Multi Language Learners

Join Georgia in a discussion with Tiffany Hall and MaryAnn DeRosa around multi language learner strategies and resources.

Resources:

• https://www.lyricsgaps.com/
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309390126_Reasons_for_Using_Songs_in_the_ESLEFL_Classroom

Transcript

Tiffany Hall and MaryAnn DeRosa

Georgia Terlaje: [00:00:00] It is Time for the Edge, a podcast brought to you by its D and A SCD community leaders. Whether you're a teacher, an administrator, or someone that simply loves education, fasten your seat belts because this podcast is tailor made for you. Join us as we dive into the world of education, sharing, inspiring tales of innovation, passion, and change directly from those on the front line.

Georgia Terlaje: And the episodes to come, we'll highlight the incredible dedication and creativity that drive transformation in the field of learning. Buckle up and brace yourself for an adventure. Coming up today, we're gonna take a deep dive into multi-language learner instruction and talk about how we can better meet students' needs and authentic ways.

Georgia Terlaje: I'm Georgia Tela, a former TK five instructional coach and teacher at and educator of 36 years. And my guests today, I'm very excited, are fellow ISTE community leaders. Tiffany Hall and Maryanne Roja. Welcome to the Edge. Thank 

Tiffany Hall: you. 

Georgia Terlaje: Thank you. Thank you for having us. [00:01:00] So do you, could, would you ladies mind introducing yourself?

Georgia Terlaje: Tiffany, can we start with you? 

Tiffany Hall: Sure. I'm Tiffany Hall. I am a school principal in Columbia, west Columbia South Carolina. 

MaryAnn DeRosa: And Maryanne? Yeah, I am. My name is Maryanne Osa and I am a professor and curriculum designer in the culturally and linguistically diverse learners department at Relay graduate School of Education.

MaryAnn DeRosa: And just in case your listeners don't know about Relay. Relay. We partner with educators at every stage of their career from like aspiring teachers to school leaders, and we use practice-based programs and evidence-based strategies to help them lead more effectively. So thank you for having us.

MaryAnn DeRosa: You know, relay, I wanted to mention also we have this we have a foundational course for teaching multilingual learners at all teachers. Take in our program because we know if we support the success of multilingual learners, we support all students. So thank [00:02:00] you for having us here today for this important conversation.

Georgia Terlaje: Oh, we're so glad to have you join us 'cause this is a very important conversation and I always like to start out with asking people's origin story with its D and a SCD and you know, how you became community leaders. So if one of you wants to start and then the other can jump in and just tell us how you came to its d and a SCD.

Tiffany Hall: Well, I'll, I'll start. So we both were Marianne, you were an emerging leader too, right? For a SCD? Just a SCD Champion. Champion. Okay. So I started with A SCD as an emerging leader and then a former A SCD community. What, what's Walters. Title, I can't even remember. He, but he, he led all those community groups within a SCD.

Tiffany Hall: And so he pulled together a group of folks just across the nation and started Ed Champs. And [00:03:00] that's it was kind of mid-year career folks that folks we wanted to investigate what our passions, what made us get into education and make sure that we were keeping that ignited. And Maryanne and I and a couple other folks really connected in these meetings that we would have virtually and in person at the, the annual conferences.

Tiffany Hall: Maryanne? Yeah. The 

MaryAnn DeRosa: program was, it was called a SCD, ed Champs. And that's how we became leaders. They helped, they let us write for EL Magazine and we became good friends with also star Sax Dean and Alexander Lang, where we eventually collaborated on a book that just came out. It's called Solving School Challenges.

MaryAnn DeRosa: The everything Guide to Transformative Change. So just like, it's amazing how community-based organizations like is D and A SCD can bring teachers together to share their passions and maybe create together and do things and share strategies. I. 

Georgia Terlaje: That is definitely one of the best things I [00:04:00] think about.

Georgia Terlaje: Its d and a SCD is just the educators you meet from all over the world and how they become part of your personal PLN and just being able to mine information from everyone. It's so powerful. But to kind of focus back on our multi language learners how can educators use technology to help students leverage their first language as a bridge to learning their second language?

MaryAnn DeRosa: Do you wanna take this, Stephanie, or do you want me to 

Tiffany Hall: start? You Go ahead. 

MaryAnn DeRosa: Yeah. I think this is so important. There's so many ways but I wanted to focus on the use of artificial intelligence first. So we know that multilingual learners come with like. Funds of knowledge and their language is an incredible asset to learn in additional language.

MaryAnn DeRosa: So we as teachers need to understand how to use their home language, language one to leverage language two or the, the English language. And the way that we do that is by building a bridge between. Two languages. [00:05:00] So for teachers, AI or chat, GBT is an invaluable tool to conduct a contrastive analysis.

MaryAnn DeRosa: And for your listeners, a contrastive analysis is comparing the two languages. Now we know a lot about the structure of sp Spanish, how English and Spanish share cognates, and you can leverage those to teach English. And we know the syntax structure of Spanish and how it compares English, and you can leverage that to teach English.

MaryAnn DeRosa: But we have students in our classrooms who speak pto, Afghani, Mandarin, Arabic. And while these languages are distanced, there are still bridges we can draw. However, we don't know much about those languages, so you can prompt AI with the question. Can you conduct a contrastive analysis between say, Mongolian and English, and where can I leverage Language one to support [00:06:00] Language two and chat GPT?

MaryAnn DeRosa: We'll give you some great suggestions and strategies for using Language one. Urdu to support English language, the language two, of course, you have to check, right? The response by asking chat GPT on a scale of one to 10, how reliable is your response? And it will tell you, and it's even better if you can check with a native speaker.

MaryAnn DeRosa: But we have found those suggestions are super helpful to conduct a contrastive analysis with an unfamiliar. Language before you really had to dig and there wasn't that much information out there. And now the AI is doing all that research for you. So that's just one way. Tiffany? 

Tiffany Hall: Yeah, and I have a, a cheesy connection to this because technology outside of like artificial intelligence, I've learned so much on TikTok.

Tiffany Hall: I, like I, I'm going to El Salvador this summer on a mission trip, and. I watched a TikTok [00:07:00] video that just reminded me that the like things that end in IAL and Spanish and my community that I serve is about 40% Hispanic. So Spanish, most of our ML learners are Spanish speaking. We do have some that are Farsi.

Tiffany Hall: We have students that are from Afghanistan. We also have. Chu as well, which is not Spanish at all. But like IAL ending in like social becomes ciel and so you can get like. I learned in a quick minute, just a refresher, even though I was a Spanish minor. You forget those things. Like 3000 words, like anything with IAL is gonna be, you know, that socio politic, no, it wouldn't be political.

Tiffany Hall: I'm trying to think of some other ones. Marianne is fluent in Spanish, so and like. TENT ante. And so like how quickly you can give access to students whether it's a quick little video, just reminder of some [00:08:00] of those connections and, and cognates as well outside of ai, 

MaryAnn DeRosa: yeah, I think you can learn a lot about, like the etymology of words or like the morph themes and like just.

MaryAnn DeRosa: See how these pieces connect. And then once we as teachers know and understand a language, then you can pass on that like meta metacognitive awareness of language or meta linguistic awareness of language. And like Tiffany is saying, you know, you can make those connections and learn more words and accelerate the the the learning of new vocabulary.

Georgia Terlaje: And that's so exciting to think of being able to use these tools now. 'cause I've been around since dinosaurs roam the earth in education. And you know, back in the day when you got a newcomer, you know, oh yeah. From anywhere you either had to find a native speaker, which where I taught, you know, finding someone that spoke Farsi wasn't easy.

Georgia Terlaje: And now you have all this at your fingertips. It's so exciting, the [00:09:00] support that a teacher that maybe isn't even bilingual would be able to give to students. You know, just at a basic level, it's like transformational. 

MaryAnn DeRosa: It's amazing. I think that you do have to know that you can ask that question, right? I, I think that, you know, there's some training that comes along with, with teachers and like this excitement about languages and how you can learn languages because you have so much access now with these tools.

MaryAnn DeRosa: So I hope that your listeners, if they're listening, they're like, on chat GPT right now and being like, oh, how is you know Farsi connected to English, and how can I use that knowledge to leverage? Or do you have any strategies for me to leverage Afghani to learn 

Tiffany Hall: English? I think that's a good point too, Marianne.

Tiffany Hall: 'cause I, I do work, I do have, I've done some part-time work for art artificial intelligence. And when I've done that, like it's been specific to what my degree is in. So I think some times people think that artificial intelligence is. [00:10:00] Artificial, but it's like, it's not really artificial. Like there are people behind like checking the, the work, right.

Tiffany Hall: So I don't wanna get too much into detail of what, what happened, but like if there was a prompt, like I would analyze that prompt and whether that prompt was a good prompt and how it could have been worded better. So kind of what to what Maryanne is saying. I think the big thing now it's like.

Tiffany Hall: Prepping, whether it's students or teachers, that they have to have good questions when they're using artificial intelligence because they will not necessarily get the answers they're looking for. And if they're not well versed on what they're, that topic, they're not gonna be able to catch that they're not getting the information that, that they really need.

Georgia Terlaje: And I, that's true I think in all of like artificial intelligence for education. 'cause we, co-hosting partner and I teach a lot of classes to teachers on artificial intelligence, and that's like the number one thing to learn is how to write good prompts and [00:11:00] how to be able to rewrite and know what you're looking for and how to write better prompts, and then how to save those prompts so you don't have to recreate them again, which.

Georgia Terlaje: I think, you know, that's a new learning curve for people too. Oh, I should save these. I don't need to like recreate 'em. But speaking of digital tools what other are effective digital tools are there that can provide scaffolding for these multi-language learners, particularly in increasing comprehensible input and reducing cognitive overload?

MaryAnn DeRosa: This is a, a great question. I I'm thinking about making complex text accessible. So for example, there are several like text leveler tools. For example, reword I or there's one in Magic School ai. I. Where you can take a text and create a summary or a gist of the content to reduce the cognitive overload on the first read.

MaryAnn DeRosa: Now, you don't want to lower the rigor, but you can pair that level text with [00:12:00] the original grade level text for support in a way to increase comprehensible input and then access that grade level text. The other thing I'm thinking about is with Google Docs, you can amplify the text by adding images and icons.

MaryAnn DeRosa: So take a, a grade level rigorous text and like you can chunk it, head it up, just more manageable pieces to increase comprehensible input and then add those little images and icons. And of course, it takes. Long time, but then again, Georgia, as you said, you can save it for next year, right? You can save it.

MaryAnn DeRosa: Save it today 

Georgia Terlaje: a hundred percent. I mean, if any, we can get anything to listeners. Save the things you save the that you need. Always tweak later, but hard to recreate them on the fly, you know, a year later. 

MaryAnn DeRosa: Exactly, exactly. You know, another great tool I'm sure your listeners know about it is Diffit, I don't know, Tiffany, of your teachers.

MaryAnn DeRosa: I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Some extra practice with content, [00:13:00] and again, it, it will level that content. You can ask it to differentiate the materials, and you add images in that, which I think is great for comp, for increasing comprehensible input. 

Tiffany Hall: When I think just for like with our newcomers and stuff, like they know Google translate, like, I mean.

Tiffany Hall: Almost to important. We, South Carolina is an immersion state, so we're not supposed to translate. But, and I think that's the key too, is not allowing our students to just sit in their, their home language. So my own my oldest son was in partial immersion for Spanish and kindergarten, and. You know, in math and science, you totally immerse in the language and they learn it very rapidly.

Tiffany Hall: Usually before the age of 12, it gets a little bit, I'm, I work with middle schoolers, so it gets a little bit harder. At this age, the, the, the language acquisition is not as rapid, but helping them to navigate how to appropriately use and like be able to work with the material. Right. I think Google Translate is a.

Tiffany Hall: A [00:14:00] great way to do that. And then being able to do things like, you know, like Maryanne said, pair down the text. You can use like new news and things like that as well to lexile it down so you're not losing the meat of the content. And then perhaps even letting students translate, but then, or they, they read it in their home language, but they have to have.

Tiffany Hall: A conversation with their peers in, in English or the reverse. We pair down the text and we ask them to read it in English and allow, within my building, we, we do have students who within one class, they're gonna be multiple students that are of the same language, home language, so native language.

Tiffany Hall: And so allowing them to have that conversation in there. Their own. The other thing is in their own home language, but I find it really interesting too, just with access testing, which most states do they have some kind of form for their form of [00:15:00] testing to show that students are ML students are progressing in their learning.

Tiffany Hall: And I find it interesting just to think about when I talk into my phone and I'm giving directions and I'm like, oh wow, that was not and there's a great I wanna say it's amplify. Do you know what I'm talking about, Maryanne? It's a great, I wanted to purchase it this year and we. Only have it for a small group of folks, but it's also where the students are, are practicing their speaking skills and it's artificial intelligence that's kind of rating it and giving them feedback.

Georgia Terlaje: That's, that sounds very powerful. Maryanne, do you have any like digital tools you're using for the language output practice? 

MaryAnn DeRosa: You know, there is that voice assistant, and I think it is called Amplify. I know that you said that we I think it's helpful for students to speak in, even, you know, it is getting better like the, the speech to text on like Word as well.

MaryAnn DeRosa: Before it used to be terrible and it's just like [00:16:00] this big mess you would come up. But, I think it's helpful for students to speak into any speech to text program, and then they can reread and see if that was what they meant to say. I. I also think that, for example many schools have Seesaw. We had it in my school where you know, it's the portfolio and then you talk about whatever you've uploaded and the kids are just just talking, talking, talking away, you know you're not getting any feedback, of course, but as long as there's output.

MaryAnn DeRosa: Kids are trying that is a really helpful learning tool. And because you're, you know, you're by yourself and Seesaw, you that affective filter that the anxiety is a little bit lower because you're just speaking into the seesaw to describe it. 

Georgia Terlaje: Have, have you seen any educators in, in this area use Adobe Express's, animate from audio to have students.

Georgia Terlaje: Speak. So I don't know if you've checked it out, but they, no. So Adobe Express is free in case anyone doesn't know listeners list. Okay. [00:17:00] If you're an educator writing it down. Yeah. Adobe Express, they have a, a thing called animate from audio, which gives students. I would say at least a hundred or more characters to choose from.

Georgia Terlaje: Cartoon characters, real people, all different skin tones and, you know able bodied, you know, all those things. But then they can actually talk and the character does the talking. Because I know middle schoolers don't like to be on camera. Right. But it, I, it would be a fun way. 'cause then you can create movies with it and all these different things.

Georgia Terlaje: And I've seen people using that in creative ways, especially for like ELD classes as just language practice. 

Tiffany Hall: I love 

MaryAnn DeRosa: that. 

Tiffany Hall: Yeah. Check that 

MaryAnn DeRosa: out. Love that 

Tiffany Hall: too. 

Georgia Terlaje: I, I, I like stuff that makes everything fun, you know? And like, and more engaging. And speaking of fun how about like, songs? And I know like songs, rhythm and movement can make language learning more engaging.

Georgia Terlaje: Any tech tools educators can use to [00:18:00] integrate music-based learning into their multi-language learner instruction. 

MaryAnn DeRosa: Okay. I love this so much. I think music is so important for learning and new language. I wish we would see it more often in schools. You know, music is like culturally relevant, right? Not only are you learning the language, but you're learning about the American culture.

MaryAnn DeRosa: If you're a newcomer. Popular songs tend to use middle grades vocabulary. I'm thinking Taylor Swift, right? You should just teach all Taylor Swift songs. Everybody would be happy. Like rhythm. And the beat supports fluency. The word repetition, like recall and retention. And then there are those like formulaic sequences.

MaryAnn DeRosa: Again, like, you know, like shake it off Taylor Swift. Or like, look what you made me do. I know. I'm sorry. I'm doing a lot of Taylor Swift here, but I think it's so important to just put it use YouTube or just your music to [00:19:00] teach. Students, the English language or their, their second language. And there are some great tools like vocabulary.

MaryAnn DeRosa: I'm sure a lot of the teachers use that and that, that really sticks with you. And there is a tool, or there's many tools, but it's called like lyrics gap. You can go online, it's called lyrics gap.com, and you can choose a song and what level you want. And what it will do is it will sing the song.

MaryAnn DeRosa: Except have some missing words, and then the kids will have to type in what words are, are missing and that, that's just like a really fun practice or, you know, center activity. But I, I think singing is great. High tech, low tech, just saying Yes, super engaging. 

Tiffany Hall: And I was about to say, so, and we this year purchased national Geographics curriculum and their online curriculum as well, which incorporates a lot of technology as well.

Tiffany Hall: And they have hit the kids through. I thought this is, it's [00:20:00] interesting 'cause you can buy the workbooks with it and it's like Lady Gaga and Oh really? They're using popular music within those lessons. So I thought, I wonder when, how many times they'll have to redo this when they'll republish, but, hopefully Lady Gaga stays popular with the kids, but same, same kind of thing where they're filling in the gaps of like the music. They'll like listen to the lyrics and then, and then choose the word depending on, and their, they're leveled, of course depending on where the student is in their ML progress.

MaryAnn DeRosa: Yeah, there's research out there that you know and I'll have to send it to you Georgia, that, students who use singing in the classroom outperform their speaking counterparts where the, the class was just using speaking, one class was using singing outperformed regarding vocabulary learning also on grammar tests because of the formulaic frames.

MaryAnn DeRosa: And just like a higher positive affect. 'cause it was fun, right? To learn. So I'll have to [00:21:00] send that to you, Georgia. 

Georgia Terlaje: Yeah, please. Because we can include it in the show notes. Yeah. Speaking of, of fun again with l language learning. So there's like gamified language learning apps like Duolingo and Fluent U or immersive VR experiences.

Georgia Terlaje: They can all make learning fun, but how can educators incorporate these tools to keep students motivated while ensuring they get well-rounded language experience? 

Tiffany Hall: Yeah, so I think you have to use a blended approach with that. And again, it, it kind of depends on, on the course with our newcomers, we use imagine Learning, which is, is gamified for the kids as well.

Tiffany Hall: And that we don't. They're in a 30 minute class, so it's a very limited amount of time. So something like Duolingo, I think like students completing maybe like 10 minutes something outside of class that is maybe related to the vocabulary they're gonna be studying within the classroom. [00:22:00] And I know like we also have IXL at my school as well, which the kids like IXL as well.

Tiffany Hall: And so I do a leaderboard every week and so I can, you know, get them into competition with each other. So I think setting those kinds of things where, it's just, it's fun pairing students together, even letting them work as a pair to, to compete. I think those, those are the kinds of things that help students.

Tiffany Hall: The virtual reality I love as well because you can bring some of the culture of our students into the classroom and connect what they already have a background knowledge on to what they're learning within the classroom. So I, I love any opportunity. Opportunity to bring the real world to kids.

Tiffany Hall: So.

Georgia Terlaje: I, I, I love that because, you know, anything that engages students, whether it's multi-language learning or, or students just in general, I think is we have to, we have to have a lot of tools in our belt to keep [00:23:00] kids engaged and also to, you know, give that high quality instruction. Do you have some tips about like, how educators could strike a balance between tech-driven learning and meaningful human-centered interaction?

Georgia Terlaje: What would you, what would you suggest to teachers trying to balance that out? 

Tiffany Hall: I think so. I'm a big proponent of kids speaking to each other in general today just because there is so much technology. They do so much behind screens. And the, the social skills I, I taught psychology and sociology and so they've done research.

Tiffany Hall: It is proven right now that the, the frontal lobe is becoming smaller, where that your social skills would normally develop and that part of the brain. And so I think definitely having kids. Speak to each other in class is. Is what we wanna see happening. However, especially with students who are you know, are newcomers or our students who are still in a la language [00:24:00] acquisition of, in, in South Carolina, we're like one, one to a 4.4 is like.

Tiffany Hall: Where they are deemed that they can exit their ML status. So I would say that those new learners need more support. So allowing them maybe to do something like it used to be Flipgrid, now it's just flip, you know, where they can, where, record something in advance if you're gonna have them speaking so that they feel comfortable and confident.

Tiffany Hall: And it may take them a little bit longer because I do notice that if our students, when we set them up to speak, if they are not prepared appropriately or have enough time, they will just shut down or they'll revert back to their home language. We, we also have AVID at my school and Avid Excel, which is for multilingual learners.

Tiffany Hall: And so that's been just one of my teachers said, well, this was, what did she say it was? It was miraculous to watch our, many of our students who didn't wanna talk in the first place [00:25:00] just come to life and, and be so proud of their work. And so I think being able to use technology tools to, to level the playing field or give access in advance is, is super helpful.

Tiffany Hall: In helping. And also like, I think Maryanne just mentioned. About using Google Docs, and so maybe allowing students to collaborate within a Google document. Allowing students to use AI to and, and it's at different grade levels, you would have to decide what's appropriate. Of course a kindergartner, you may not want them speaking into AI and just taking that and putting that into a Google doc.

Tiffany Hall: But allowing a student to perhaps like, have their, their input into AI to develop a, a paragraph, and then they take that as a team and then they. They refine it, they edit it, they give feedback to, to up the ante of that, the rigor level of that. Assessment or [00:26:00] that whatever it is that the students have responded to, if it's a writing prompt or a verbal prompt.

Tiffany Hall: So I think there are lots of ways that you, that you can incorporate 

MaryAnn DeRosa: and then they're like talking back and forth in, on that shared doc in, in the human way because like 

Tiffany Hall: Right. 

MaryAnn DeRosa: You know, while tech is helpful, you know, for, for teachers especially as we're planning and learning about languages and for students, it's not a replacement for the human interaction as.

MaryAnn DeRosa: Tiffany was saying about sociology and psychology because language is really a part of your identity, right? It's not just words, it's culture and gestures and facial expressions. It's human, right? So if you're learning a second language, you need that human. Interaction. So technology is good for a vocabulary practice.

MaryAnn DeRosa: You know, I'm thinking Duolingo, all the kids are on Duolingo now, which I love. Or like for a preview or, or to build background knowledge if you're watching something on like [00:27:00] multimedia. But it's the human interaction where you will get that fluency or like how Tiffany's going to El Salvador, right?

MaryAnn DeRosa: She's gonna get immersed and immediately having those conversations with. Other people you're gonna need that human interaction for feedback for motivation and for growth. 

Tiffany Hall: I think even like jam boards or like padlets are also helpful because I think the more that students can, and that's a good for ML students, I mean, you know, if you've been psyop trained or any of those things, the, the teaching is good for all students, any students.

Tiffany Hall: Right, right, right. So, and for any of our. Students to see the thinking of others. And even when students think wrong and they're, they maybe thought that same way, then it, it's like, oh, okay, well everybody kind of thought what I thought. So, you know, 'cause you can stay inside your head and think, oh gosh, I'm always wrong.

Tiffany Hall: I don't, I don't know how to do this. But, but when they can see the thinking of their peers as well, I think that's [00:28:00] super helpful. In their, their learning. 

Georgia Terlaje: So not all students have equal access to technology outside of school. What are some strategies for ensuring that tech supported language learning remains equitable and inclusive for all multi-language learners?

MaryAnn DeRosa: Well, Tiffany, I'm gonna let you take this 'cause you're a principal and you're so good at partnering outside your school and figuring out ways to give equal opportunity to everyone of your students. 

Tiffany Hall: Yeah, so we are lucky to be a one-to-one district. So a lot of times if and, and we practice this 'cause of weather days and things like that but.

Tiffany Hall: If there are things that we know that students need to have translated or have copies of things that are, 'cause we are a Google based school, so a lot of our teachers post a lot of their work to Google Classroom that the students do those things before they leave the building. And so just being cognizant of that, I will say that [00:29:00] I find very, very few students.

Tiffany Hall: No matter their demographic. And I am in a Title one school as well. A 75% minority as a whole do not have access to technology in the sense that they have a phone. So they, pretty much a hundred percent of middle schoolers have a phone. And so I think getting them to know how to use their technology appropriately, that they do have access to and then.

Tiffany Hall: You know, in, in some districts we've been able to supply hotspots. So we've had grants and things like that to ensure that, or even the, the mobile buses that will go and park in a certain area and provide wifi for, for a surrounding neighborhood. And so I think there are lots of ways that you can make sure that that happens.

Tiffany Hall: But I think. My, my folks, I have to really commend my teachers because they, it's that, it's back to the human. Part of what we do [00:30:00] is they know our students in depth. They know who, who needs what at home, who doesn't have what at home. And, you know, before the kids leave the building, they make sure that they have whatever it is, if it, if they're not gonna have access to.

Tiffany Hall: Usually if they have their, if they have their computer, they can still type in a Word doc. They can upload it when they get to school. Teachers make accommodations for kids, you know, based, based on that. And, and like I said, downloading if they need to translate or something like that in advance. We actually are getting, I think it's called.

Tiffany Hall: A B below I wanna say is what is as well. And this is just from a parent standpoint, it's a translation device that like, you just, it's gonna be in our front office and we speak into it. We say that and it's, it's better, I guess, than like just a Google translate on your phone. I hope so. 'cause it's, I think it's about.

Tiffany Hall: $2,000 a device. So but, and then, and then the parent can talk right [00:31:00] back in their home language and it'll speak back to us in English. And so that's definitely one of the things that we, we really try to make sure that we are equitable. We also have a translator once a week, like in our building. So.

Tiffany Hall: We, we make phone calls. Our, our teachers as well, they use talking Points is the app that they use to communicate with parents, and it automatically translates to whatever the home language is of the parents. So we try to be equitable in all. Like I said, most of our folks have some sort of technology to communicate with, whether they know.

Tiffany Hall: How to use it appropriately or not, or how to, like I also do a weekly newsletter as a principal with S'more and there's just a button and I, when, when school first starts for our new parents, I always tell 'em, you know, up at the top rate there's a button and it translates any language. So just trying to be, it's really 

MaryAnn DeRosa: important to make sure that pa parents and families, when we're talking about homework [00:32:00] or outside of school that you know, that are.

MaryAnn DeRosa: Students are still learning their home language, their native language, and they're keeping that and then using the technology to learn English or to do, to do their homework. But it's important for them to try to maintain both languages because like, what, what a gift it is to have several languages.

Georgia Terlaje: Especially at a young age. Yes. To be able to learn it then when your brain is still malleable and yeah. No, it is definitely a gift. A a, a leg up in this world for sure. Yes. This has been such a great conversation. I wanna thank you again, ladies, for being here today. We really appreciate your time and your message.

Georgia Terlaje: Before we go, where could listeners connect with you? Tiffany, where could listeners connect with you if they wanna? Sure. 

Tiffany Hall: On X and on blue sky it is Dr. Tiffany Hall. And then on LinkedIn it is Tiffany Turner Hall. I. 

Georgia Terlaje: Maryanne, where can [00:33:00] listeners find 

MaryAnn DeRosa: you? So funny. 'cause Tiffany and I are so busy.

MaryAnn DeRosa: We're never on the socials, but we try, we try. But yes, I'm on LinkedIn Maryanne Osa. I hope to connect with anyone of your listeners and slightly on Instagram. Dr. Maryanne Osa. I'm trying. I'm trying. But thank you so much for having us on. It was, it was a lot of fun. Yes. It, 

Georgia Terlaje: it's definitely hard to keep track of all the socials as more being added.

Georgia Terlaje: You almost need your own 

MaryAnn DeRosa: social media 

Georgia Terlaje: proceeds. 

MaryAnn DeRosa: Right. Speaking of being dinosaurs and meeting through Ed Champs, I think we're, we missed that generation, which I'm kind of grateful for, but it's great to learn these new I mean, we're so lucky to have this new technology, especially the AI as we were discussing.

Georgia Terlaje: Oh, for sure. Well, that wraps up this episode of the Edge podcast. We hope you had a great time. My name is Georgia Slahi and you can find me at Georgia Slahi on Blue Sky and X, and also at storytelling saves the world.com. And on behalf of everyone at Isti Edge Podcast, remember to keep exploring your [00:34:00] passion, fostering your creativity, and continue taking risks, all things that can bring you to the edge,