WIDA founder and director Tim Boals appeared on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “The Morning Show” recently to talk about support and resources for educating multilingual learners.
WIDA, housed in the UW–Madison School of Education’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER), provides language development resources to those who support the academic success of multilingual learners — who include students who are immigrants or speak a language other than English at home.
Specifically, WIDA offers a comprehensive, research-based system of language standards, assessments, professional learning, and educator support. This comprehensive system is used by members of the WIDA Consortium, a U.S.-based collaborative group of 41 member states, territories, and federal agencies.
Speaking about WIDA’s founding 20 years ago, Boals tells The Morning Show host Kate Archer Kent: “The original grant was to create a set of language standards and a language proficiency assessment that would help guide and inform educators. And really what was unique about what we were doing is we wanted to build an entire suite of resources and professional learning that were research-based, so that we could help teachers do a better job of providing opportunities to learn for these students and help them along their English language learning journey.”
Boals explains that when WIDA began there were four different English language proficiency tests that were administered in Wisconsin schools. However, the tests were very basic and did not measure growth from year to year. “We really needed assessments that were vertically scaled,” says Boals, “that allow (educators) to see progress all the way up the ladder, because it does take numerous years — five to seven years on average — for students to reach full proficiency.”
“Teachers need good quality information to help guide (students) in what to do next in the classroom, so we developed this framework for teaching English and assessing the progress of non-native speakers,” he says.
“In addition,” says Boals, “the guidance and support and professional learning that we provide, along with the information from the assessment, really helps teachers think about, how do I get students engaged in learning within the content classrooms… because that’s where success is defined in our education system. So really building that community of learners and ensuring there is inclusivity.”
Boals tells Kent that when WIDA began the organization served three states. Today, over 40 states use WIDA’s products and services.
To learn more, listen to the full segment at wpr.org.