We crunched the numbers (well, sort of)—and here’s what your answers say about where your school is and where you might go next.
YOUR SCHOOL is ready for…
Elevating Oracy and Academic Language
Congratulations! Your school is recognizing that oral language isn’t a soft skill - it’s central to thinking, learning, and literacy. When students can talk it, they can write it. They can read it. They can own it. This is where you begin to view student talk as fuel - especially for multilingual learners. You’re ready to deepen how your team scaffolds academic discussion, builds content-rich vocabulary, and creates opportunities for every child to express their thinking out loud. It’s also a moment to take a hard look at your school’s multilingual programs - are they empowering learners to access the full literacy journey? Get ready to hear thinking out loud - and watch students use talk as the bridge to deeper learning.
Start here.
Course Taster: Supporting MLLs in the Face of New Trends
Watch the selected lessons on background knowledge, vocabulary scaffolds, and accountable talk. As a team, reflect on:
Where do we see student talk supporting deeper thinking?
Where is it missing?
Create a quick inventory of current talk routines in each grade level.
Click the image to access the resource.
Next…
Use the Vocabulary Mapping Framework to choose 3–5 key terms per unit. Plan how students will engage with these words through oral rehearsal—such as turn-and-talks, sentence frames, or discussion starters aligned to your content goals.
Finally…
Course Taster: Cultivating Community- G3-G8
Introduce or refine one collaborative talk routine schoolwide. Practice together in a labsite or PLC and use the “Look–Listen–Notice” reflection tool to observe who is speaking, what’s being said, and how it connects to learning.
- Look: What are students doing with their bodies during talk time? Are they facing each other? Using visuals or sentence frames? Following discussion norms?
-Listen: What kinds of language are students using? Are they building on one another’s ideas, using academic vocabulary, or just responding to prompts?
-Notice: What does this tell us about learning? Who is participating? Who is silent? Is talk deepening understanding?
Liking what you’ve unlocked?
These tasters are just the beginning.
Want full access to this course and our entire library of professional learning resources, planners, tools, and on-demand sessions? The EKC Community is where it all lives.
Curious? Drop your name and email below and we’ll be in touch to explore the right access path for your school.