Denise Furlong and Keri Orange-Jones encourage educators to learn alongside their students
For many educators, there may be nothing more intimidating than having students with whom we cannot easily communicate—both for teachers who are new to our field and for veteran educators in various roles. Fostering positive connections with all students is essential for their success, and multilingual learners may benefit from supports that are slightly different and that are aligned to their unique linguistic and cultural needs. Following are some ways we can open ourselves up to establishing safe spaces for everyone to find those connections.
“Appreciation and amplification of student voices are vital to empowering leaders.”
The most immediate and important way to build relationships is to show that you value the individual identities of all students. Educators demonstrate this in many ways, beginning with the correct pronunciation of students’ names. Feel free to have students record their names for you to practice how to say them or even write them down phonetically in a way that supports you. Above all, encourage them to correct you if necessary. Beyond names, our students’ cultures, interests, strengths, and languages are key parts to understanding who they are. When educators are active role models in learning about the backgrounds of our students, we show that we value and welcome them for who they are and their contributions to our school community. This may include highlighting important traditions, respecting religious customs, and learning words in the languages of our classrooms. Important to note is that the teachers set the tone for the classroom and the administrators set the tone for the school; when everyone is open to being vulnerable in learning and growing, the culture of the school is one of welcoming diversity.
Our classroom and school environments must intentionally be designed to foster belonging and representation for all students. This may be evident in morning announcements that include different languages or acknowledge special days in the cultures of the school community, bulletin boards that highlight languages, and assemblies or events that represent all students. Literature and curricula that weave diverse perspectives throughout learning in all content areas are critical for feelings of representation. Collaborations with families or neighborhood/town leaders can strengthen positive interactions and lessen feelings of fear of the “unknown” in the community. Giving students opportunities to connect with all peers, both during the school day and through leadership opportunities in clubs and sports, ensures that they don’t feel marginalized or like outsiders.
Providing different points of access to grade-relevant material (at all grade levels) is crucial for multilingual learners to progress both academically and linguistically. It is not necessary to translate all content (nor may some of your students have that type of academic literacy in other languages). However, when students can benefit from leveraging all their languages as they are learning new concepts (in all four domains of language: listening, speaking, reading, and writing), we acknowledge that our students may have great depths of knowledge beyond what they are able to express (yet!) in English. Appreciation and amplification of student voices are vital to empowering leaders.
Students may also engage in translanguaging practices (trans = across, through, beyond) in which they are actively threading languages together, producing languaging that may be unique to them. On a very surface level, translanguaging may appear to be a mixture of languages as students are learning words in new languages. (Think: Spanglish.) In reality, this artful weaving of languaging may be part of a phase of language acquisition, and it may also be a way that humans can use their languaging to express themselves in ways that truly embrace their identities. This is where translanguaging goes “beyond” languaging. With our younger students, much of this will be in oral communication, as their literacy skills may not yet be strongly developed in any language. However, much like teachers should not be translating all assignments and content, upper-elementary and secondary students do not need to translate all of their work. If they have key content vocabulary in English and they are building an individual dictionary of the words they are learning, the teacher will likely understand work submitted using translanguaging for the most part. Advising students to consider the most important words to make their work comprehensible by the teacher to add the English alongside their language(s) is a powerful way to engage in sophisticated linguistic analysis—and translanguaging at its finest.
Ensuring that multilingual learners have the opportunity to collaborate with peers, take risks in learning, and find joy in language and literacy is so important to establishing a supportive climate. The seminal work of Krashen and Terrell (1983) with regard to a low affective filter in the language classroom is still commonly referenced over 40 years later; this theory describes the educational environment in which students feel safe to produce language and take risks in learning. With this in mind, educators do not have to correct all mistakes that MLs may make. (If we do this, they will never speak again!) Instead, consider the language objectives or repeated mistakes when either making gentle corrections or modeling language that is more easily understood. Peers never correct one another when there are perceived mistakes in language production; it would then become almost like a contest to “attack” classmates with corrections.
When designing collaborative opportunities, considering a structured model like Spina’s 3PS (process, plan, partner, share) may give the support all students need to work together equitably (2025). Structures like this prevent one student from either doing everything or assuming that other students are not capable of participating. Another collaboration through community leadership is described by Daniels and her colleagues (2025) with their legacy projects designed to engage multilingual learners and native English speakers as stakeholders in the success of newcomers across the school. With specific roles and steps to collaborating, all students know their responsibilities and can engage in languaging and working alongside peers with confidence. Multilingual learners will have scaffolds they may need to produce and understand language. All voices have a valued space and all contributions are essential.
As we support all students in finding joy in language and literacy, we are laying the foundation for a love of learning and opening doors alongside our students for opportunities well beyond the school building. It is here that we provide pathways for self-expression, reflection, and skills that will guide them to success.
Many times, one may say that the ways we engage multilingual learners are just “good teaching.” Well, yes and no. Yes, many students can benefit from strategic scaffolding and language supports and intentional languaging structures. All students need to feel seen, experience representation, and have equitable access to content. But multilingual learners need educators (teachers and administrators) who will be vulnerable enough as humans to learn alongside our students—their cultures, their languages, their valuable contributions to our communities.
References
Daniels, D., Merten, M., Manzella, C., Maloney, B., and MacIsaac, D. (2025). “Legacy Projects: A bridge to sustainable community engagement through civic action.” New England Journal of History (82)2, 117–129.
Krashen, S. D., and Terrell, T. D. (1983). The Natural Approach: Language Acquisition in the Classroom. Pergamon Press.
Spina, C. (2025). “3PS: Process, plan, partner, share.” Moving Beyond for Multilingual Learners: The Blog. https://movingbeyondformls.blogspot.com/2025/07/3ps-process-plan-partner-share.html
Denise Furlong and Keri Orange-Jones are the co-authors of Learners First: Purpose and Practicality in Your Early Years of Teaching (Corwin). Both based in New Jersey, Denise is an assistant professor at Georgian Court University and Keri is an assistant principal for West Orange Schools. Together they represent more than 50 years of experience in education and are still excited to be learning alongside their students and colleagues.