Equity-based mindsets + language & literacy practices in ALL classrooms.
Sarah Bernadette Ottow has spent over 20 years supporting schools and organizations with her Language Lens(R) approach that improves the learning experience of every student.
The Language Lens for Content Classrooms: A Guidebook for Teachers, Coaches & Leaders (2nd ed.) is the starting point for any educator, including coaches and leaders, of Academic Language Learners (ALLs) and Multilingual Learners (MLLs) in today's diverse schools.
- Ideas to invest in all students' identities
- Strategies to boost the learning of all students through speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills across the curriculum
- Tips to support student ownership in their academic success and, ultimately, their career, college, workplace, and life readiness!
This best-selling guidebook, originally published in 2019, has been updated with information for coaches and leaders plus how the Covid-19 pandemic has reshaped our schools.
This timely book provides a host of highly practical insights for addressing one of our most important challenges faced by educators striving to meet the academic and sociolinguistic needs of all students: cultivating the powerful symbiosis of language development and content learning.- Jeff Zwiers, Stanford University
As an ESL student who now sits in the superintendent's office, I appreciate the book's conscious effort to move practitioners to getting to know their students culturally and linguistically, while providing a very comprehensive set of competencies that support language learners in content classrooms. The stories of students' language learning journeys bring this work to life and the added bonuses of links to many other resources make this book a must have for anyone interested in building a multilingual community. - Victor F. Capellan, Former Superintendent
I highly recommend this book because it's so clearly written and absolutely full of useful information. I can sit down for ten minutes and come away with an understanding I can apply right away. When I'm working with a teacher, I can open up The Language Lens and easily find a tool, explanation, or diagram that applies to almost any situation or concern brought to my attention. This is what I need from professional development! Julia Jeffers, EL Coordinator
Through putting into practice Ottow's "Language Lens" for observing instruction, our building leaders have become stronger instructional leaders by not only being more in tune for what to look for but being able to provide impactful next steps to teachers. What started as learning new strategies to assist with English Language Learner instruction has morphed into providing all staff with key "all language learner" strategies that are extremely effective across all content areas and for teaching all students. We have been able to provide our staff with not only extremely clear instructional improvement points but also very clear support materials that are easily incorporated into their daily lesson plans. -Alex Naumann, Principal