The Children's Equity Project & The Century Foundation's DLI Framework Webinar Series

Webinar Series: Access and Quality in Dual Language Immersion Programs in Early Care & Education

Dual language immersion (DLI) refers to an educational model in which children receive part of their instruction in English and the other part in a partner language (e.g., Spanish). There is a robust body of research supporting DLI programming as the gold standard for children who are emergent bilinguals. Children who are emergent bilinguals with access to high-quality DLI programming in the early years have more advanced bilingual fluency, learn English faster, and have better academic gains in later grades. Yet, only 8% of children who are emergent bilinguals between K-12 have access to DLI programming, creating a major gap between research and practice, as well as persisting educational inequities. 

The Children’s Equity Project and The Century Foundation are co-hosting a series of monthly virtual webinars to take deep dives into its recent reports on emergent bilinguals’ access to DLI programs and on how to operationalize high-quality DLI programming for emergent bilinguals in early care and education, specifically infants/toddlers, preschoolers, and students in K-2nd grade. Federal, state, and local education leaders, teachers, and bilingual research experts will serve as panelists.

Intended Audience:

The intended audience for these webinars includes education leaders, program administrators, teachers, coaches, special education personnel, researchers, and more.

These webinars will be ideal for:

• Federal, state, and local education agencies seeking to improve their supports of emergent bilinguals.

• English programs wanting to transition to DLI programs.

• Existing DLI programs committed to ongoing quality improvement.

Topics addressed in the webinars:

• Webinar 1: Equitable Access, High-Quality Programming: A New Framework for Dual Language Education

• Webinar 2: Programmatic Structures

• Webinar 3: Language Allocation

• Webinar 4: Pedagogy, Curriculum, Instruction

• Webinar 5: Assessment

• Webinar 6: Workforce, Professional Development, Credentialing

• Webinar 7: Family Leadership & Engagement

• Webinar 8: Services & Inclusion for Emergent Bilinguals with Suspected or Identified Disabilities

• Webinar 9: Federal, State, & Local Policies to Facilitate DLI Programming

   

Equitable Access, High-Quality Programming: A New Framework for Dual Language Education (June 11, 2024)

The Children’s Equity Project and The Century Foundation highlighted our new framework for providing emergent bilinguals with access to high-quality dual language education. The science is clear: bilingualism yields a host of benefits and dual language education is the gold standard for emergent bilinguals. Yet, emergent bilinguals’ access to high-quality education is uneven, and there is limited consensus on what high-quality dual language education looks like for young children.

We provided an overview of our two recent reports focusing on ensuring equitable access to high-quality dual language education and on a framework of high-quality dual language education for infants/toddlers, preschoolers, and early elementary age students. We summarized the findings of a study examining the extent to which emergent bilinguals in K-12 have access to dual language education, and shared policy implications. We also provided an overview of a seven-part framework addressing programmatic structures; language allocation; curricula, pedagogy, and instruction; workforce, credentialing, and professional development; family leadership and engagement, and more! This is the first webinar in an ongoing monthly series on each ingredient of the dual language immersion framework.