Many SLIFE are refugees. The federal Office of Refugee Resettlement’s Refugee School Impact (RSI) Program aims to to promote the academic performance and successful integration of refugee youth into U.S. schools. This program provides funding to 41 states and approximately 170 school districts and refugee-serving agencies at the local level. Join this session to learn about this program and how RSI funds are used across the U.S., including to support SLIFE.

SLIFE need a vibrant space where academic language and content is delivered in understandable ways. With an emphasis on comprehensible input, this session will offer practical advice and tips for structuring, planning, and delivering language-rich, comprehensible lessons. In addition, participants will learn and practice a variety of interactive, user-friendly strategies and activities that integrate both content and language standards for both in-person and remoting classroom settings.

Participants will learn about the contrasting learning paradigms of SLIFE and our Western-style educational systems and how the resulting cultural dissonance causes many such students to struggle, not reach their full potential, or even to drop out of programs entirely. The Mutually Adaptive Learning Paradigm, a research-based instructional model of culturally responsive-sustaining education with six elements, guides educators seeking to find a pathway for SLIFE to develop the academic acumen to succeed all while maintaining their own culturally significant priorities and values.

This session will focus on practical strategies that support language acquisition and literacy development for older emergent readers. The techniques are appropriate for an online or face to face learning environment.