Florida Board Adopts New English-Language-Proficiency Standards developed by WIDA
WIDA has established language development standards for English. These standards represent the language students need to be successful in early childhood programs and grades K-12.
The first standard, Social and Instructional Language, reflects the ways in which students interact socially to build community and establish working relationships with peers and teachers in ways that support learning.
The remaining four standards present ways multilingual learners can communicate information, ideas and concepts necessary for academic success in Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies.
Big Ideas -
Four Big Ideas anchor the standards and are interwoven throughout the framework:
Equity of opportunity and access
This is essential for multilingual learners' preparation for college, career and civic lives.
Integration of content and language
Academic content is the context for language learning, and language is the means for learning academic content.
Collaboration among stakeholders
Stakeholders share responsibility for educating multilingual learners.
Functional approach to language development
This approach helps educators focus on the purposeful use of language.
These Big Ideas support the design of standards-based educational experiences that are student-centered, culturally and linguistically sustaining, and responsive to multilingual learners' strengths and needs.
The WIDA ELD Standards Framework
Defines the language multilingual learners need as they engage in disciplinary learning. The framework serves as a resource for planning and implementing language curriculum, instruction and assessment for multilingual learners.
Educators can use the framework to:
Promote and guide systematic, explicit, and sustained language development
Support and frame collaboration among educators to plan for content and language integration in culturally and linguistically sustaining ways
Monitor multilingual learners’ language growth
Provide standards-referenced feedback to students and families
Framework Components
The framework consists of four components, ranging from broad to narrow in scope:
WIDA ELD Standards Statements
Key Language Uses
Language Expectations
Proficiency Level Descriptors
These work together to make a comprehensive picture of language development.
English Language Development (ELD) Standards are now available on CPALMS in course descriptions and under the standards tab.
For more information, please visit WIDA Site.
FDOE - ACCESS for ELLs