Engaging the Families of Multilingual Learners During the Pandemic

By, Dr. Amy Crosson, Associate Professor, Penn State’s College of Education,  Dr. Rebecca Silverman, Associate Professor, Stanford Graduate School of Education, Dr. Aaron Leo, Assistant Director of Research, NYKids, and Kristen C. Wilcox, Associate Professor, University at Albany & Director, NYKids

In this blog, Dr. Amy Crosson and Dr. Aaron Leo discuss the challenges and strategies that educators used to engage multilingual families during the pandemic. Dr. Crosson and Dr. Leo met during a roundtable session at the 2023 American Educational Research Association’s Annual Conference held in Chicago, Illinois in April 2023. Conferences such as AERA present valuable opportunities for members of the NYKids team to connect with other scholars like Dr. Crosson who are conducting research to identify evidence-based practices to improve youth experiences in and beyond schools.

Introduction

Research confirms what parents and teachers already know: positive and mutually respectful communications between families and schools are good for kids. Indeed, family involvement in school correlates with positive academic and social-emotional outcomes for children.

Nonetheless, many teachers and multilingual families have reported facing obstacles to family-school communications. For example, some teachers tend to communicate less frequently with multilingual families and think of multilingual parents as less competent or less interested in schooling.

In light of these challenges, the shift to remote instruction during COVID-19 presented a unique opportunity to disrupt communication patterns between schools and multilingual families, and for new, equity-oriented practices to emerge.

Here we report on two studies that examined communications between teachers and multilingual families during COVID school closures. 

Study #1: “In the Moment: Teachers’ Adaptations to Literacy Instruction for Bilingual Children during COVID-19”

The first study was a “diary study” with 50 teachers of multilingual children (all designated “English Learners” in grades K-2).  Teachers were from a wide range of public school contexts (40% urban, 48% suburban, and 12% rural) and 10 states. Two-thirds taught in schools serving under-resourced communities.

Method

Teachers submitted diary entries using a smartphone-based research platform over two weeks at the height of school closures (winter 2021). They provided video recordings, voice memos, and responded to open-ended questions to describe their approaches to remote literacy instruction during COVID and communications with multilingual families. We transcribed and coded responses for obstacles and facilitators that hindered or facilitated communications with families.

Findings

Despite several anticipated obstacles (e.g., families’ lack of access to digital tools and services; “language barriers”; unavailability of working family members) teachers identified some promising new facilitators to communication with multilingual families.

• Greater frequency and immediacy of communication. Approximately one-third of teachers reported greater frequency of communication as well as more immediate “real time” and “in the moment” communication with families during remote instruction, compared to before the pandemic. One teacher commented, “one of the benefits of COVID it is I have been able to get more communication with my families which has helped grow a stronger relationship between myself the families and the students.”
• New One quarter of teachers observed that remote instruction afforded new opportunities to build partnerships with families. For example, teachers observed that several parents asked more specific questions, provided more specific observations of child’s learning during remote instruction, and requested educational resources to extend children’s learning at home.
• Transformative technologies. Half of teachers described how adoption of new translation apps, services, and digital platforms helped facilitate communications during remote instruction. One teacher noted, “with trying to communicate with parents more often since distance learning, I have started to use an app called Talking Points in which I can send text messages to parents. I type them in English. The app translates for me into their home language. The app has all the home languages that I need. I can send quick updates and get instant replies from them on a daily weekly basis.”

Study #2: NYKids’ Study: “Adaptations and Innovations during the COVID-19 Pandemic”

NYKids’ recent study of adaptations and innovations during the COVID pandemic utilized interviews and focus groups with 88 educators in 6 schools in New York State. These schools were chosen based on their relatively lower rates of job dissatisfaction and stress as measured by a survey sent out by NYKids in 2020 (~1 year into the pandemic). The study was designed to identify some of the reasons for their comparably better educator responses to the survey and capture how experiences varied in elementary and secondary schools serving different student populations and located in different kinds of communities (e.g. urban, suburban, rural).

While our cross-case report details some of the common themes that emerged across these schools, each setting faced unique challenges and developed strategies which fit the local population. For instance, at Shaker Road Elementary School, 12% of their students were classified as English learners at the time of the study. Interviews with Shaker Road educators provided a window into the experience of serving English learners and their families during the pandemic.

Like Dr. Crosson’s study described above, the NYKids research team observed many challenges that educators at Shaker Road Elementary School faced as they attempted to engage multilingual families. For instance, many educators described how their English learner families struggled economically during the pandemic. In some cases, educators explained, the families of English learners had migrated from, and still had family living in, countries where the virus was continuing to take a heavy toll. This sometimes meant that families continued to keep their children at home and in remote teaching arrangements even after the school reopened.

While acknowledging these challenges, educators also noted several strategies they found to be effective to engage the families of their English learners.

• Utilizing a range of technologies. Educators explained the need to use a variety of tools to communicate with families including virtual applications such as Google Classroom, Zoom, and emails. ParentSquare, in particular, was seen as a particularly effective method to communicate with the family members of English learners. A teacher said, “A huge benefit is that if a parent goes in, I can change the language so things will automatically translate when I receive that message.”

• Staying connected with direct contact. Educators at Shaker Road also described the need to continue to maintain close connections with students and families during the pandemic. In addition to the methods of communication described above, educators also made efforts to visit families’ homes when possible and safe and creating extracurricular events such as parades. As the principal explained:

We found different ways to get the staff driving through neighborhoods and visiting with kids… we made a deliberate effort, and there was just an unspoken commitment by the staff that we were going to stay connected to our kids and their families. And I think it made a difference for sure.

• Attending to families’ economic needs. Lastly, educators sought to address families’ economic needs during the pandemic by holding events such as food drives and redistributing school supplies, computers, and backpacks to those in need. Recognizing the challenges that many families were experiencing during the pandemic, educators endeavored to deliver these goods to families and coordinated with the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) and other community organizations to ensure families’ pressing needs were being met.

As always, thank you for your interest in NYKids!

If you seek any support in using these or other evidence-based strategies – NYKids is here to help. Just reach out for a virtual meeting with one of our research staff or fold us into your school-based improvement planning by calling our University at Albany office (518) 442-5171 or email nykids@albany.edu.

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To learn more about Amy Crosson’s research on multilingual education, we invite you to visit Google Scholar, Penn State College of Education, and the Center for Language Science at Penn State. More about Rebecca Silverman’s research can be found at the Language to Literacy Research Lab at Stanford.