The Effective Literacy Podcast

Season 1 concludes with one final ‘Making Meaning’ episode—and there is plenty to process.

Meta is the word of the day as we think about the utility of meta-linguistic awareness and transfer as tools that empower students to take stock of their own language journeys.

Later, Victoria and Anna assess the assessment systems and dive deep into how they can better serve the needs of multilingual students. 

As a language learner herself, Alexandra Güílamo has spent more than twenty years serving a

wide range of language learner programs. Alexandra is a former teacher, academic coach,

elementary school principal, and district-level director in highly diverse urban and suburban

school districts. She is one of the leading dual-language experts, an author, and keynote

speaker, and the Chief Equity & Achievement Officer at TaJu Educational Solutions - a company

dedicated to professional development, coaching, & technical support for the educators,

leaders, and communities of dual language & bilingual programs.

As a language learner herself, Alexandra Güílamo has spent more than twenty years serving a

wide range of language learner programs. Alexandra is a former teacher, academic coach,

elementary school principal, and district-level director in highly diverse urban and suburban

school districts. She is one of the leading dual-language experts, an author, and keynote

speaker, and the Chief Equity & Achievement Officer at TaJu Educational Solutions - a company

dedicated to professional development, coaching, & technical support for the educators,

leaders, and communities of dual language & bilingual programs.

Nicole Knight is the Executive Director of the English Language Learner and Multilingual Achievement Office at Oakland Unified School District.

She is honored to have served Oakland students for the last 24 years as a teacher, teacher leader and instructional leader at the site and district levels.

A National Board Certified Teacher in English as a New Language, Nicole has expertise in language and literacy development of multilingual learners, professional development for teachers and leaders, and equity-centered systems of continuous improvement.

She is also the mother of two bicultural and bilingual children, both students...

In this making meaning episode, we’re diving into how our time with Dr. Susana Johnson, David Rogers, and Cristina Sánchez-López. 

We discuss how to acknowledge and build on students’ home language experiences and create rich classroom experiences that focus on strong oral language skills. 

We also discuss what it means to teach students to be literate and what to do with that literacy.

Cristina Sánchez-López collaborates with educators in the US and Canada on many issues related to the education of Multilingual Learners (MLs) including developing culturally and linguistically sustaining Multi-tiered Systems of Support (MTSS); bilingual special education; middle school mathematics; curriculum development; literacy across the content areas; parent engagement, and supporting Early Childhood educators who serve young Dual Language learners (DLLs).

Cristina has taught at the elementary, middle school and university levels in the US and Mexico.

She currently teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in multilingual education.

Cristina is co-author a number of pu...

David Rogers supports the work of Dual Language Education of New Mexico-DLeNM whose mission is to promote the effective design and implementation of dual language education (www.dlenm.org) in New Mexico, and beyond.   

In his thirty-five years as an educator, David has served as an education volunteer and program coordinator in Peace Corps Paraguay, South America, a bilingual special education teacher in South Bronx, NY, and as a dual language classroom teacher, bilingual program coordinator, and school principal in the South Valley of Albuquerque.  In 1996 David and his colleagues helped to organize the first La Co...

Susana Ibarra Johnson, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Bilingual Education and TESOL at New Mexico State University.

Susana is a former bilingual education teacher. Her understanding and devotion go beyond her academic training to her own experience as a bilingual learner.

As a former biliteracy researcher and senior consultant for the WIDA Consortium, she conducted research and facilitated professional learning in language development both in English and Spanish.

Currently, as an assistant professor, she specializes in developing courses for bi/multilingual and biliteracy curriculum, instruction, and assessment with bilingual/TESOL educators.<...

In this making meaning episode, we’re diving into how our time with multilingual researcher and advocate, Dr. Jim Cummins.

There was quite a bit to unpack, including:

 - How the pendulum swings in Literacy pedagogy and instruction

 - The concept of “Literacy Saturation”

 - The thread between what we learned from Dr. Cummins and past episodes.

You can find out more about all of our episodes, by going to https://multilingualliteracy.org/podcast/

Jim Cummins is a Professor Emeritus at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. His research focuses on literacy development in educational contexts characterized by linguistic and socioeconomic diversity.

In numerous articles and books, he has explored the nature of language proficiency and its relationship to literacy development, with particular emphasis on the intersections of societal power relations, teacher-student identity negotiation, and literacy attainment.

His most recent book Rethinking the Education of Multilingual Learners: A Critical Analysis of Theoretical Concepts (Multilingual Matters) was published in fall 2021.

He is...