Moving Beyond for Multilingual Learners: The Blog

  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 ...