A Full School Year of Support for ELD Teachers
The Functional Language Academy isn't another online course you'll watch, complete, and then be left to implement on your own.
It's a school-year professional learning experience designed to help you build a solid structure for explicit English language development instruction.
We'll take it one step at a time.
Each month, new professional learning will be released around one important component of effective ELD instruction.
You'll learn it.
You'll see examples.
You'll apply it to your own students.
Then we'll meet as a cohort to talk about what happened, work through questions, examine examples, and decide what comes next.
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By the end of the year, you'll have more than new strategies.
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You'll have a repeatable process for making intentional ELD instructional decisions.
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Meet Your Focus Students
At the beginning of the Academy, you'll select 2–3 Focus Students.
These are real students you'll follow throughout your Academy year.
You'll begin by collecting:
- Their previous WIDA ACCESS or other English language proficiency data
- A beginning-of-year writing sample
- Relevant teacher observations
- Information about their proficiency and exit expectations
Then we'll start asking better questions.
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Your Focus Students will travel through the Academy with you.
As your knowledge grows, you'll keep coming back to their language.
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Your School-Year Journey
Each month builds on the last as you develop a stronger, more intentional approach to ELD.
| Month | Focus |
|---|---|
| Aug/Sept  | Know Your Students — Use writing samples and English proficiency data to establish a starting point and select Focus Students. |
| October | Analyze Student Language — Use student writing, functional language, and AI-supported analysis to identify possible teaching points. |
| November  | Plan What to Teach Next — Prioritize language needs and turn them into manageable instructional targets. |
| December | Build Stronger Sentences — Develop noun groups, sentence expansion, syntax, precision, and detail. |
| January | Build Connected Text — Help students connect and develop ideas through cohesion. |
| February | Unpack How Language Works — Use close reading and model texts to make language visible. |
| March | Teach Language Explicitly — Use Whole-to-Part instruction and the Teaching & Learning Cycle to scaffold independence. |
| April | Move From Talk to Writing — Use oral language, discussion, and rehearsal to strengthen written language. |
| May | Measure Language Growth — Compare student evidence, evaluate progress, and determine next steps. |
| June | Build Your ELD Program — Pull everything together into a strong, repeatable structure for the next school year. |
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One step at a time. All school year.
You won't receive everything at once and be left wondering where to start. New learning is released each month, followed by opportunities to apply it, discuss it during our live Academy collaboration, and get feedback and support. Schedule a one-on-one coaching session with Kelly every quarter!
By the end of the year, the pieces come together into something much bigger than a collection of strategies:
A clear process for knowing your students, identifying what they need next, explicitly teaching language, and measuring whether they're growing.
