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

Abstract

Prior research has documented how current policies and practices reinforce deficit perspectives of multilingual students at the secondary level, particularly students who have been labeled as long-term English learners. At the same time, scholars have argued for a need to collect detailed, individualized information about multilingual students’ linguistic, academic, and cultural assets and design supports for students based on this information. However, few concrete examples exist of ways that schools and districts have implemented these ideas at a systemic level. Building from prior research about who decides the educational services youth receive and drawing from theory about aesthetic care, authentic care, and reciprocal dialogue, we describe and analyze a tool two rural California school districts developed to foster collaboration in support of students considered long-term English learners: Individualized Language Plans (ILPs). Our analysis is based on three years of data collection, including interviews with district administrators and teachers involved in the design and implementation of ILPs, as well as observations of meetings where ILPs were created. We discuss implications for research, policy, and practice.