Language Learning Symposium 2025

El proceso que hace el cerebro al aprender otro idioma y todos sus beneficios así como la estrategia del puente (bridging) haciendo conexiones entre idiomas.

Participants will learn about how UFLI year 1 implementation impacted first graders at an English Medium school. Implications will be shared and discussion of how to support multilingual learners in their foundational skills will enrich teachers understanding of how to best use foundational skills curricular materials. 

Is our instruction effective? Are we collecting the right data? What's next?

Join us for a transformative professional development session that explores how to build an equitable and effective Response to Intervention (RTI) system tailored for multilingual learners. Drawing from an evolving collaboration between a school psychologist and a multilingual specialist at Marvista Elementary, this session will highlight how culturally responsive RTI practices can enhance early literacy development and reduce misidentification in special education.

Participants will engage with effective strategies for ALL learners — such as integrating UFli phonics instruction with Total Physical Response and leveraging consistent progress monitoring through iReady benchmarks—to address foundational literacy needs. Learn how family engagement, data-driven decisions, and targeted interventions resulted in measurable growth for multilingual students.

This session is ideal for anyone committed to advancing educational equity through collaboration, innovation, and culturally responsive pedagogy.

Key Takeaways:

• Implement equitable RTI models that center multilingual learners
• Use literacy data to refine and expand targeted interventions
• Build family partnerships and address attendance barriers
• Prepare for the statewide shift to RTI-only eligibility for Specific Learning Disabilities by 2028
• What are we working on next?

In 2023-2024, Highline High School's Beginning ELD students created portfolios on Google Sites. As students moved out of self-contained/sheltered ML classes and into general education classes, we shared their portfolios with their new teachers as a tool to understand students' content and language skills. Now, as we plan to transition from Google to Microsoft, we're moving portfolios to OneNote. This session will discuss the portfolio process, benefits, challenges, and next steps.

description of title 1

Participants will learn how to use Google Sites to do Project Based Learning to get more MLL students’ invested in class coursework.
 
Essential Question
Have you ever had students that just do not want to do the work because they feel it is not relevant to them?
​Mr. Barrios PBL Student sites​​​
In our session today:

•  We will learn to create Google Sites to do Project Based Learning to get your MLL students’ investment in your class coursework.
• Use ACTFL rubrics and deadlines to guide the work and chunk it so students do quality work without stressing out over creating a major project.
• Learn the main three tabs of insert, pages and themes in Google sites.
• Learn to insert videos, text boxes and move things around in your site.
• Learn to save your site.
• Share our site with our target group.

Two Math 7 teachers will lead a Three Reads demonstration. The Three Reads strategy is designed to support fluency & comprehension of math word problems for ML and developing readers, in a group work setting.

Do older high school students benefit from the GLAD Pictorial? Yes! Come to this session to learn how students interacted with the GLAD Pictorial to support their content area learning in U.S. History.

Participants will learn about the WCH Somali Enrichment program, Heritage, language history, and our Somali music taught in our elementary schools in Highline! 

Join us for an insightful presentation on how GLAD strategies can enhance students' reading comprehension and support effective comparative essay writing through strategic scaffolding. Discover practical applications and understand the positive impact these methods have on student learning and academic performance.

Oracy is essential for improving writing skills. Through discussions students can develop their ability to articulate thoughts and ideas, leading to better written work. In a case study involving multilingual students, integrating oracy into the curriculum helped students improve their writing proficiency and gain a deeper understanding of the subject matter. By fostering verbal communication skills, educators can enhance students' language proficiency, critical thinking abilities, and academic success.

Join us for tips and tricks to be more intentional about including visual supports in your teaching! Learn how to sketch people and common icons, design charts, and locate the images you need to support vocabulary, plus get to know the research behind why visuals are so important for MLs.