Walk into any secondary classroom, and you’ll see multilingual students reading, writing, and listening. But to get your multilingual learners talking? That’s challenging. Despite all our efforts to improve reading and writing scores, academic speaking remains the most underutilized skill in schools—especially for English learners. And that’s a big problem. Because speaking is where students build confidence, organize their thinking, and activate the language they’ve been lea

This post kicks off a new series: Practical Systems for Multilingual Learner Growth.Every week, we’ll highlight one area where schools can create meaningful English growth for students — especially Experienced Multilingual Learners — without adding heavy new programs or burning out teachers. Why experienced multilingual learners? Because they’re often the students who “plateau” — sitting in U.S. schools for years, passing classes, but never breaking through to advanced Engli

If you could focus on just one area to boost your multilingual learners’ test scores this year, it should be Tier 2 vocabulary. These are high-utility academic words—analyze, contrast, establish, infer—that show up in every subject area. They’re the “middle tier” between basic conversational words (Tier 1) and content-specific terms (Tier 3). Often, they are the hidden key to unlocking test success. The problem? Many districts unintentionally put Tier 2 vocabulary on the back