in there. TicTacToe keychains for oral language prompts Mini Fidget Poppers for oral language prompts Decks of cards for Comprehensible Input practice (apparently you can also ask casinos for decks of cards for free! Who knew?!?) This or That Structure Hold Up Tools ( this blog post has more details ) Spot It games ( this blog post has lots of other great ideas on this! ) Play D...

 First, I want to preface this with saying that our schools across the country are underfunded, and educators across all categories are underpaid. I wish this wasn't the case. I also don't believe that educators should be paying out of their own pockets to purchase basic supplies for their classrooms! I hate that so many of us have to make DonorsChoose accounts, online wish lists, and write our own grants on our own time for basic things to do our jobs. I'll stop here, but I have a lot of big feelings about it... Another note: I also have big feelings about Amazon. I prefer not to shop Amazon for several reasons, AND ALSO I know how convenient it is for folks, so these things below are from there. Shop where and in the way that feels best for you. However, I'm often asked about my top supplies for a Multilingual Classroom - things that support language-rich learning environments. I'm also asked often about what's in my holographic workshop pouches and how I use ...

Dearest Multilingual Educator Buddies, CONGRATULATIONS if you are done with ACCESS testing!!! I hope you are able to acknowledge all of the work that you've done. ACCESS testing is long, stressful, and it leaves many of us feeling exhausterwhelmulated (exhausted, overwhelmed, escalated - yay linguistic playtime; lol).  I'd strongly encourage you to capture some of this year's reflections while it's still fresh, no matter how big/small your team is. Take time now to debrief together, and ALSO identify a date now to revisit this information in the fall, so that you can put whatever actionable items you've identified into your timeline.  Here's a non-fancy little note catcher for your team . Please note that at the bottom, there are some highlighted sections. These are IMPORTANT! Please don't skip those my friends. Everyone needs to know, feel, and understand that ACCESS DATA IS SCHOOL DATA! Finally, at the bottom you'll find some stems/starters for your te...

 This is a new tool I'm really excited about because I just see SOOOOO many possibilities with these stickers! Scratch-off stickers are a thing  - did you know?! You can grab them on Amazon alongside your colleagues and get super creative! Here is a slide deck with some initial templates, but I can't wait to see what you come up with! Please go to FILE and MAKE A COPY so you can edit and create your own versions! The slide deck also tells you which stickers I've ordered, AND the original space I found this idea!  From vocabulary tasks, to randomized groupings, to dividing up student roles within a group, to oracy prompts, AND MUCH MORE... you've got a few quick templates to get you started! Enjoy! Tag me in what you create - I'd love to feature it here! :) Or email me at carlymspina@gmail.com to be added to this blog post! :) 

For students in 6-12 especially, we know they spend a lot of time consuming content online. I love bringing social media trends into the classroom in low-lift ways. There's a current TikTok trend that I could see having some value in our classrooms for building a sense of community, bonding, and getting to know each other (plus lots of languaging happening here as well! WOOT WOOT!). For us grownups reading this blog, check out the full breakdown on this trend by reading this blog post by Cosmopolitan . It's got a few samples for you as well. Again - that's a blog post for grown ups, not for our students - lol don't come at me.  Now let's see how we might do one for ourselves. I'll start! "Unfortunately, I do love... Wearing bright pink everywhere I go. Surrounding myself in neon colors no matter what the season. Stopping at 7brew for a very sugary caffeine-heavy pick-me-up.  Filling up shopping carts at online retailers then closing the screen. Laughing lou...

 AHHH MY NEW BOOK IS OUT! It's wild to say that. I had to rewrite this post like 6 times because I kept crying. To be completely honest, I feel a little weird celebrating this right now - because of everything happening in the world and in our country, it's hard to feel excitement. AND ALSO, I do feel that this book is needed right now. It's a very funky Both/And situation for me.  While I was writing this book, I was experiencing a lot of doom & gloom. I was digging up Supreme Court cases and civil rights laws, and I was wondering which ones would still be in existence by the time the book was published. That's deeply unsettling.  Like my first book, this feels very personal to me. I feel super vulnerable wondering how it will be received.  When Paul Gorski (AHHHHH! PAUL GORSKI?!?) reached out to me on social media to chat, my imposter syndrome was right there with me. I convinced myself several times, "He must think I'm someone else. There's no way he...

 Need a more structured version of Think, Pair, Share for your students? Our multilingual learners need culturally-responsive, low-stakes opportunities for output.  3PS is a structure is best utilized for reflective questions, sharing our own thoughts/opinions on a topic, or discussing our own lived experiences. 3PS is a structure that includes ALL language domains in a short span of time: all students are listening, reading, speaking, and writing (and may also be viewing & representing, depending on what students do!).  Process: The first step here is to share the prompt (write it out and say it out loud) and then pause for 30-90 seconds. The think time/wait time is EMBEDDED into this structure. During this time, you can set a timer, stare at the ceiling, but don't allow students to raise their hands or write or speak- not quite yet. You might repeat a few words or phrases during this time.  Bonus: share a few different rewordings of your question, AND/OR offer ...

This is one of my FAVORITE strategies that encourages full-class participation with high engagement but low-risk. When done correctly, it is an inclusive structure that can allow entry points into content for newcomers, and can also be a structure that can build and cultivate classroom community.  You could do this as a classroom warmup as a "would you rather." You could do this as a review of previous content, or even an entry ramp into upcoming content.  I will begin by introducing the topic and asking the group if there are any "experts" on the topic. This allows the room to locate who to look at when they're not confident with their answer! In advance, I set up a quick slide deck with options and answers.  Here's a collection of ones that I've used in various teacher trainings - these can serve as samples to introduce the structure to adults. We do the structure in its entirety and then we unpack the benefits and cautions! Please note - I actually do...

  Continuing another session from our Moving Beyond for Multilingual Learners book study tomorrow... and this is something that I mention - again, it hits a little harder right now. This is something that I will NEVER forget and will NEVER regret. Those awful moments when we have to strip the walls of instructional posters leaves the learning space feeling empty and sad. Even without those moments of state testing... sometimes, we just need to see that our community is still in our corner... I had asked folks in my students' communities to take a photo with an uplifting message. Something like YOU GOT THIS, or I BELIEVE IN YOU, or WE ARE CHEERING YOU ON. These folks included current and former teachers, principals, local firefighters, the village president, friends from local youth organizations and social service agencies, local engineering firms, all the "friends" we made over the course of the school year. I even tweeted celebrities to see what we might be able to come...

 Not a fancy post, but wanted to get these resources out for whoever might need/want them! :)  Grab all the printables here.  Want to edit the doc and add stuff or change the font? Just go to File and Make a Copy!  These are the magnets I bought to stick to the back. My TikTok is linked here. Here's an additional slide deck (not very cute) and a handout . What I like about these is that it has stems/frames for each component and also has synonyms. Don't forget about the power of synonyms! Right now, this handout is provided for more advanced proficiency levels. If I have time I'll get one made for beginning proficiency levels. 

 I love the "cringey" moments of realizing how much time I spent hyperfixating on a certain song or a specific group (umm hey, hey BEACH BOYS) throughout the year, and I love seeing what folks on social media spent time listening to this year when they share their "Spoty Wrapped" posts.  Here's a few templates for you to use and a few thoughts & ideas about how to use them.  Canva: This link was shared by a creator named Kayla Martin.  Here's another I found from "Figma"  A third from Kapwing In 2022, I shared this blog post that had a few thoughts & ideas for sharing these templates with students and reflecting on how much they've learned so far this school year, or throughout their whole calendar year. I also shared the idea of using a template to make posters that demonstrate how many languages you have in your school setting - listing them out and publicly bragging about your linguistic diversity is amaaazing. Love it.  In 2022, I ...

Our education systems have really grown in our capacities to prioritize the social-emotional health and mental well-being of our students. In many schools, there are dedicated blocks of time throughout a week where components of SEL are being implemented. Many schools have invested in stronger and richer professional learning opportunities to help educators as they support the SEL needs of their students. All of this is great and I hope that we continue to make this a priority. However, I want us to pause for a second. I’m a person who is a reflective languager- meaning I often pause to reflect on the language choices that I make. I also reflect on the language choices of those around me. I’ve written about this in multiple spaces about how the language choices we use often demonstrates our beliefs, and sometimes those things that are said about students we serve can demonstrate bias and lead to problematic practices that can go unchecked.  In the last few years, in educational spa...

Just wanted to give a quick update since I don't think I've ever posted this info here (oops! lol):  Here's all the links to the social digital spaces I am online: LinkedIn BlueSky (I'm utilizing this and will eventually phase out my Twitter ) TikTok Instagram Additionally, you can reach me about workshops, conferences, and other in-person or virtual professional learning opportunities by emailing me directly through my work at the nonprofit Illinois Resource Center at cspina@cntrmail.org. You can view all of the IRC's free workshops and webinars by clicking here . My other email address is carlymspina@gmail.com.  My first book, Moving Beyond for Multilingual Learners, was a 2023 Excellence in Equity Award Winner. You can purchase it here !  Special thanks to everyone for visiting my blog here - I'm excited to offer tools, resources, and ideas to educators and leaders in our field! Consider me a teammate and please reach out anytime! I'm always happy to ch...

 Did you know there's a very effective way to design stems and frames for students, and a not-so-effective way also? I will be honest and share that during seasons of survival during the school year (I'm talking to you, winter months), these often get less of my attention. However, if I systemetize this with my teams, it becomes a much more sustainable scaffold !  Here's a quick tool to bring to your next team meeting where you identify your unit's vocabulary, set a timer for 5 months, and knock these all out so they're ready to go for all students! I don't make separate stems and frames for every proficiency level - instead I design one that's newcomer-facing (sometimes these are just full sentences!), one that's middle-level proficiency, and one that's fully linguistically stretched!  Don't think this works? I had eight and nine year olds in third grade using stretched stems. Instead of saying, "I was surprised when..." they started t...

 Yikes - it's been a while since I've posted here y'all- but I've been sharing these when I go into schools & districts or when I'm speaking at conferences, and educators have shared that they've been helpful! Woohoo! So it's time to get these on the blog.  First - let's chat about the purpose of these tools. Depends on what you're doing with them, but a few quick ideas:  *Reinforce vocabulary with visual cues *Provide stems/starters for students to support EXPRESSION of certain skills, academic language, or provide social cueing (through speaking, writing, or representing). Please note there's a highly effective way to design stems - check out this Tri Level Stem Tool here !  *Provide a mini-version of your anchor charts as a more accessible tool for students Because I like to be playful, I set these up with different names based on coffee. I don't even "speak" coffee, but I think I got the sizing right.  VENTI:   Venti - the ...

Can you believe it's May? Let's continue with list-prompting-fun with a fresh new list! Don't forget to provide time for your students (or yourself) to get out your thoughts, and THEN go ahead and decorate, annotate, and beautify your list. Post educator lists on social media using the hashtag #EduListers to get more inspiration from other creative listers like yourself.  May Slide Deck to Project for Your Students  (see two sample slides below) Colors we see more in spring: When I’m overwhelmed, I can:  Things I’m thankful for today Favorite cold treats to eat: Favorite warm foods to eat: Things I can do away from my device/screen: Song lyrics that I love right now: Ways I feel appreciated: Ways I can show others how I appreciate them: To help myself get organized, I usually… Popular flavors of ice cream: Things I need to do this week: Sounds that relax me: Characters in books or shows that I’ve loved: Things that stress out adults: Things that stress out students: Thing...