Struggling to foster effective collaboration in your ELL classroom?

In this episode of Equipping ELLs, host Beth Vaucher sits down with renowned expert Dr. Andrea Honigsfeld to explore the transformative power of collaboration among teachers. Discover practical strategies for co-teaching, building professional learning communities, and differentiating instruction to meet the diverse needs of your English language learners. Tune in for actionable tips and inspiring insights that will help you create a more inclusive and supportive learning environment for your ELL students.

Resources:

• ⁠⁠⁠Join the Equipping ELLs Membership (We have everything you need for the school year!)
• Shop our TpT Store
• Find more from Dr. Andrea Honigsfeld
• Get your copy of Growing Language & Literacy: Strategies for English Learners
• Get your copy of Collaborating for English Learners: A Foundational Guide to Integrated Practices

Beth Vaucher

Hey there, Andrea. Thank you so much for being on the show. Welcome.

Andrea Honigsfeld

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to chat with you about collaboration. And as you said, we collaborate about collaboration all the time. We recognize that we need to combine what we already do so well and what we might not know. Oh, I have the answer to. So tapping into each other's expertise, knowledge base and just the joy of collaboration is really important to me.

Beth Vaucher

Absolutely. Well, it is such an honor to have you on here today and to just gain a little bit of your wisdom and I just. Yeah, I love your heart and passion for the work that you do. So thank you. Let's dive in and go back to just a little bit about your background and, you know, where you grew up and where you're at today, because you are very, I mean, I think, I don't know if the book total has gone up, but the last time you had 27 books. But I think there might be more by now. Right. So kind of give us a little glimpse of where that started and where you're at now.

Andrea Honigsfeld

Beth Vaucher

I love that. And, you know, I've been recently interviewing some inspiring language stories of language learners, just people I've met here in Panama or, you know, different stories that I've crossed. And it really comes down to that one person. It's usually a moment or a teacher that really kind of sets off that path for, you know, children and students of their desire to learn through books or through whatever opportunities. But it is cool how that kind of, every story kind of comes down to that one person that really instills that vision and that desire in them. And so that's really cool about your mom, that that was the opportunity you had. And, yeah, I love that. And I think that that's such a great point, too, Andrea, of the difference of, you know, because I'm kind of opposite where I grew up in the US, I'm american and had that individualistic, I can do it myself kind of attitude. You know, you really don't depend on others. And then moving to Panama and being in a place where I'm very out of my comfort zone, and then you see how many of the expats, the foreigners from all over the world really kind of come together because they really need each other to survive. When you don't have family, when you don't know the language, when all these things, and you have this dependence and collaboration desire that happens. So I think that that's such a beautiful point of why you bring such a different perspective into this approach that's really, really necessary for us to learn from you. So I can't wait to get more into that now. Yeah, go ahead.

Andrea Honigsfeld

Since you mentioned that there are influential people in our lives, I would just absolutely have to give a huge shout out to my very first principal in the New York City system, where my journey took me. So from Hungary, being a middle school educator, I became a kindergarten through third grade ESL teacher. You can that culture shock, especially New York City.

Beth Vaucher

Wow.

Andrea Honigsfeld

And queens. Here is the influential person in my life that just, again, put me further on the path of collaboration or exploring this angle on serving multilingual learners. I had a visionary principal. Her name is Carol Wertheimer, and now I call her Carol. At that time, misses Wertheimer was, as I mentioned, someone with a very strong vision that, that inquisitive mind that sometimes teachers might not have liked, because she was asking a lot of questions, but she was asking good questions. So the questions that she asked the four member ESL team, you know, that was our title at that time. English as a second teacher was very simple. The question was, who wants to come out of the basement? Because we were all in our isolated little nooks. We were teaching in the pullout system, and at that time was the height of the inclusion movement for special education. So she said another question was, why aren't you trying what special ed is doing? Why don't you go into the classroom?

Beth Vaucher

Wow.

Andrea Honigsfeld

Well, I know, I know. And the four team members, you know, there were four of us. How many do you think actually wanted to try that?

Beth Vaucher

Probably one. You.

Andrea Honigsfeld

So that was exactly that kind of a pattern that. No, we're fine. We're good. This is how we've always done things don't fix that's not broke. But I was actually feeling the tension there because I spent so much time in the hallway just taking kids through the building, collecting from. Collecting them from the classrooms that they were learning. And then all of a sudden, their learning was interrupted. I had to pick them up, take them to my special little spot where we did all the magic. In 45 minutes, we dropped them off, and, well, that was something that seemed really alien to me or unnatural to me. So I jumped on the opportunity, and I was the only ESL ell co teacher at that time. And my principal, again, Carol, had the vision of adding an extra prep time for us.

Beth Vaucher

Oh, wow.

Andrea Honigsfeld

Beth Vaucher

Yes, I was gonna ask that.

Andrea Honigsfeld

I haven't given that away yet.

Beth Vaucher

It's been a while.

Andrea Honigsfeld

Beth Vaucher

Andrea Honigsfeld

And there is one more person, and that's all right. Yes.

Beth Vaucher

Yes. Okay. Yes.

Andrea Honigsfeld

Beth Vaucher

Okay.

Andrea Honigsfeld

Beth Vaucher

Wow.

Andrea Honigsfeld

Not all of them about collaboration. You have a variety of them, but that's the common theme. And not all of them with Maria, but eleven of these books are bestsellers. I'm very humbled and very honored that people read them.

Beth Vaucher

Yeah, no, I mean, and I've only been able to dive into a few and I'm just always blown away with the impact you're making in the field, the way that you are able to take, you know, a lot of complex things and really bring it into a practical approach that any educator, whether you have ESL experience or not, can read it and apply it and feel really confident about what you're doing. So we're going to get to that at the end because I want you to highlight which book people should start with because I also love the growing language and literacy. I haven't gotten the six through twelve yet. I didn't realize you had that one out. So that's the next one I'm going to. That might be one of my summer readings because I really love how you break that very complex approach down as well, because that can be very. There's just a lot, there's a lot of factors that go into supporting multilingual learners. And I think, you know, I would be interested to hear, because this was a big shift for me, teaching in the suburbs of Chicago, you know, we had 90% ell students. I was a homeroom teacher. So just scaffolding for those students as best as I could, but really kind of sticking in the framework of the us public school system and how that deficits approach was definitely at play and a lot of that kind of mindset. And then moving to Panama and teaching at an international baccalaureate school here where everybody spoke multiple languages, I mean, that was just expected. And that was the culture of the school was actually a lot of our embassy students were kind of jealous of all these other kids because it became that was the norm that you spoke more than one language. And so they were kind of feeling left out. It was an interesting shift there, but what I saw in those types of classrooms when language is something that's beautiful. When language is accepted, when kids are able to use their native language, just their, their speed at which they learned English was so much faster, and it just became a very holistic approach. And so how have you seen that as you've taught internationally, you've lived internationally, and you've taught in the US and seen the difference? You know, what are you seeing in the way that multilingual learners, what are, what are the shifts you think that we need to make in the us public education so that we can get to that point where it's an amazing superpower to have more than one language?

Beth Vaucher

language?

Andrea Honigsfeld

Beth Vaucher

That's encouraging to hear. And I do see that shift happening as well, where I think we are moving from that deficits based approach to more and more homeroom teachers, administrators who maybe don't have that experience working with Ells, are starting to see the beauty and having a more assets based approach. I just had somebody on my podcast yesterday. We were talking about equitable grading, and again, it was just such a fascinating conversation around these. These conversations that need to happen, of how can we, you know, make sure that we're all on the same page with this, because that's really at the end of the day, the only way that our multilingual learners are. Going to have success is when we're all on board with that, we're all confident and ready to support these students because what they bring into our classrooms is so incredible. And the opportunities, I just, you know, kind of pinch myself sometimes and think, wow, you know, this resource that we've created is helping students around the world and. And we don't know the impact they're going to have. You know, we don't know how this 1 second grader where they're going to go on to and how they're going to impact the world when they're 25. And it's an exciting opportunity to get to educate the global classroom right in our own neighborhoods and in our own, you know, communities. So I think something I'd love to hit on is, you know, I think there's a lot this, as this shift is happening, encouraging our teachers, the ell teachers who feel like it's a lot, the weight is on them. You know, that was kind of like you're saying, teaching in the basement, this is your job, these are your students. So how do we really break down those silos? How do we really help that collaboration to happen? How do we help administration to see the importance of plan time if they want to encourage co teaching, how do we get there? What are some tips that you have and just some advice?

Andrea Honigsfeld

I think there could be multiple entry points. I would not be able to give you one cookie cutter answer. Five step program that if you only follow these five steps, everything be moving perfectly ahead with collaboration. But let me share a couple of possible entry points and maybe we could chat about them. So that. And I'm not ranking them that the first is this or that, but let's just start somewhere. So one way that we can find a viable entry point is recognizing that all teachers are teachers of academic language.

Beth Vaucher

Absolutely.

Andrea Honigsfeld

So it can be just one teacher's job when in fact you can't teach math without the precise academic vocabulary that's necessary to describe a fraction or an equation. You can teach math without teaching how to deconstruct and reconstruct a math problem. So now we're reading in mathematics. Same with science. If you think about writing a science report, it's very different from writing a haiku poem and again, being very different from writing a personal narrative. So we have to think of genre pedagogy as well, disciplinary literacy. So I know I'm just throwing around these big words, but they're really important because once we shift the culture in a school that wait, but we're doing this already. So first of all, affirming that every teacher, whether they wanted to do it or not, whether they or not, are going to be teachers of academic language.

Beth Vaucher

Yes.

Andrea Honigsfeld

So then who are your in house experts of that? Well, amazing set, or maybe one or two or maybe more staff members who can collaborate with you. See, where are those language? Development opportunities. We used to talk about language demands and had more of this deficit oriented discourse around what is going to be difficult. What are we going to do to target those challenging points in our curriculum when it comes to language? But if we turn it around, as you mentioned a few times already, we talk about this asset based perspective, then, rather than challenges or demands, let's talk about opportunities and experiences, those language based experiences that are embedded in every content area, by the way, not just the core content, also including gym, physical education, music, you name it, it's there. So that is one entry point. Do you have experience with that? When teachers have that aha. Moment, like, okay, yes, more than just vocabulary, because that's a given. Everybody's very comfortable with teaching vocabulary, but we can't stop there.

Beth Vaucher

Yes. And that's what I think, you know, a point I hit on very often is just when we teach with Ells in mind, all of our students, students succeed, you know, because all students need, they're going to benefit from extra visuals or from a word bank. And so you just think, even as a monolingual learner, my daughter, who's in second grade, if she's supposed to, you know, use a way to defend her, her paper or whatever, these technical ways of academic language, she doesn't know how to. Even though she's monolingual, she doesn't know how to use that correctly. And so when you think of it in that way, I think that that's a very good point, and a great approach is really helping every teacher to identify that they are a language teacher, the math teacher, the science teacher. There is language in all of our subjects and our areas. And I think the more that we can strengthen that, and honestly, I think it goes back to your point of how do we help the western world see the beauty of that collaboration piece, because that is such an ingrained part of who we are, that independence. And so how do we see that? Hey, this, you know, the ESL teacher might not have that confidence in the content of the grade level because they already are doing all these other things. So they might need that support of the homeroom teachers and their knowledge of the content, but they get to bring in their expertise of the scaffolding of the language. And so that's really, you know, what you've shared in so many different ways and in all your books is just that importance of seeing how each of us brings something that's really needed to this space in order to properly plan and prepare for our students. So I love that. I think that's a great, a great starting point is just shifting that mindset a little bit so that every teacher sees themselves as a language teacher.

Andrea Honigsfeld

Another possible entry point is this notion of building relational trust, building relationships, professional relationships, forging partnerships. Recognizing that we don't operate in silos, we might sometimes prefer to close our. Classroom doors and my classroom, my curricular, my kids. But how to come out of that silo, how come out of that isolation is through establishing collaborative opportunities for teachers. So here, leadership is really important, but not just top down leadership, bottom up leadership, too. Teacher leadership, creating opportunities to work together. You could start small. One partner teacher, one grade level, one literacy meeting a week in which we're talking about shared practices, building trust by sharing challenges and opportunities. What worked, what didn't work. So shifting a culture from everybody going into their classroom and doing their own job, even if they're doing their job in an exceptional way, when we combine that expertise, we can only multiply the impact impact that we have on our students. So one way that it has been happening for quite some time, not sure if in your school or in your listener school, it's an important movement, but the PLC movement professional community have been around for quite some time. The idea of looking at student work together. Lesw looking at student work. So whether it's co planning or co assessment or building professional capacity together, if there are already structures in place in any kind of school system, whatever that is, that's the entry point. Absolutely. Which is now amplifying the focus on multilingual learners. So I'll give you one example. Recently, I went to the Mat so conference, the Massachusetts state conference, and I always seek out sessions that are connected to collaboration. And there was this fabulous middle school team that they talked about. Exactly that, that there are some things already in place. And one example they gave was they get summer study time, I don't know, a lot of hours, not a lot of money, but a little bit of a summer stipend, and they use that structure in place for forging a community. Just informal. Well, if we have this summer study time that we have to spend, whether it's a book study, article study, looking at student work and studying patterns of evidence of student learning. So let's center our focus on multilingual learners. So they formed a study group, a summer study group, just about that. Another example they gave. I loved it. I just absolutely look for what is already in place, another example, and then we could move on to other.

Andrea Honigsfeld

I just love this stuff because this is very real. This is, again, evidence based. You might not have extensive research on what summer learning for teachers will result in, but when teachers give up their time and commit to these opportunities, we know that they build their knowledge base and their skill set. So another thing that they turned into a multilingual focal activity is what they called power. Sorry. Positive peer visits. I try to remember the exact name. The PPV. So PBV. PPV, yeah. So positive peer visits are already part of the school system. The teachers can sign up and visit each other's classes. It's not a surprise visit. It never a gotcha. It's never to look for what's not working. As the name suggests. When you go into somebody's classroom, you go there to affirm their practice, to celebrate their practice. So they were able to shape this a little bit with the lens of multilingual learners. So let's celebrate what the teacher is doing, but also let's celebrate what our students, our multilingual learners can do in those difficult, rigorous classroom scenarios.

Beth Vaucher

Those are such great and practical examples. And I think, you know, that's a great point, that it doesn't have to be something brand new. And coming up with this whole new framework and implementing all this, I think, you know, as teachers, we want to see the difference and the change quickly. And I think as humans we like that we live in a fast paced world. But I think seeing that those small changes can make a big impact. And I think going back to your story, you know, you and one, you found one homeroom teacher that wanted to co teach and, and that might be if you're in a school that it's not happening yet in your school, it might just be finding that one homeroom teacher who also has that desire to better support their multilingual learners. And it might just be between you two teachers sitting on a Friday at lunch, you know, pick up one of Andrea's books and read it together and just start walking through that and having those discussions around. What does this look like? How can we get better at this? What didn't work when we did this? How is, how can we improve on our planning together? Um, how can we become prepared to our planning session so that we can make sure that we are, you know, using this time really well together? All of those just conversations that can revolve around this topic and it might just be two teachers at once. But what happens, and I'm sure this is what you see, is when other teachers start to see the difference in those students and they start to see the impact, they're going to want to get on board as well. And so it might just be that ripple effect of those two teachers beginning and then all of a sudden more and more are wanting to get on board. Is that what you've seen in your practice as well?

Andrea Honigsfeld

Oh, absolutely. And I don't know if you've seen my very first book on the topic. We had the ripple effect.

Beth Vaucher

Exactly.

Andrea Honigsfeld

So that book is not in print anymore. We came up with a second edition of that book. With the two hands holding each other. Yes, holding each other and supporting each other. But you're absolutely right about that. Start with one conversation, one partnership. If it seems overwhelming that we have to shift paradigms for entire school, or maybe in the US, in, in a district context, that could be really hard. Too many moving parts for everything to be in place by, let's say, a new forthcoming academic year. But we can start small, and we can underestimate the impact of those initial conversations because they lead to partnership building, they lead to further opportunities to. To share.

Beth Vaucher

Yeah.

Andrea Honigsfeld

And also to receive. So it's a two way.

Beth Vaucher

Absolutely. I love that so much. I could keep talking to you forever, but our time is running out. Andrea. But I would love to know, out of all your books, which one would you recommend for teachers who are, you know, just maybe getting started with teaching multilingual learners or co teaching? Because I want to help teachers decide which one to start with, because I know it might be overwhelming when they go and see, wow, 31 different books. Which was. Which one should I start with? So what would you recommend?

Andrea Honigsfeld

So, for classroom teachers, homeroom teachers, or secondary content teachers who might not have had extensive training or certificational credentialing in working with multilingual learners, I recommend the two books you mentioned, the growing language and literacy books by Heineman, published by Heinemann. There's an elementary version and a secondary version. And the reason why I recommend those two books is because the editorial directive that I got was to show, not tell.

Beth Vaucher

Yeah, yeah.

Andrea Honigsfeld

Excellent. Yes. What language and literacy development is all about? Five chapters, the five stages of language development, and lots of authentic examples. In fact, for both books, I have over 100 full color illustrations, lots of mini references to what teachers are doing in their classrooms. So I'm very honored because of that generosity that teachers expressed towards my work, that they kept sharing what I could feature. And then regarding collaboration and co teaching, as I mentioned to you, that original book that really put my work on the map. Unexpectedly, we never expected that would become a bestseller, the collaboration and co teaching book. We came out with a second edition called Collaborating for English Learners, a foundational guide to integrated practices. So here we polished every word to perfection in that title to make sure that it clearly communicates that if you are new, if you're just starting out, whether that systemic approach that an administrator would take, they could use the book because there's an administrator's corner in every chapter. Amazing teacher, a teacher team. It's ideal for a book study because it answers the who, what, where, when, why, and how of collaboration. Those are actually the chapter titles. Yes. And then we ran out of question words and we just duplicated some of them. I think we have two chapters that begin with what, but exactly the types of questions that teachers would have about, or educators rather would have about collaboration courses. Teaching, we structure the entire book around those questions.

Andrea Honigsfeld

questions.

Beth Vaucher

And that's why I love your work so much, is because you really have done the research, you've done the hard work for us who don't have that time. But you put it in a way that it really does answer our questions and helps us to apply right away. And I think that that's a real gift to be able to make those connections. So we will put those links in the show notes so that everybody who's listening can go and find those right away and order them. But please share with my listeners where they can find out more about you.

Andrea Honigsfeld

Well, I have a website. It's my name, andreahonigsfeld.com, and it has all of my books, lots of my articles. As you mentioned, I've been on a few podcasts, so some of those podcast links, I definitely will be putting this link there.

Beth Vaucher

Wonderful.

Andrea Honigsfeld

Articles, blogs, just whatever is already in the public domain and available related to my work could be found on that website, as well as links to all of my publications, all of my books.

Beth Vaucher

Amazing. Well, Andrea, this has been such a pleasure to have you here again. Thank you so much for taking the time to share with us and my listeners, and we're just so grateful for you and the impact that you are making in the field of multilingual learners. So, can't wait to see more and read more books in the future.

Andrea Honigsfeld

Thank you so much for having me. And I'm looking forward to maybe speaking with you again soon.

Beth Vaucher

Yes, absolutely. If anytime you want to come back and hopefully our paths cross in real life one day. So. All right, thanks, Andrea.