This group of EL researchers, policy makers, experts and administrators has just posted 14 very short videos on You Tube, detailing the content of papers where they will make recommendations that will guide the type of curriculum and assessment to be developed as part of the Common Core adoption in most states. These overviews of what each researcher plans to include in their paper might be helpful to sites designing strategies to capitalize on what will surely become professional development opportunities in states with growing ELL populations. These are the same leading experts part of the WIDA and PARCC consortia.

The papers are scheduled for release in November 2012, and will be accompanied by a social network for teachers of ELs, as well as other teacher-friendly resources. Several California TCs have been to the conference hosted by Understanding Language in January. Understanding Language is funded by the Carnegie and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations.

Subscribing to their blog is a good idea: http://www.stanford.edu/group/ell/cgi-bin/drupal/

So is following their page in Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Understanding-Language/275027945871644

Or Twitter: @ELL Stanford