DCPS Uses New Approach to Develop Dual Immersion Programs

It’s the Friday before Columbus Day. The only thing separating D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) educators from their three-day weekend is a full day of districtwide professional development (PD). Instead of listlessly receiving a “download of information,” teachers at Bruce-Monroe Elementary School are up out of their seats, rotating through conversations with partners, arranged in two lines facing each other. They are practicing an activity to use in their classrooms to get students talking and listening to each other. What makes their buzzing conversations so unique? They are happening, side-by-side, in both English and Spanish.

For the first time ever, DCPS is assembling all teachers from their seven elementary dual immersion schools together for the year’s five days of mandatory district PD. Previously, dual immersion teachers were scattered throughout the city, so they received most of their PDs with other mainstream teachers (who often were not working in immersion settings). The change in programming builds on recent efforts to better coordinate and ensure the quality of dual immersion programs citywide.

Until recently, school leaders and teachers at elementary DCPS dual immersion schools had very few opportunities to come together to collaborate, according to DCPS Dual Language Developer, Katarina Brito. The seven schools — who all currently offer English and Spanish — were organized under different clusters of management.

Then, in 2013, district officials decided to group all dual language schools under the leadership of one instructional superintendent, LaKimbre Brown. Last fall, under Brown’s direction, district leaders conducted a walk-through of schools, observing classrooms and meeting with school leadership. Brito said that one major takeaway from those visits was the realization that while there “were pockets of brilliance throughout the district, there were also big gaps” with little common language or understanding across individual schools.

In response to this incohesion, Dr. Brown secured a Title I grant to deliver more streamlined, targeted PD to all dual language teachers, starting with the October session at Bruce-Monroe Elementary. Specifically, DCPS is contracting with the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) to implement the Two-Way Immersion Observation Protocol (TWIOP) model.

TWIOP is an adaption of the commonly used Sheltered Immersion Observation Protocol (SIOP), an instructional model for supporting language learners in a variety of settings, including mainstream or ESL settings. SIOP consists of thirty specific features, such as: preparing content and language objectives, building background knowledge and vocabulary, delivering content clearly through a variety of strategies, structuring teacher and student interactions, and much more. TWIOP builds on these SIOP features through several adaptations, centering on four themes for dual immersion settings:

1. Coordinate instructional strategies used by teachers across the two program languages
2. State clear cultural objectives (e.g. comparing the celebration of holidays in the United States to other Latin American countries)
3. Use unit themes to link instruction across languages and subjects
4. Equip students with teaching strategies to incorporate in their peer-to-peer interactions, such as the use of wait time, slower speech and gestures

So, now, when the dual immersion teachers get together for district PD, they will spend half their day in the TWIOP training—explicitly focused on dual language strategies—and the other half covering the new Cornerstones curriculum for all DCPS classrooms. Even during the Cornerstones portion of PD, Brito predicts the dual immersion teachers will benefit from being in the same room, fostering conversations on how to apply Cornerstones to their unique context as dual language educators.

In addition to these PD days, specialists from CAL are visiting schools and holding additional meetings with instructional coaches and lead teachers. The goals are to give more tailored feedback to each school and to build DCPS’ base of internal experts on the TWIOP model.

These efforts in D.C. reflect the national need to ensure that, as dual immersion programs expand, programs are implemented strategically to ensure high-quality delivery. It is a line of argument that often surfaces in calls for expanded pre-K: increased access alone is not enough. Quality is key. Without it, all learners—and DLLs in particular— are unlikely to reap the cognitive, academic and socioemotional benefits of dual language programs. In the worst-case scenario, students would emerge weak in both English and the target language.

Indeed, the threat of this possibility contributed, in part, to California voters deciding in 1998 to outlaw bilingual education for fear that students would languish in native language classes for years and graduate without reaching fluency in English. But problems under California’s old system were likely due to variances in implementation of bilingual education (i.e. quality and design) rather than the model of bilingual education itself, according to Elena Fajardo, administrator of the Language Policy and Leadership Office at the California Department of Education. She emphasized that “the quality of the instructor, the quality of the instruction, the program design and the adherence to that design is really where the benefits [of dual language education] lie.”

High-quality implementation is critical for the efficacy and longevity of bilingual programs. And while efforts are still evolving, DCPS is making progress in this area. My colleagues, Amaya Garcia and Conor P. Williams, explore this issue in greater depth in their forthcoming report, Stories from the Nation’s Capital: Instructional Programs and Supports for Dual Language Learners from PreK–3rd Grade in Washington, DC. In addition to professional development of teachers, their report explores key components for sustainable dual immersion programs, including recruitment strategies for bilingual instructors, consistent school leadership, and program flexibility at the school level. Ultimately, it is one thing to dream big about bilingual education, and quite another to equip teachers to implement it well. Back at Bruce-Monroe Elementary, there is clear energy building to take DCPS’ dreams and make them real for DLLs.

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This post is part of New America’s Dual Language Learner National Work Group. Click here for more information on this team’s work. To subscribe to the biweekly newsletter, click here, enter your contact information, and select “Education Policy.”"