271. Supporting Multilingual Learners: Key Ideas from the WIDA 2020 Framework

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In this solo episode, host Lindsay Lyons discusses ways to effectively support multilingual learners using the WIDA 2020 framework. 

The episode provides insights into scaffolding techniques, language expectations, key language uses, and language functions to enhance teaching strategies. It aims to address common challenges educators face and encourage a deeper understanding of multilingual learners' needs for better lesson planning and learner engagement.

Why? 

In many districts, educators are encountering more multi-lingual learners, and may be unsure how to best support them. Further, they may struggle to balance scaffolding with maintaining cognitive rigor for multilingual learners. 

The WIDA 2020 framework provides a structured approach to language acquisition, making it easier to integrate language learning with academic content. It is designed to support multilingual learners through a research-based approach. It details key language uses, language expectations, and provides proficiency level descriptors to help guide lesson planning and learner engagement.

What?

The WIDA 2020 framework document is extensive, but worth working through. Here are some key areas for educators to explore and understand.

Step 1: Explore the four Key Language Uses (KLUs), which help educators understand how students use language and provide a foundation for lesson planning. They are:

1. Narrate: Conveying real or imaginary experiences through stories and histories
2. Inform: Providing factual information. 
3. Explain: Understanding how or why things happen. 
4. Argue: Justifying claims using evidence and reasoning.  narrate, inform, explain, and argue. 

Step 2: Identify language expectations, which are the language “destination points,” or how we meet standards. Language expectations outline the goals for language learning, dividing them into interpretive (listening, reading, viewing) and expressive (speaking, writing, presenting) categories. Understanding these expectations helps educators learn how students are processing information. 

Step 3: Dive into Proficiency Level Descriptors (PLDs). PLDs use a six-point scale to describe stages of language development. These descriptors offer educators a snapshot of students' language abilities at different stages, providing a clearer understanding of their needs.

Step 4: Embrace Scaffolding Techniques. Scaffolding can be approached on both macro and micro levels. Macro scaffolding involves instructional planning, and helps bridge something new to a familiar or valued experience of a student. Micro scaffolding happens during the lesson, and is responsive in the moment. 

Example

There are a lot of ways to use the WIDA framework — here’s an example if you are teaching a science lesson. The big umbrella is that we need to use language for science. Going deeper: 

• The KLU for this particular lesson is to explain why this chemical reaction happens.
• The language expectation is to interpret and construct scientific explanations. 
• The language function is to describe valid and reliable evidence from sources about a phenomenon

Understanding this breakdown, educators can take action to support the language features. This could be a lesson to learn abstract nouns, relating verb groups to state relationships or attributes, or learning relative clauses or declarative statements. 

This helps break down the lesson into specific action steps to help your learners meet the language function. 

Final Tip

Focusing on what multilingual learners can do, rather than limitations, helps leverage their languages and cultures as valuable resources in education. 

A lot of educators want to support their students by translating everything, but it’s important to see it as a bridge to English development rather than a replacement for supporting language growth. Translation should be used strategically and, instead, focus on what learners already know and what they’re learning. 

To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing DESE's Investigating History Curriculum (includes folder of Language and Literacy Supports in each unit!) with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 271 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.

​If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:​

TRANSCRIPT

Lindsay Lyons: Welcome to another episode of the Time for Teachership podcast. This is episode 271, and today we're talking about supporting multilingual learners, and we're really using some key ideas from the WIDA 2020 framework. If you are deeply familiar with WIDA 2020, this may be just a little too simple for you.
If you are a person who regularly supports multilingual learners but maybe has never looked at the framework or needs a quick refresher, this is great for you. And of course, if you do not know what the WIDA 2020 framework is, you should definitely engage with this episode. So for context, the WIDA 2020 framework is a framework that is research-based.
It supports multilingual learners. It talks about language acquisition and breaks down a lot of things. So a lot of schools and districts right now are trying to find ways to support multilingual learners. Many, many of the districts I work with in Massachusetts and across the nation in the United States are finding that they have growing populations of multilingual learners that they are unsure maybe how best to support.
Sometimes in efforts to support, I've noticed, and I've done this myself, we, for multilingual learners as well as all children, right, we over-scaffold. We reduce the cognitive challenge of the task instead of scaffolding for a specific reason, like language use, um, or maybe for multilingual learners sometimes we're translating and it's not actually helpful.
So we're gonna address some common challenges and questions today, as well as do a quick overview of the WIDA 2020 framework, and of course we'll link to this as well in the write-up of the episode so that you are able to engage with the full document, which is extensive. As well, I will just say if you are interested in this, if you want more episodes like this on this topic of WIDA and multilingual learners, please let us know.
We can definitely do more later on as like a part two or an extension Okay, so WIDA has kind of this overarching framework, and then there are many frameworks inside of it. So let's start with kind of the four key language uses, or KLUs you might hear them abbreviated as. This is kind of the most common way that kids use language.
There's a lot of overlap. They are not distinct. Um, but we have narrate, inform, explain, and argue. Narrate is when we are conveying real or imaginary experiences through stories and histories. Inform, right, providing factual information. Explain, this is kind of an explanation of how things work or maybe why things happen.
And then argue, right, we're justifying claims using evidence and reasoning. So those are kind of big umbrellas, the four key language uses. And then we have our language expectations. These are kind of your language destination points in WIDA language, and these are really the way that we meet the standards.
Language expectations can be interpretive, which is really like, you know, listening, reading, viewing. You're taking in information and making sense of it. They can also be expressive. Modes include speaking, writing, representing in some other way, right? So we're interpreting and we're expressing. Taking in, putting out And this, these language expectations, right?
This includes language functions, so kind of our common patterns of language use as well as language features, which are the various language resources that carry out particular functions, different types of sentences, clauses, phrases, words, um, this is only, you know, usable for the expressive, uh, functions typically And this helps us learn how students are processing information when we, uh, get, get them talking in these ways and using these various features.
So we have kind of these, right, big standards, and then we have key language uses, right? We talked about those before. Then we have language expectations, which we just talked about. And then within that, there are proficiency level descriptors. So they typically use a, uh, six-point scale, um, in the WIDA frameworks, and we'll talk about those more in a minute and where you might be able to find them in the documentation.
But they will get even more specific so that you don't have to come up with the specific language expectations for a particular, uh, key language use or for a particular grade that you teach, okay? So just know that these are kind of like these four pieces that are kind of nested within one another in a kind of hierarchy setup for the WIDA framework.
Now, one of the reasons this is really helpful to know is because if you are working with a co-teacher who's supporting your multilingual learners, or you yourself are just thinking about planning your lesson, and you're looking through the lens or you're exploring that lesson through the lens of multilingual learner access and language development, it is helpful to know about this framework because then, and there's a ton of resources in this framework for you, but I will just narrate kind of the general gist.
You can go in and say, "Okay, well I'm teaching a science lesson," so the ELD standard is gonna be language for science, right? That's the biggest umbrella category. The key language use for this particular lesson is explain. I need students to explain, like, why this chemical reaction happens or whatever, right?
Then we dig down deeper, and we say, "Okay, well, the language expectation is that they need to interpret and construct scientific explanations." So this is given by WIDA. You just have to identify that, oh, that's what we're doing. And then you would say, "Okay, so the language function that allows me to do all the things I've said so far is to describe valid and reliable evidence from sources about a phenomenon."
Okay? So make sense so far. We're using language for science. We're explaining. Specifically, we're interpreting and constructing scientific explanations, and then what we are doing is describing, right? That's the language function, describing valid and reliable evidence from sources about a phenomenon.
Okay. And then the very last piece, the piece that we often are going to take action around, right? All of that other stuff kind of guides, like, our focus, so we narrow down, narrow down, narrow down, and then what is the action? The action is to support the language features. Right? That support the function, expectations, key language use, and standard.
And so language features we might be able to support in this lesson could be abstract nouns. This is an example given to you from WIDA too, so you could actually find this, um, it's Figure 4-3, in the WIDA framework document. Um, it could be a variety of ways to define a phenomenon, so it could be like relative clauses or declarative statements.
It could be cohesion to reference ideas and information across text, which might look like pronouns, substitutions, renaming, synonyms. It could be relating verb groups to state the relationships or attributes, so using language like have, be, belong to. Now, if you are like me and you're like, "Okay, well, I never memorized all of these words that I'm noticing being used in the WIDA framework, and I'm not sure, for example, you know, what a, uh, let's see, declarative statement is or a relative clause is," right?
No worries. Of course, this is like something that we can, uh, look up and learn about. But the, the general scope of things is just that we are thinking about the way that kids use language to do things like, in this instance, describe valid and reliable evidence from sources about a phenomenon in science.
Right? So digging down deeper and deeper, this is why we have multilingual learner experts and, and folks on our staff hopefully to support, but if you don't, this is something that you can certainly reach out and get help with. You should have at least a multilingual learner point person district-wide, um, and request some professional learning or some, some more support.
But if you know the goals, right, and thinking about kind of that funnel and those nested categories, if you know the goals, then you can think about how to niche down and bring up specific questions when you get there. But here's, here's what, what WIDA will give you. So for example, I'm looking right now at a visual, Figure 3-1 in the WIDA framework, and this is a kindergarten standard for language arts.
So this is for the KLU of inform. So we got kindergartners who are trying to inform. There is, on the, the image here, um, they are talking about interpretive informing and expressive informing. Remember, those are those two kinds, and so for language expectations. And so there's a list of like what does that mean when we're talking about interpretive information and expressive informing.
So interpretive might be you're identifying the main idea and key details of a text. Okay, great. Got it. Expressive informing might be that you are describing those details and facts for someone, right? Language functions and sample language features underneath the umbrella of, like, that inform- informative and informing, um, goal is that you might describe details and facts by using nouns to label visuals.
I read this story. I see this picture on the page. I'm going to point to an image of an orange and name that that is orange. Or I might say something like, "That's fruit," right? I will use verbs to label actions. This person's farming, right? I will use prepositional phrases to tell about where. Uh, this farmer is working on the farm.
This bird is in the trees, right? Visuals, uh, so, like, labeled drawings that someone could express. So express, remember, doesn't always need to be verbal, but it might be that they create visuals to go with their retelling, and they label their drawings to support their retelling. Okay, so there's this inform is the key language use.
We know that there's interpretive and expressive examples. WIDA gives those to us. We can just identify that, yes, that's what they're doing in this lesson. We can think about the specific language functions and features that they are using to do that goal, and then we can think about, okay, well, how might I support my kiddo to recognize what verbs to use or build their capacity for verbs, right?
What could I do to, um, increase their awareness of prepositional phrases? Now, the kindergartner does not need to know they're called prepositional phrases, but, you know, how do I help them describe in more detail what is happening in the story or in the image? Okay. Now, big key ideas in the 2020 edition, I kinda wanna zoom back out 'cause that's the general gist of the framework and the things that you do when planning Big key ideas include things like equity of opportunity and access.
This is very important. We want students who are multilingual to be able to access the cognitive rigor and, and complexity on grade level for their optimal learning. We want to integrate content and language. This is the second piece or big idea in the twenty twenty edition of WIDA. So content and language are learned together.
Here's what WIDA says about this. Basically, l- learners develop content and language concurrently with academic content as a context for language learning, and language as a means for learning academic content. Often, or I should say historically, we have separated these things, and as a teacher and coach of primarily social studies at the moment, these things are so embedded.
We are doing literacy when we are teaching social studies, and the literacy develops so strongly, and we see that even in, in test scores and other types of assessment when we are embedding the literacy in the social studies content. There's often peak engagement, there's interest in the content, and language, like, facilitates that.
There's also collaboration among stakeholders, so this idea of collaborative learning and the discourse at, like, the individual, like, peer-to-peer group level is so helpful, particularly when you compare multilingual learners with someone whose home language is the same. Like, oh, that's really, really cool and exciting and, and values the development of both languages.
Um, and finally, the fourth idea is a functional approach to language development, right? So how is it going to be usable for our particular task? WIDA also has introduced to me this idea of scaffolding. I me- I know I mentioned that briefly at the start as a common challenge, but scaffolding, micro versus macro, is a very helpful thing from WIDA.
So macro scaffolding practices refer to instructional planning before a lesson. So this might be during your lesson plan writing or, like, a, a unit plan or, or even a year-long scope and sequence plan. Here is- here are two examples I'll give you from macro scaffolding proces- practices. What does this actually mean?
It means you might be thinking about how to bridge from something familiar or a valued experience of a student or group of students to new ones. So, okay, we're introducing this new content. Here's how thematically it might connect to a lived experience of a student or something we've already talked about in class.
We're gonna bridge from the familiar to the new ones. We might also offer multiple means of engagement, representation, and expression. So this idea of UDL, universal design for learning, thinking about how we bring together, like, these, these ... or, I guess, expand outward these different ways to engage in something, to represent ideas, to express ideas, is really critical.
I think oftentimes, yes, we wanna develop the writing, but we're so niched down into we're going to do this writing thing at all costs, all times, for all assessments, because maybe it's the easiest to grade. Which, by the way, listen to the next episode, 'cause we are gonna get into assessing discourse. Um, when perhaps verbal expression or some other type of expression is actually easier for that kid, or has developed further than th- than that particular student's writing, and it is helpful to know the ideas that they are thinking about, be able to assess the ideas, be able to understand the language they are using, and then help build up the writing.
So being able to have multiple means of engagement is really helpful. That's just one small example. Okay, let's shift to micro scaffolding. This refers to interactions with the students during a lesson. So they are responsive. They're in the moment. I got this in my back pocket. I'm gonna cue you or redirect you to this thing that is going to help because I notice a very specific thing you're struggling with, and I need you to be in your zone of proximal development.
So- This might look like connecting concepts to students' experiences to make them concrete. So in this situation, I am not building into the lesson this connection to a student's lived experience. I am saying, "Oh, you're struggling with that concept. Okay, got it." We're talking about migration in, you know, ancient civilizations or something, right?
I might say, "Oh, hey, like migration. Do you know what that means? Okay, migration. Let's talk about migration." Migration is, you know, moving from one place to another. And so, okay, do we know anyone? Has that been you? Has that been someone else, right? And like cueing that we have either read a novel about, you've had this lived experience about, you know someone in the class who has shared about this other experience.
Like, we're not connecting to another social studies ancient civilization. We're connecting to something that is a quick cue for the student to be like, "Ah, got it. I understand." Right? Another cue could be that students need just kind of this reminder or this encouragement to stretch their language as they share their thinking.
So if they're starting with something and it's a pretty short or basic sentence, encourage them. "Can you say more about that?" Right? Or even get specific. "Can you, you know, add in whatever type of language you're looking for?" All right, so there's macro and there's micro. I think often we do a lot, a lot of macro, almost to the d- uh, often to the detriment of student learning because we are over-scaffolding.
We're anticipating so many challenges that we don't actually like step back and let us work our teacher magic in the moment and be responsive to what students are actually struggling with. So try to lean a little bit more towards micro if you can. That's a stretch for us all. Okay, now I wanna get to some common questions or misconceptions before we wrap up the episode.
Proficiency level descriptors, I briefly mentioned those as part of the overarching framework, PLDs for short. These are kind of those six levels, that kind of six-point rubric that WIDA often measures by or assesses by, and these are kind of the typical pathways of development, so from one to the next to the next, right?
All six, six kind of phases of development. Sometimes we in schools, for a shorthand, will say, uh, "my level one students." Okay. Here's what WIDA says, and I agree. "A proficiency level does not categorize a multilingual learner." It is not a level one student. Rather, what this does, it identifies snapshots of what a multilingual learner knows and can do at a particular stage of language development.
So you may switch to saying, for example, and being really specific, right? Th- I think this is the important part too for me. "A student whose listening performance is at a level one." Ah, okay, so now I'm not thinking about the student categorically as like a level one student, which has a certain connotation, but I'm saying the last time that I assessed their listening specifically, this one skill, the assessment came to a level one.
Right? So this snapshot in time, this specific skill, it was level one, right? Um, additionally, they talk about how the PLDs should not be used as restrictive examples or as a finite list of student abilities, nor should they be used to limit access to complex texts and grade-level materials. We talked about this.
Participation in rigorous learning or engagement in meaningful classroom discussions. Finally, the grade-level cluster PLDs should not be used to lower expectations or slow student growth. Okay, I think this is just, like, an important reminder. I think many of us who are engaging with this episode know this, but I just wanna encourage us to name it or change our own language if we are around it and we're inundated with it.
I know that is challenging. But trying to be really specific, like if someone says, "Oh, my level one students," um, an, an often a nudge that I like to use is just like, "Level one for dot, dot, dot," right? Like, for listening, for writing, for reading? Like, like, what skill are we talking about, right? Um, and then that will prompt some kind of rethinking.
Okay, the other big question that we get is when to translate. So a lot of teachers will say, "Okay, really wanna support. I'm gonna translate everything." And the amazing people who supported Investigating History, uh, which is the Massachusetts social studies for grades three through seven curriculum, um, there are some awesome folks who supported the multilingual learning scaffolds and supports and language and literacy building for the curricular revisions.
They're amazing. Here is a summary of a table, and I'm gonna link to the curriculum for this episode as well, um, just because, oh my gosh, there's so much in there. So if you actually go to the curriculum, open up any unit, what you can do is you can see the, um, folder titled Language and Literacy Supports, and you can see, like a skill specific resource.
Usually, it's like a one-pager that you can use pretty much in any content area, I would say, like, in, in, in multiple grade levels. I mean, it does evolve grade by grade, but I think it's really cool to give you a sense of, like, what does an appropriate scaffold look like? Okay, anyways. Translation can be a useful tool, they say, but it should be used strategically.
It is important to use translation as a bridge to English development, not as a replacement for supporting language growth. When using translated materials, guide students to compare structures across both languages, and the chart below offers guidance on when translated materials are most appropriate.
So I'm gonna read it to you. When to use translated materials. When newcomers need support with initial concept development, okay? So they have no understanding of this particular concept, and we have tried to, to ascertain that. We're not just assuming they don't know, right? That's important. When students develop personal multilingual dictionaries of key concepts and terms.
Yeah, absolutely translation is helpful for those key vocab words, right? When students need to understand critical background information, they-- so again, when we know that they are lacking the background information, not when we are assuming they lack background information, but we need to be able to get that to them.
You can give that to them, um, in a language that's most comfortable. When clarifying complex directions, obviously for assessments, new routines, directions are new. We need to make sure they understand it. You can totally translate that. That makes total sense. When we wanna use other approaches and not translate.
When they need the language practice, right? Which is often, right? When language objectives target specific language structures to be used in English. When students are able to understand the content using their own multilingual knowledge or access scaffolds in English that support language development.
When students need to build academic language, okay? So when they understand the gist, they understand the key concepts, and they're trying to build academic language around a topic, we want to try to use other approaches and not to translate everything, right? Okay. Great, and the last question, um, is not really a question, but just I think a like a, sometimes a confusion point of, like, what asset-based means.
And so often we're talking about asset-based instruction, asset-based pedagogy. So WIDA has a can-do philosophy, which is amazing. It is like what can they do? Uh, there are 10 guiding principles from this. I'm gonna share two with you. Principle number one, multilingual learners' languages and cultures are valuable resources to be leveraged for schooling and class life.
Leveraging these assets and challenging biases help develop multilingual learners' independence and encourage their agency in learning. Here is a quote from WIDA on page 18, "Drawing on students' linguistic and cultural resources is essential to helping them navigate life in a diverse world, in addition to supporting them in meeting demands of academic content areas as they advance through school."
End quote. Okay, so definitely valuing the language and culture. They are resources to be leveraged. And then 10, multilingual learners use and develop language to interpret and present different perspectives, build awareness of relationships, and affirm their identities. Thinking about Gholdy Muhammad here, right?
Identity affirming, really critical. The, the fact that a different experience with different language can offer different perspectives into a novel you're reading, a particular current event you're discussing, like whatever the thing is, that is a value. That is a value add, right? That's gonna deepen everyone's learning, and so let's lean into that.
Okay. Finally, I want to remind you that the freebie for today is gonna be that Investigating History curriculum link. You can find that in the summary write-up of this episode at lindsaybethlyons.com/blog/271. And again, if you open up any unit, they're all freely available on that website. Click into a grade level unit, and then go to View in Drive, and you'll see the whole folder for that unit.
There is going to be a folder labeled Language and Literacy Support. Click into that and you'll see what I'm talking about. It is amazing. And again, please let us know if you want more content related to multilingual learner support

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