Multilingual Education

Multilingual Education

What is Multilingual Education

Washington state has over 150,000 students identified as multilingual learners (MLs) who are served in multilingual education programs. Multilingual learners bring rich cultural and linguistic assets to their classrooms as they engage in developing English language proficiency and academic skills. Washington state is committed to honoring and preserving students’ languages and cultures while supporting multilingualism and high academic achievement for all students.
The purpose of multilingual services is to ensure that multilingual learners attain English proficiency, develop high levels of academic achievement in English, and meet the same challenging state academic standards that all children are expected to meet.
Multilingual learners benefit from strong support to develop critical academic language and skills and to reach the same levels as their peers in English language arts (ELA), mathematics, and all content areas. Therefore, it is imperative that all educators develop the skills needed to integrate content and language development into instruction for multilingual learners at every level.

Planning with MLs in mind

Multilingual learners vary in their linguistic and socio-emotional needs, their trajectories toward proficiency, and their self-efficacy in acquiring academic English. Program models have an impact on how students make progress, yet all students must experience robust, effective English language development instruction as well as meaningful access to content in all program models.

To best meet the instructional needs of multilingual learners, educators, with the support of an English Language Development (ELD) teacher or specialist, should:

  • Align content standards to the WIDA ELD Standards Framework to integrate language development in instruction.
  • Use the Collaborative Planning Template to design content-based language objectives and instruction.
  • Attend to the four domains of language during instruction: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
  • Integrate WIDA Modes of Communication (interpretive and expressive) to increase accessibility options for students and emphasize multimodal forms of communication. WIDA Standards Framework FAQ Language Expectations
  • Implement classroom interactions to promote academic oral language development.
  • Include appropriate scaffolds during instruction to provide access to grade-level content. Some examples of scaffolds are:
    • Visual representations of information such as pictures, graphs, charts, diagrams, and maps
    • Graphic organizers
    • Sentence stems 
    • Modeling
    • Manipulatives

Examples of how MLs interact with the grade level learning standards

The Washington State Learning Standards outline the learning goals for every student, including multilingual learners. The learning standards further highlight that the success of multilingual learners is the collective responsibility of all educators. Therefore, developing content-based lessons and units of study to provide multilingual learners with English language development (ELD) skills and meaningful access to grade-level content critical to academic success. By recognizing the integration of Social Emotional Learning, Universal Design, and Cultural Competency, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion and developing instructional strategies with WIDA ELD Standards Framework, schools can help multilingual learners build the necessary foundation to thrive socially and emotionally and to pursue academic success for college, career, and life.

Resources to Learn More

  • The Multilingual Learner Statewide Strategic Plan provides a vision for supporting the success of all multilingual learners in Washington state with goals, strategies, and key actions to take at the state, district, school, and classroom level.
  • Washington State Policies & Practices Guide provides guidance on required policies and practices for TBIP programs.
  • WIDA ELD Standards Framework, 2020 edition.