Individualized Language Plans: A Potential Tool for Collaboration to Support Multilingual Students

What Does ESL Mean to Her? An Analysis of Women of Color Recounting Their Attempts to Exit EL Instructional Services

“…Even when backed by federal policy, research shows us how other social power dynamics influence how the decision-making of parents of ELs from marginalized backgrounds are often dismissed (e.g., Cioê-Peña, 2020a, 2020b; Kanno & Kangas, 2014). Similarly, Thompson and Rodriguez-Mojica (2023) illustrate how focus on compliance can also drown out genuine attempts to incorporate the voices of youth. Creating a space for student decision-making requires systems in which school officials can support youth and their families.…”

“…School-affiliated adults make initial decisions about program selection; parents/guardians can affirm or reject the decisions of school-affiliated adults (Every Student Succeeds Act, 2015). While certain schools, counselors, EL administrators, or parents/guardians may consider youths’ desires (e.g., Thompson & Rodriguez-Mojica, 2023), no formal policy gives youths the power of educational decision-making, or even allows for their input.…”

Individualized Language Plans: Promises and Pitfalls

“…Anchoring ILP documents and meetings in student data can enable teachers to increase their understanding of and capacity to support the linguistic needs of MLs, as Thompson and Rodriguez-Mojica's (2023) noted in their study:…”

“…Although the literature on ILPs is alarmingly scant, scholarship to date has highlighted a promising affordance of ILPs: these documents can promote systemic change for MLs by enhancing collaborative practices among teachers (Thompson & Rodriguez‐Mojica, 2023; Umansky & Avelar, 2023). In two school districts, for example, ILP teams functioned much like IEP teams, enabling groups of teachers to come together, share student data, and discuss instructional strategies to support individual MLs (Thompson & Rodriguez‐Mojica, 2023). As the authors discussed, this was a departure from previous ILP processes in the one district, wherein only ML teachers developed and implemented ILPs.…”

“…Umansky and Avelar (2023), in fact, characterize ML education in the United States as employing a “one‐size‐fits‐all approach” (p. 11) that underserves particular ML populations. In response, some scholars have called for the implementation of individualized language plans (ILPs) to promote systemic change in ML programming in schools (Thompson & Rodriguez‐Mojica, 2023; Umansky & Avelar, 2023). Notably, ILPs have gained traction in schools in recent years, as over 25% of states mandate or recommend the use of ILPs.…”