Content area teachers who teach multilingual students need four fundamental understandings to design and deliver lessons that foster content learning and disciplinary language simultaneously. These Integrated Language and Content Fundamentals provide educators with theoretical foundations along with pedagogical practices needed to plan and implement instruction that leverages the assets of our multilingual learners for success in content area classrooms. 

These four English Language Fundamentals guide our work with school districts as they seek to either create or enhance their current Designated (aka "Targeted" or "Standalone") ELD curricular units to build upon the strengths and meet the needs of their multilingual learners.

School districts have sought to create systemic plans for multilingual learners that move beyond compliance to insure coherence across their programs, policies and practices for their students and families. Understanding Language partners with districts to co-create, implement and refine their plans based on student evidence.

Co-founder of Understanding Language, Kenji Hakuta, contributed to a panel discussion to discuss how the 2017 National Academies report, "Promoting the Educational Success of Children and Youth Learning English" has already influenced relevant federal, state, and district policies and how it can inform current policy discussions.

These principles and accompanying Mathematical Language Routines (MLRs) provide guidance to mathematics teachers for recognizing and supporting students' language development processes in the context of mathematical sense making.

These six professional development essentials were created by Understanding Language to assist schools, school districts, state or county offices of education, and professional development providers as they design well-balanced professional development plans for educators of multilingual learners.

States, districts, and schools have asked for help with gathering information on student progress, given the shift to distance learning. In response, Understanding Language created two one-hour virtual sessions focused on strengthening Formative Assessment practices in remote and non-remote environments.

How do school communities create environments that fully prepare both English learners and dual-language learners for colleges and careers? UL staff contributed to the research and writing of this book, which profiles six high-performing high schools that had a singular focus on improving the educational outcomes of English learners.

Understanding Language developed a set of six key principles for instruction that helps ELLs meet the rigorous, grade level academic standards found in the Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards. These principles are meant to guide teachers, coaches, ELL specialists, curriculum leaders, school principals, and district administrators as they work to develop standards-aligned instruction.

At the 2013 AERA annual conference in San Francisco, Margaret Heritage, Aida Walqui, and Robert Linquanti wrote "Formative Assessment As Contingent Teaching and Learning: Perspectives on Assessment As and For Language Learning in the Content Areas". This paper builds on their prior work with a specific focus on the classroom-centered practices of formative assessment -- and, on how formative assessment can support contingent teaching and learning for English Language Learners.

The Institute for Education Sciences announced a program in Continuous Improvement Research in Education, to begin in 2014. IES also requested comment on the program, which is divided into three proposed areas of investigation. Understanding Language commends this initiative and suggests adding a fourth, complementary line of research on the role of language in content-area classrooms. For our full comment, please see the document attached below.

To ensure students' linguistic, cognitive, and academic potential is realized, state English language proficiency (ELP) standards must align with and support development of the language capacities found in the new content standards. This brief discusses the implications for designing appropriately aligned next-generation ELP standards, assessments, and instruction.