At the Core Collaborative, we believe that empowering multilingual learners (MLs) begins with equipping educators with the tools and strategies they need to ensure every student thrives. Our professional learning services are designed to build capacity for educators and school leaders, focusing on integrating research-based practices that address the diverse needs of MLs.

We understand that multilingual learners (MLs) bring rich cultural identities and unique perspectives to the classroom. Our professional learning services are designed to help educators harness these strengths while building the capacity to meet the diverse needs of MLs through our comprehensive services. Grounded in equity and inclusivity, our services not only support language proficiency and academic success but also nurture students’ cultural identities. By fostering culturally responsive practices, we empower educators to create learning environments where MLs feel valued, connected, and capable of achieving their fullest potential.

With expertise in both integrated and designated English Language Development (ELD), formative language assessment, ML goal setting, translanguaging, and dispositional learning, we support schools in creating equitable learning environments where students develop language proficiency and succeed academically. Through our tailored services, we partner with schools to enhance teacher efficacy, foster inclusive classrooms, and advance the academic and social-emotional growth of multilingual learners.

Together, we partner with schools to cultivate spaces that celebrate diversity, advance equity, and inspire learners to thrive academically, socially, and emotionally.

Core Collaborative ML Services

Comprehensive Needs Assessment
Designated ML Instruction
Integrated ML Instruction
Formative Language Assessment
Goal Setting for MLs
Translanguaging
Cultivating Dispositions in ML Learners

ML Comprehensive Needs Assessment

In the effort to ensure that multilingual learners (MLs) receive high-quality, equity-driven language acquisition support, a comprehensive needs assessment provides a vital roadmap. By systematically examining strengths, areas of growth, and opportunities for improvement, this assessment empowers educators, administrators, and stakeholders to refine and sustain effective ML programming.

Setting the Stage

At the heart of this needs assessment is the commitment to uphold culturally and linguistically responsive practices, ensuring that every ML is valued and supported. The school district, with a diverse student population encompassing over 30 languages, recognizes the urgency of addressing gaps in language acquisition support to ensure MLs achieve linguistic and academic success. Teachers, school leaders, parents, and students are invited to participate in this collaborative process.

Goals and Objectives

The primary goals of the needs assessment are to:

• Identify Program Strengths: Highlight practices, resources, and structures that are effectively supporting MLs’ language acquisition and academic growth.
• Evaluate Program Effectiveness: Assess whether the ML program aligns with research-based best practices in language acquisition.
• Identify Barriers: Understand systemic and instructional challenges hindering MLs’ language and academic growth.
• Gather Stakeholder Input: Amplify the voices of MLs, their families, and educators to ensure programming meets community needs.
• Highlight Opportunities: Uncover innovative strategies and resources that can further strengthen the program.

Step 1: Forming the Needs Assessment Team

A cross-functional team is formed to lead the process, including:

• English Language Development (ELD) specialists.
• General education teachers with experience teaching MLs.
• School and district administrators.
• Community liaisons fluent in students’ home languages.
• Parents and students who offer lived experiences.

This team is tasked with designing assessment tools, analyzing data, and making recommendations.

Step 2: Data Collection

A triangulated approach ensures a robust understanding of the program’s quality through quantitative and qualitative methods.

1. Quantitative Data:

• Student Performance Data: Analyze MLs’ growth on language proficiency assessments (e.g., WIDA ACCESS), academic benchmarks, and standardized tests.
• Enrollment and Participation Rates: Examine enrollment trends in ELD programs, participation in advanced coursework, and rates of reclassification as proficient.
• Staffing and Resources: Assess teacher-to-student ratios, certification levels of ELD instructors, and availability of instructional materials aligned to students’ linguistic needs.

2. Qualitative Data:

• Surveys and Interviews: Distribute surveys to students, families, and teachers to gather perceptions of the program’s strengths and challenges. Conduct in-depth interviews with focus groups for richer insights.
• Classroom Observations: Utilize a research-based observation tool to evaluate instructional strategies, cultural responsiveness, and alignment to language acquisition standards.
• Case Studies: Develop student profiles highlighting linguistic, cultural, and academic experiences.

Step 3: Analyzing the Data

The collected data is systematically organized and analyzed using thematic coding for qualitative information and statistical software for quantitative results. Key focus areas include:

1. Program Strengths: Identifying successful practices that support language acquisition and overall student success.
2. Alignment to Language Proficiency Standards (e.g., WIDA, state-specific standards).
3. Effectiveness of differentiation and scaffolding in instruction.
4. Equity in access to rigorous content and resources.
5. Family engagement and communication practices.
6. Professional development opportunities for educators.

Step 4: Engaging Community Members

The findings are shared with learning community members through:

• Interactive Workshops: Facilitating discussions around the data and fostering collaborative brainstorming for solutions.
• Community Forums: Providing families and community members an opportunity to validate findings and prioritize actions.

Step 5: Developing an Action Plan

The needs assessment team synthesizes insights to draft an action plan. This plan includes:

• Short-term Goals: Address immediate gaps, such as training teachers in sheltered instruction strategies or updating materials.
• Long-term Goals: Build systemic capacity by integrating culturally sustaining practices and increasing bilingual staffing.
• Metrics for Success: Identify benchmarks to measure progress, including periodic reviews of student growth and program effectiveness.

Outcomes and Sustainability

The comprehensive needs assessment culminates in a detailed report outlining actionable recommendations. By identifying strengths alongside areas for growth, the process ensures that successful practices are celebrated and scaled. It creates a foundation for continuous improvement, ensuring that MLs have the support necessary to thrive linguistically, academically, and socially. By centering equity and stakeholder voice, the assessment not only evaluates the program’s current state but also charts a path forward, rooted in shared responsibility and a commitment to excellence for all learners.

Designated and Integrated ML Instruction

Multilingual learners (MLs) bring unique linguistic and cultural strengths to the classroom, but they also face challenges in navigating academic content in a new language. To support their success, schools adopt two complementary approaches: designated and integrated multilingual learner instruction. These approaches work hand-in-hand to build language proficiency and academic achievement. By understanding the differences, benefits, and necessity of these approaches, educators can create equitable and inclusive learning environments where MLs thrive.

Designated ML Instruction

In designated ML instruction, students receive focused, intentional support tailored to their specific language development needs. This approach provides a dedicated time in the school day for MLs to engage in structured lessons targeting English language acquisition. Usually taught by specialists or trained educators, designated instruction is separate from content classes but often uses themes or topics from other subjects to make learning relevant and connected.

• Definition: Designated ML instruction focuses on explicitly developing language skills across the domains of reading, writing, speaking, and listening.
• Context: It is a specific block in the schedule dedicated to supporting English language proficiency.
• Focus Areas:
  • Vocabulary development
  • Grammar and syntax
  • Academic language structures
  • Strategies for speaking and listening
  • Reading and writing proficiency at various levels

Integrated ML Instruction

Language learning doesn’t stop when students leave their designated ML instruction classroom. Integrated ML instruction ensures that language development continues throughout the day, embedded into every subject area. This approach recognizes that all teachers are teachers of language, and it provides MLs with opportunities to apply and expand their language skills while learning academic content.

• Definition: Integrated ML instruction embeds language development into content areas, such as math, science, social studies, and English language arts.
• Context: Language instruction happens throughout the school day in all classes.
• Focus Areas:
  • Embedding language objectives into content lessons
  • Supporting MLs in using academic language specific to each discipline
  • Scaffolding instruction to make content accessible (e.g., visuals, sentence frames)
  • Encouraging content-rich discussions to practice language skills

The Benefits of Designated and Integrated ML Instruction

Providing effective support for MLs requires balancing explicit instruction with authentic application. Each approach offers unique benefits, and together they create a holistic framework for language development.

• Benefits of Designated ML Instruction:
  • Focused, individualized support helps students develop foundational language skills.
  • Explicit teaching of academic language and structures supports access to content.
  • Safe spaces for practicing language build MLs’ confidence and proficiency.
• Benefits of Integrated ML Instruction:
  • Embeds language learning in meaningful, real-world contexts for deeper engagement.
  • Provides consistent opportunities to use language across subject areas.
  • Equips MLs to develop both content knowledge and academic language simultaneously.
  • Promotes equity by ensuring MLs can participate alongside their peers.

Why Both Approaches Are Needed

When educators weave designated and integrated ML instruction into a cohesive framework, they lay the groundwork for equitable and inclusive learning. Designated instruction serves as the foundation, equipping MLs with the tools to navigate their new linguistic environment. Integrated instruction reinforces and extends those skills, helping students apply their learning in academic contexts.

By addressing both language development and content mastery, schools ensure that MLs have the resources to achieve their fullest potential. This dual approach recognizes the diversity of student needs and fosters a sense of belonging, empowering MLs to excel linguistically, academically, and socially. Together, designated and integrated ML instruction create a comprehensive support system that prepares MLs not just to succeed but to thrive.

Formative Language Assessment

At The Core Collaborative, we empower schools and districts to transform language assessment practices through our comprehensive support in developing formative language assessment capacity. Guided by research-based strategies and an asset-based approach, our services are designed to help educators foster language development for multilingual learners (MLs) while integrating academic content seamlessly. We believe that effective formative assessment is not just a process—it’s a mindset that cultivates equitable learning environments, strengthens teacher expertise, and amplifies student agency.

Through tailored professional learning, evidence-based resources, and collaborative coaching, we help schools build systems that support the continuous growth of multilingual learners. Our work is rooted in equity and inclusivity, ensuring every learner’s strengths are celebrated and leveraged to support their progress. By partnering with us, educators gain the tools and confidence to design, implement, and interpret formative assessments that drive instruction, improve outcomes, and prepare students for success in achieving language proficiency and beyond.

Together, we can create classrooms where every multilingual learner thrives—academically, linguistically, and socially.

What is Formative Language Assessment?

Formative Language Assessment is a continuous, evidence-based process that supports multilingual learners (MLs) in their language development. It is designed to provide ongoing insights into students’ progress toward language proficiency by identifying strengths, areas for growth, and next steps in their learning. Formative language assessments are not high-stakes or summative; rather, they are embedded within instruction and provide real-time feedback to students and educators.

Key Features of Formative Language Assessment:

1. Ongoing Process: Conducted regularly to monitor progress.
2. Embedded in Instruction: Occurs naturally within teaching and learning activities.
3. Individualized Feedback: Helps students understand their growth and areas to focus on.
4. Actionable Data: Guides instructional decisions and supports goal setting.
5. Domain-Specific: Targets the four language domains—reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

Tools and Methods:

• Checklists and Rubrics: Aligned with language proficiency standards.
• Peer and Self-Assessments: Encourage metacognition and ownership of learning.
• Observations: Capture real-time language use during lessons.
• Performance Tasks: Contextualized tasks that integrate content and language.

Reclassification of Multilingual Learners

Reclassification is the process of transitioning MLs from an English learner (EL) designation to being considered proficient in English. It typically occurs when students demonstrate that they have met specific language proficiency criteria established by the district or state.

How Formative Language Assessment Supports Reclassification:

1. Progress Monitoring: Tracks a student’s ongoing language development, providing evidence of growth in proficiency.
2. Aligned to Reclassification Criteria: Many states or districts use language proficiency assessments, like WIDA ACCESS or ELPA21, as part of reclassification. Formative assessment helps students build the skills necessary to meet these benchmarks.
3. Identifying Gaps: Highlights areas where students need additional support to achieve proficiency.
4. Supporting Instructional Adjustments: Helps educators tailor language instruction to meet individual student needs.
5. Boosting Confidence: Regular feedback enables students to recognize their progress, preparing them for summative assessments tied to reclassification.

Considerations for Equity in Reclassification:

1. Holistic Evidence: Beyond standardized test scores, formative assessments provide a fuller picture of a student’s readiness for reclassification.
2. Cultural and Linguistic Assets: Emphasizes what students can do, avoiding a deficit-based view.
3. Ongoing Support: Ensures that reclassified students continue to receive academic and emotional support as they transition out of EL services.

By integrating formative language assessment into everyday instruction, educators can better support MLs in achieving proficiency, while also

ensuring that the reclassification process is equitable and reflective of a student’s actual language abilities.

Goal Setting for MLs

Goal-setting for multilingual learners (MLs) is a comprehensive, student-centered approach designed to empower them to understand their current position on the language acquisition continuum, articulate their progress, and set actionable goals that move them toward reclassification. This TCC pathway emphasizes transparency, collaboration, and culturally responsive practices to ensure equity and agency.

Goal setting for MLs shifts the reclassification process from a stressful, compliance-driven milestone to an ongoing, collaborative partnership between students, teachers, and families. By integrating goal setting and reflection into daily learning, multilingual learners (MLs) gain the tools and confidence to actively track their progress and advocate for their growth. This approach not only demystifies the reclassification process but positions MLs as active participants in their learning journey, reinforcing their agency and sense of accomplishment. Ultimately, it creates an inclusive environment where language development is celebrated as a strength, and every learner is supported in reaching their full potential.

Goal-Setting Service for Multilingual Learners

1. Initial Assessment and Orientation

• Purpose: Help MLs understand their current proficiency level and the reclassification criteria.
• Action Steps:
  • Conduct a comprehensive orientation using student-friendly rubrics and visuals (e.g., WIDA’s Can Do Descriptors or proficiency level descriptors).
  • Review recent language assessment results (e.g., ACCESS, ELPA21) with students to clarify strengths and areas for growth.
  • Introduce the language acquisition continuum in a way that is developmentally appropriate and affirming.

2. Co-Construction of Success Criteria

• Purpose: Engage MLs in understanding what success looks like at each stage of proficiency.
• Action Steps:
  • Collaborate with students to unpack performance descriptors across the four language domains: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
  • Define what “progress” and “mastery” look like for their next step.
  • Use real-world examples, such as student work samples, to anchor understanding.

3. Personalized Goal Setting

• Purpose: Empower MLs to set measurable, realistic, and meaningful goals.
• Action Steps:
  • Guide students in setting SMARTIE goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound, Inclusive, and Equitable).
  • Encourage goals aligned to both language domains and academic content (e.g., “I will write a paragraph in science using transition words and specific vocabulary like ‘hypothesis’ and ‘evidence’”).
  • Establish both short-term and long-term goals connected to reclassification criteria.

4. Progress Monitoring Tools

• Purpose: Track progress toward goals and provide actionable feedback.
• Action Steps:
  • Develop student-friendly tracking tools, such as goal-setting journals, progress charts, or digital portfolios.
  • Integrate peer and teacher feedback loops where students can reflect on and revise their goals.
  • Celebrate milestones and document incremental progress to motivate learners.

5. Scaffolded Feedback and Reflection

• Purpose: Build metacognitive awareness and self-regulation skills.
• Action Steps:
  • Provide scaffolded sentence stems or prompts for self-reflection, such as:
    • “One thing I’m proud of is…”
    • “A strategy that helped me improve was…”
    • “My next step is to…”
  • Incorporate peer and teacher conferencing to discuss progress and recalibrate goals.

6. Reclassification Readiness Checkpoints

• b Ensure students understand their progress toward reclassification and feel supported in achieving it.
• Action Steps:
  • Host regular reclassification readiness conferences where students review their progress, reflect on growth, and identify final steps needed for reclassification.
  • Align progress monitoring to state/district-specific reclassification criteria and explicitly discuss these benchmarks with students.
  • Provide clear action steps if a student is not yet ready for reclassification, emphasizing growth rather than deficit.

7. Integration of Families and Caregivers

• Purpose: Foster a collaborative support system at home and school.
• Action Steps:
  • Provide families with an overview of the language acquisition continuum and reclassification process.
  • Share student goals and progress in multilingual formats, ensuring accessibility for families.
  • Offer tips and resources for families to support language practice at home.

8. Professional Development for Educators

• Purpose: Equip teachers with tools to support MLs in the goal-setting process.
• Action Steps:
  • Train teachers in facilitating goal-setting conferences and integrating language goals into daily instruction.
  • Provide examples of culturally responsive scaffolding strategies that align with goal-setting practices.
  • Offer coaching on providing actionable, asset-based feedback to MLs.

Benefits of the Service

• Empowered Learners: MLs develop agency by understanding their progress and owning their learning journey.
• Equity and Transparency: Clear communication about the reclassification process ensures all students have the opportunity to succeed.
• Actionable Insights: Teachers and students collaboratively identify strengths and areas for growth.
• Increased Reclassification Rates: Targeted, student-driven goals support measurable progress toward reclassification benchmarks.

This service would transform the reclassification process from a high-stakes event to a collaborative, empowering journey where MLs feel supported, valued, and equipped to succeed.

Translanguaging

Translanguaging is a dynamic pedagogical approach that recognizes and leverages the full linguistic repertoire of multilingual learners (MLs) to support their learning and identity. Rather than treating languages as separate, bounded systems, translanguaging views a learner’s language practices as an integrated whole, allowing them to fluidly use their home language(s) and English to make meaning, express themselves, and learn.

In classrooms, translanguaging occurs when students and teachers intentionally use multiple languages to:

• Clarify concepts.
• Build understanding.
• Develop new ideas.
• Express knowledge.

For example, a student might read a text in English but discuss it in their home language or draft an outline in one language and write in another. This approach encourages flexibility and authenticity in how MLs engage with content and language.

Why is Translanguaging Important to Serve MLs?

1. Affirms Linguistic and Cultural Identity

Translanguaging validates the linguistic and cultural assets that MLs bring to the classroom. By encouraging the use of their home language(s), students feel valued and included, fostering a sense of belonging and confidence.

2. Boosts Cognitive and Academic Development

Research shows that drawing on multiple languages enhances cognitive flexibility, critical thinking, and problem-solving. When students use all their linguistic resources, they deepen their understanding of content and language.

3. Supports Language Development

Using home languages alongside English helps students transfer knowledge and skills across languages. For example, understanding a scientific concept in their first language can provide a foundation for learning it in English, accelerating both content mastery and language acquisition.

4. Promotes Equity

Translanguaging disrupts traditional, deficit-based approaches to ML education that often prioritize English-only instruction. Instead, it empowers students by positioning their multilingualism as a strength, not a barrier.

5. Fosters Deeper Learning

By allowing students to engage with material in a way that aligns with their natural linguistic practices, translanguaging enhances comprehension and enables students to express complex ideas more fully.

6. Builds Bridges Between Home and School

Translanguaging practices encourage stronger connections between students’ home environments and school learning. Parents and caregivers who speak languages other than English can better support their children’s education when those languages are integrated into classroom activities.

Examples of Translanguaging in Action

• Collaborative Learning: Students work in pairs or groups, discussing content in their home language while taking notes in English.
• Bilingual Texts: Providing resources in multiple languages, such as dual-language books or multilingual glossaries.
• Multilingual Writing: Allowing students to brainstorm or outline in one language and draft or finalize their work in another.
• Language Pairing: Pairing students with different language proficiencies to learn from each other using both their home languages and English.

Why It Matters

Translanguaging is more than a strategy—it’s a framework for creating equitable, inclusive classrooms that honor the diverse identities and abilities of multilingual learners. By implementing translanguaging practices, educators can unlock the full potential of MLs, helping them thrive academically while affirming their linguistic and cultural heritage.

Cultivating Dispositions in Multilingual Learners

The Core Collaborative partners with schools and educators to support the development of dispositions that empower multilingual learners (MLs). By offering professional learning experiences, resources, and strategies, the Core Collaborative helps teachers create inclusive environments where MLs thrive. Their approach emphasizes culturally responsive practices, learning transfer, and the cultivation of strong learner identities, ensuring every student is equipped to succeed academically and beyond.

In today’s interconnected and culturally diverse classrooms, multilingual learners (MLs) bring a wealth of linguistic and cultural assets that enrich the learning environment. However, to fully leverage their potential and foster both academic success and personal growth, educators must intentionally cultivate dispositions that enable MLs to engage in learning transfer and develop strong learner identities.

Why Dispositions Matter

Dispositions are the habits of mind and attitudes that shape how students approach learning challenges and opportunities. For MLs, these include resilience, adaptability, curiosity, and self-efficacy. When nurtured, such dispositions empower learners to navigate complex tasks, transfer knowledge across languages and disciplines, and build confidence in their abilities.

For instance, a student who exhibits curiosity might explore connections between a science concept learned in English and its application in their home language. Similarly, resilience can help a learner persevere through the challenges of academic language acquisition while maintaining a positive self-concept.

Learning Transfer and Dispositions

Learning transfer—the ability to apply knowledge and skills in new and varied contexts—is a cornerstone of deep learning. Dispositions like metacognition, critical thinking, and openness to feedback are vital in enabling MLs to transfer learning. When MLs recognize patterns across languages or subjects, they draw on prior knowledge and adapt it to novel situations. For example, understanding narrative structures in one language can enhance comprehension and composition in another.

Educators play a pivotal role by creating opportunities for MLs to practice these dispositions. The Core Collaborative provides resources and training for teachers to explicitly teach strategies like self-questioning, reflection, and goal-setting, equipping learners to become active participants in their educational journeys.

Dispositions and Learner Identity

Fostering learner identity—a sense of belonging and agency in the learning process—is crucial for MLs. A positive learner identity affirms students’ cultural backgrounds while encouraging them to see themselves as capable and valued contributors to the learning community. Dispositions like collaboration and empathy enable MLs to engage meaningfully with peers and teachers, bridging linguistic and cultural divides.

By integrating culturally responsive practices, educators can affirm MLs’ identities and inspire pride in their multilingualism. The Core Collaborative supports educators with specific workshops and tools to implement culturally responsive teaching practices. For example, inviting students to share stories or problem-solving methods from their cultural contexts validates their unique perspectives and reinforces their sense of identity.

Call to Action

To support MLs in developing dispositions that enhance learning transfer and learner identity, educators must:

1. Integrate Dispositions into Instruction: Embed habits of mind like resilience, adaptability, and critical thinking into everyday learning experiences.
2. Leverage Culturally Responsive Practices: Affirm MLs’ linguistic and cultural assets through inclusive curricula and classroom activities.
3. Model and Scaffold Dispositions: Provide explicit teaching and modeling of metacognitive strategies, goal-setting, and self-reflection.
4. Create Collaborative Opportunities: Foster environments where MLs can engage in dialogue and problem-solving with peers, leveraging diverse perspectives.

By prioritizing the development of dispositions, educators can empower MLs to thrive academically and personally, enabling them to transfer learning across contexts and cultivate robust, affirming learner identities