This WIDA Snapshot offers an introduction to awareness, one of the six ABCs of Family and Community Engagement. The ABCs of Family and Community Engagement are six key considerations for educators who support multilingual learners and their families and communities.
Awareness in action: Engaging with multilingual learners, families and communities
As educators, building awareness is essential to our family and community engagement work. Yet, guidance is limited on developing awareness when engaging with families and communities of multilingual learners. This WIDA Snapshot on awareness offers insights and resources to support all educators, whether you’re new to this work or looking to deepen your practice. We invite you to explore the following videos, tools and resources to strengthen your approach.
Take a moment to engage with this brief introductory video, and use the guiding questions to reflect and deepen your knowledge about awareness.
Awareness Introductory Video Transcript
Guiding Questions
- What do I expect of the families and communities of the multilingual learners I serve? How do my identities and experiences impact my expectations of how families engage?
- What do multilingual families expect from us? How do I get to know about the individual experiences and beliefs of multilingual learners and families in my context?
- What mindset shifts will help me promote responsive family and community engagement for multilingual learners?
Shifting Mindsets to Grow Awareness
Explore this video that features three WIDA Fellows discussing how they have developed a deeper understanding around authentic family and community engagement, leading to shifts in their beliefs and practices. We invited our collaborators to speak in their preferred language. This video features educators speaking in Ukrainian, Filipino and English. To access subtitles in English or the speaker’s spoken language, use the CC/Subtitles button or view/download the transcript. Delve into Shifting Mindsets to Grow Awareness to consider your beliefs about family and community engagement and to identify a shift you would like to make in your practice.
Shifting Mindsets Video Transcript
Gathering Community Information
Diep Nguyen invites teachers to become ethnographers. Engage with the brief video below, Teachers as Ethnographers, and the document Gathering Community Information: Reflecting on and Using What You Learn to inform and strengthen your practice.
Teachers as Ethnographers Transcript
Engage with the video Spanish Story Hour to learn how educators and families in one district collaborated to offer a resource for families that previously was not available — a Spanish story hour at the local library. We invited our collaborators to speak in their preferred language. This video features educators speaking in Spanish and English. To access subtitles in English or the speaker's spoken language, use the CC/Subtitles button or download the transcript.
Mapping Community Assets and Resources
WIDA Fellow Madison Leech discusses how her school partners with families, community members and community organizations to network and map community assets and resources in support of multilingual families. What would your school or district map look like? Use the Mapping Community Assets and Resources map Madison discusses in her video and the document Gathering Community Information: Reflecting On and Using What You Learn to inform and support your practice.
Community Support and Advocacy for Multilingual Families Transcript
This illustration represents awareness in two ways. An educator looks into a mirror and sees their own image, representing building awareness of self. They also see a family member, school bus, buildings, a field, and the word “Hola,” representing building awareness of the multilingual families and communities in their context.