One such example of encouraging partnership is described in a brief interview between Colorín Colorado manager Lydia Breiseth and Diane Staehr Fenner, Ph.D. and President of SupportEd. They discuss the concept of “elevator speech,” or practicing “the way you talk about what you do so that you can communicate about it effectively,” to administrators and colleagues who may not be familiar with what you do. Moreover, with differing qualifications for ELL educators in each state, administration might not completely understand your qualifying background:
“If you had thirty seconds to describe what it is that you do, to practice that with your colleagues, with administrators, to really let your expertise shine through because many times… administrators might not have a 100 percent clear idea of what it is that the ESL teacher does and what expertise that teacher brings.”
Please find the resource page here.
-Melissa Hoppie, Graduate Student Researcher