Their Multilingualism is Their Superpower: How We Can Support Hawai‘i's English Learners

Hawai‘i is one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse states in the country. As a result, English learners (ELs) make up a significant portion of the state's student population: up to 18% of students are, or have been, classified as English learners and represent up to 70 different languages! Their academic outcomes, however, vary widely. How can we better meet their needs and support their academic pathways? In this episode, we'll explore how we might be able to do that with Jeremiah Brown, the EL Coordinator at Waipahu High School. He'll share about how his school has successfully tapped into the multilingualism of its students, as well as other strategies to support ELs more broadly.
Your Hosts

• Dr. Esmeralda Carini
• Erin D’Amelio

Links for You!

• For the teachers out there, Jeremiah shared this resource on called the Teacher Can Dos, which is based off the WIDA standards to support ELs. Specifically, it gives teachers different ideas for accommodations to scaffold instruction based on which language levels their students might be.
• Visit Waipahu High School's Multilingual Marauders page to see all the wonderful projects that we talked about on the podcast, and more! We especially love the Rising from Our Roots book and the bilingual readers in Chuukese and Marshallese.
• The Hawaiʻi State Literacy Plan is designed in partnership with the Executive Office on Early Learning, the Hawai‘i State Department of Education, the University of Hawai‘i System and numerous community organizations. You can find it here.

We want to hear from you! Email us at [email protected] for a bonus episode in which we answer your burning literacy questions!
Episode 8 Music

• Intro/Outro: “Together We Can” hedkandi
• "Montauk Point" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• "Life of Riley" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• "Carpe Diem" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• "Carefree" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/