The saying ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ is especially true when it comes to dual-language learning, as a group of North Thurston Public Schools teachers discovered at a January workshop.
During a nature journaling exercise, the instructions were in pictures rather than in words. “We highlighted using pictures as instructions so that even if you don’t speak the language, you can understand what the assignment is asking you to do,” says PEI’s South Sound FieldSTEM Coordinator Lauren Troyer, “because pictures are universal.”
Troyer and Multicultural Engagement Coordinator Lourdes Flores co-facilitated two dual language workshops during an in-service day for North Thurston teachers: one for elementary grades and one for secondary.
Flores and Jana Brock, Elementary Science Instructional & Integration Specialist, have been in discussions about offering dual-language training for teachers for several years. The conversation began at a Nisqually River Education Project Summer Institute for Teachers, after Lydia Hawk Elementary School added a dual language program. Initial attempts to get a workshop on the schedule failed to gain traction. In the meantime, two more elementary schools added dual language programs, and the Spanish-speaking Lydia Hawk fifth graders are moving on to middle school. This created an opportunity to present PEI resources in Spanish for the dual language teachers of all three elementary schools in North Thurston.
“Teachers in the middle school are getting very nervous because they are receiving more students speaking Spanish and they aren’t sure how to support them,” says Brock. She asked if PEI could do a workshop for those secondary teachers as well.
“It created a feeling of community, and that’s something we wanted to emphasize. Everybody has a background they can share. They don’t have to be a recent immigrant to have a background. We all are part of a community and can connect with each other.”
— Lourdes Flores, PEI’s Multicultural Engagement Coordinator
For both grade levels, the goals were to familiarize teachers with the English and Spanish resources PEI offers and to inspire confidence that they could implement hands-on strategies that support language development and content-area learning in the science classroom. Elementary school teachers experienced a ‘sit spot’ and discussed its benefits, explored PEI’s Spanish language Schoolyard Investigations resource, and built a ‘toad abode,’ an activity that integrates science and engineering with reading and writing.
Teachers were excited to learn about PEI’s Spanish language resources. “They were blown away,” says Troyer. “They spent some time looking and seeing what they could connect with the content they teach.”
Secondary teachers learned strategies for developing community and a sense of belonging for older students. The session started with everyone sharing about a tree that has meaning in their lives. “It created a feeling of community, and that’s something we wanted to emphasize,” Flores notes. “Everybody has a background they can share. They don’t have to be a recent immigrant to have a background. We all are part of a community and can connect with each other.”
The secondary group also shared effective strategies and challenges they’ve experienced, practiced nature journaling, and explored multi-lingual teaching strategies that integrate subject areas.
Many attendees expressed interest in attending upcoming PEI dual language workshops, and Troyer and Flores offered to share dual-language resources for school vegetable gardens at a future in-service.