English language learners (ELLs) account for over 5 million students in the United States – with nearly 1 million of these learners estimated to be recent immigrants. They are the fastest-growing student group in American public schools.
ELLs – and immigrant students and their families in particular – face unique challenges when acclimating to a new education system. Often, their success requires a variety of supports and approaches, focused on inclusivity, tailored instruction and assessment, and culturally responsive content as they navigate their new environments. Of course, getting them acclimated to their host country’s language is critical in ensuring that they can continue their education and keep up with their peers.
Innovators are creating new edtech solutions to support the unique needs of these populations. Amidst these efforts are competitions and prize challenges that incentivize developers to innovate for these circumstances.
Among these opportunities are the Tools Competition, which seeks to spur high-impact solutions tackling critical issues in education; the Visionary Interdisciplinary Teams Advancing Learning (VITAL) Prize Challenge, which sought to catalyze the translation of research discoveries into breakthrough K-12 learning technologies; and the Feedback Prize, which used a data science competition to assess the language proficiency of ELLs in grades 8 through 12. (Disclosure: The Tools Competition is administered by The Learning Agency and the VITAL Prize was launched by the Learning Agency Lab, our non-profit sister organization.)
Competitions such as these have not only sparked new innovations around edtech and the needs of ELLs, but have also enabled researchers and others to identify key themes in how the field is attempting to meet those needs.
We have drawn upon Tools Competition and VITAL Prize Challenge learnings, as well as the field more broadly, to identify several core trends in edtech supporting this important learner population.
Building Culturally-Inclusive Environments
As students adjust to new and unfamiliar environments, ensuring that their cultural identity is recognized by educators and represented in learning content is critical for promoting inclusion and fostering a sense of belonging. One example of this is VITAL Prize Semi-Finalist StoryAI. This AI-based content development platform offers students culturally responsive, open-ended story creation to foster their literacy development and ensures learners have access to familiar, culturally relevant content.
Providing Support for Language Acquisition
Language acquisition is critical for all students to effectively integrate into their new communities and get up-to-speed in the classroom. Entrepreneurs have developed tools that use AI to improve English literacy through personalized, adaptive lessons in learners’ first language. Some tools utilize automatic speech recognition to enhance learners’ English speaking skills. TeeWrite by TeeRead uses an AI-powered writing coach to assist Spanish-speaking students in becoming proficient English writers – offering personalized writing instruction and practice. Meanwhile, Spark Studio developed an interactive app that recognizes the user’s voice to help them learn English. Another VITAL Prize team figured out how to use facial mapping and sound recognition to help ELLs improve their speaking skills by providing them with visual feedback on how they form words.
Enhancing Accessibility for Family Engagement
In public school settings, nearly one in four students are from immigrant-headed households. Supporting their parents and families – even if they aren’t fluent in English – is necessary in ensuring they can maintain an active role in their child’s education. ParentPowered engages with families in 11 languages, allowing more families to interact in their primary language and actively participate in their child’s education.
In public school settings, nearly one in four students are from immigrant-headed households. Supporting their parents and families – even if they aren’t fluent in English – is necessary in ensuring they can maintain an active role in their child’s education.
Helping Educators Support Multilingual Learners
Educators may require new instructional resources, strategies, and tools to effectively serve new immigrants and students whose primary language is different from theirs. Some edtech tools and platforms can help by providing teachers with customized instruction for ELL students, or tailoring existing content to better serve these students. AI BRIDGE by the University of Minnesota generates tailored instructional recommendations for educators by incorporating data on children’s instructional language environments, linguistic profiles, and language and literacy progress in English and Spanish – utilizing a more equitable, data-driven process to adapt instruction.
Strengthening Equitable Assessments for ELLs
Assessments are standard practice in education – and their design and usage play an important role in creating equitable learning environments. Assessments can exacerbate inequities by failing to account for the diversity of student backgrounds and primary languages. READ-Y by StoryWorld International utilizes a multilingual early-literacy formative assessment, using a game-like interface for K-3 learners, and can be tailored to any language. Erudyte by Erudition Inc. enables educators to assess newcomers in both English and their home language – allowing them to gain insights into true subject proficiency for tailored instruction based on a student’s understanding of the subject matter and not the English language. Further from the field, BLAST’s tool incorporates a bilingual assessment to measure language development and reading skills – offering a comprehensive look at a child’s language, literacy, and cognitive development – using their stronger language to support learning in their new language.
Assessments are standard practice in education – and their design and usage play an important role in creating equitable learning environments. Assessments can exacerbate inequities by failing to account for the diversity of student backgrounds and primary languages.
Supporting Integration into New Environments
Students need to feel supported during periods of disruption and transition, and edtech solutions can help ease the challenges of integrating into new environments. Innovators are building tools that use AI to customize lessons and provide feedback and context that will help learners better understand their new community. For example, AILEM’s language learning tool supports refugees and asylum seekers, utilizing conversational AI and instant feedback to help them navigate real-life scenarios such as visiting a supermarket.
Conclusion
English language learners, alongside their families and educators, require tailored and thoughtful support on their educational journeys. Innovators are building edtech solutions with these groups in mind – developing culturally-inclusive learning environments, customizing approaches to language acquisition, enhancing family accessibility, and more. Competitions and prize challenges have a unique role to play in boosting equitable solutions in this space, striving to foster innovation to support ELLs’ success in their new classrooms and communities.
The 2025 Tools Competition launched on Sept. 12, 2024, and accepted abstracts through Oct. 25, 2024. Sign up for updates on the next cycle here.
