Frequently Asked Questions

AVID’s English Language Development (ELD) Summer Bridge provides middle and high school English language learners with an opportunity to engage in interactive and fun lessons that focus on academic language acquisition, community building, and school connectivity.

General Information

  • Is the curriculum aligned with English Language Proficiency (ELP), WIDA standards, and other state-specific ELD standards?
    The ELD Summer Bridge daily lessons address all four domains of language development (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) through expanding critical language, understanding of language, and honing skills that incorporate language to accelerate college and career readiness in emergent multilingual students.
  • May we view the curriculum and lesson plans before contracting to implement ELD Summer Bridge?
    The curriculum sampler preview is available here. The curriculum sampler includes an overview of the two sessions and a sample lesson plan with the corresponding slide deck.
  • Can the two sessions run concurrently or successively?
    The two sessions — “We are Scholars!” and “We are Leaders!” — can run at the same time (10 days) for two different groups or can be linked together to serve the same group of students for four weeks (20 days).
  • How many ELD Summer Bridge classes can a site run with a site license?
    When a site contracts to implement the ELD Summer Bridge program, they can run as many summer bridge sessions and classes as needed. Since the curriculum and resources are provided digitally, schools can distribute the ELD Summer Bridge materials to all those teaching sessions.
  • Who can participate in the professional learning?
    Teachers delivering ELD Summer Bridge curriculum in the site can participate, as well as instructional coaches and site administrators from implementing sites.
  • How do we purchase ELD Summer Bridge?
    If your site/district is interested in purchasing ELD Summer Bridge, you can add it to your district’s AVID contract. First, you should reach out to your district’s elected person responsible for filling out your AVID Agreement Portal Form. Typically, this is your District Director. You can always reach out to [email protected] for support with this process.
  • Do AVID Excel sites need to add ELD Summer Bridge to their contract?
    AVID Excel sites do not need to add ELD Summer Bridge if they want to use the AVID Excel Summer Bridge materials for an expanded audience of English learners. This is because the ELD Summer Bridge curriculum and materials are aligned with the existing AVID Excel Summer Bridge materials.
    If an AVID Excel district wants to add ELD Summer Bridge at non-Excel sites, they need to add ELD Summer Bridge to their contract for those sites.

Student Recruitment

  • Which students benefit the most from ELD Summer Bridge?
    Multilingual students in middle and high school at the emerging, expanding, and bridging levels of English language proficiency would benefit from this experience. The curriculum would not be appropriate for newcomer students.
  • What is an appropriate class size?
    Due to the interactive learning routines, community-building activities, and the focus on diagnostic teaching and data-driven instruction, we recommend a maximum of 25 students for each cohort.

Teachers and Training

  • Who should teach the ELD Summer Bridge program?
    The teachers should share the philosophical belief that middle and high school English learners deserve academic acceleration and enrichment opportunities. In addition, the teachers believe that emergent multilingual scholars bring many assets to the school community and classroom and possess the ability to participate in a high-engagement, collaborative, scholarly environment.
    Teachers are not required to possess an English language development instructional background/certification or have had been trained in AVID strategies. The ELD Summer Bridge professional learning accompanied with implementation provides teachers with a better understanding of language acquisition techniques and the AVID strategies embedded in the curriculum.
  • What does the professional learning entail?
    The virtual professional learning (PL) is a combination of self-paced and live session training that supports the delivery of the AVID ELD Summer Bridge sessions while building teacher efficacy with language acquisition instructional design and delivery techniques. The self-paced portion of the PL will be housed in a Learning Management System (LMS). This will include learning activities for participants to support their understanding of the program’s design and delivery aspects. The live session learning will be provided via video conference. It will allow educators from districts to process their self-paced learning with participants from other districts and allow time for questions fielded by an AVID Center ELD Summer Bridge team member.
    There will be three professional learning live sessions to accommodate different time zones. We will offer sessions in early May and early June. If someone cannot attend the live session PL, a recording will be available in the LMS course.

Supplies and Print Materials

  • What supplies and materials are required?
    Supply lists are included in the digital curriculum, and specific materials needed for each day are detailed in each lesson plan.
  • How do sites/districts access the curriculum and resources?
    The digital curriculum and resources (lesson plans, presentation decks, supply lists, and handouts) will be available for download in the ELD Summer Bridge LMS.

For Additional Questions, please contact [email protected].