Associate Professor of Education Ivannia Soto-Hinman has devoted her professional career to ensuring that immigrant children receive the same challenging academic experiences and meet the same achievement standards as their English-speaking peers. Her work focuses on language acquisition, systemic reform for English Language Learners (ELLs) and urban education. Soto-Hinman has served as a consultant to Stanford University’s School Redesign Network, WestEd, and a variety of school districts in California, providing technical assistance for systematic reform with ELLs and Common Core implementation.
What sparked your interest in this topic?
The impetus for my research interest has been my mother's story, which represents the stories of many immigrants and ELLs when they enter our school system. My mother struggled in school to acquire English at a level that allowed her to become proficient in an adequate amount of time, when we didn't know what to do with our ELLs. Unfortunately, we continue to have similar results with our English learners today, especially when 59% of ELLs at the secondary level are categorized as Long-term English Learners (ELLs who have been in the same district for six years or more without making adequate progress in conversational or academic English). We must systemically rethink how we teach language and content, in an integrated fashion, in order to have different results.
How have you addressed the needs of ELL students in your work?
My recent research looks at the connection between spoken and written language. Specifically, how academic oral language can be used as a scaffold for writing when teaching ELLs. In each of my three books, I have explored different aspects of academic language development. In the Literacy Gaps, my co-author and I explored the academic language development similarities between ELLs and standard English learners (students who speak non-standard form of English). We also looked at ways to close achievement gaps between these two groups of students. ELL Shadowing as a Catalyst for Change (2012), focuses on how much time English learners spend practicing academic oral language during the school day in order to create urgency around their academic language development needs. Finally, in From Spoken to Written Language with ELLs, I explore how a series of academic language development strategies can scaffold the writing process for ELLs within the rigorous expectations of the Common Core.
This summer, with generous grant funding from the California Community Foundation (CCF), I am launching the Institute for Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching (ICLRT) at Whittier College. The goal of ICLRT is to provide research-based and practitioner-oriented professional development services and resources for K-12 systems and teacher education programs serving ELLs and SELs.
This subject lends itself to both service learning and collaborative research. How do you involve students in your work?
In fall 2013, history professor Nat Zappia and I designed and taught a paired course, EDUC 250 Issues in Urban Education and HIST 359 Early American Environmental History, which incorporated several layers of experiential pedagogy outside the walls of the classroom. Throughout the semester, 22 Whittier College students built and maintained a garden with high school students identified as ELLs at nearby La Serna High School. The goals of the service-learning garden project (sponsored by the Center for Engagement with Communities) included providing an alternative classroom for college and high school students, while also simultaneously enriching their environmental literacy and academic language skills. Results from the classroom pre- and post-surveys completed by Whittier College students demonstrated a significant increase in content understanding for the college cohort, both regarding meeting the academic language needs of ELLs and environmental literacy.
Similarly, last fall, students in my EDUC 250 Urban Education course engaged in a mentorship program with ELL students at Whittier High School. The mentoring process included shadowing an ELL (in order to get to know their academic needs), leading students through a goal setting process called the Road to Reclassification, and individualized tutoring sessions focused on reading and writing. The culmination of the project was a campus tour of Whittier College.
