While most educational researchers and practitioners agree that that mastery of academic language is the key to students' academic success, many teachers are not well-versed in its major components and would benefit by learning how to integrate these components into curriculum and instructional assessment. The construct of academic language is of increasing importance to educators as the Common Core State Standards, the new national anchor for curriculum, instruction, and assessment, have set a high bar of rigorous and challenging content, especially for ELs and SELs. This title -- one of a seven book series -- will offer guidance to educators in how to target academic language in planning for student learning as states undergo the implementation of the Common Core and corresponding English language proficiency standards in preparation for the upcoming consortia-led assessments. The series consists of six separate volumes for English Language Arts and Mathematics segmented according to grade band (K-2; 3-5; 6-8).
Author Biography:
Margo Gottlieb, Ph.D., is a staunch advocate for multilingual learners and their teachers. As co-founder and lead developer of WIDA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2003, Margo has helped design and contributed to all the editions of WIDA’s English and Spanish language development standards frameworks and their derivative products. Being a bilingual teacher, facilitator, consultant, and mentor across K-20 settings, she has worked with universities, organizations, governments, states, school districts, networks, and schools in co-constructing linguistic and culturally sustainable curriculum and reconceptualizing classroom assessment policy and practice.
Margo’s passion has always been assessment in its many forms, starting with her dissertation, a K-12 multilingual test in Spanish, Lao, and English that integrated content and language. Since then, she was appointed to national and state advisory boards, served as a Fulbright Senior Scholar, and was honored by the TESOL International Association in 2016 for her significant contribution to the field. In her travels, Margo has enjoyed keynoting and presenting across the United States and in 25 countries. Having authored, co-authored, or co-edited over 100 publications, including 20 books and guides, Margo′s 3rd edition of her best-selling book, Assessing Multilingual Learners: Bridges to Empowerment, is the latest addition to her Corwin compendium.
Gisela Ernst-Slavit, PhD, is a Professor in the College of Education at Washington State University Vancouver. She investigates language teacher education in culturally and linguistically diverse settings using ethnographic and sociolinguistic perspectives. In addition to other publications, she is co-author of Access to Academics: Planning Instruction for K-12 Classrooms with ELLs (Pearson, 2010), From Paper to Practice: Using the TESOL’s English Language Proficiency Standards in PreK-12 Classrooms (TESOL, 2009), and TESOL PreK-12 English Language Proficiency Standards (TESOL, 2006). Dr. Ernst-Slavit, a native from Peru, has given numerous presentations in the United States and Canada as well as in Japan, Pakistan, Peru, Spain, Thailand, and The Netherlands.
