School-Wide English Learning
Your best strategies for multilingual learners are already down the hall.
The trouble is they're stuck there. Your multilingual learners of English (MLEs) spend most of their day in gen-ed rooms with teachers who want to help but were never trained to. The SWEL framework brings what English language teachers already know into every classroom — no outside consultants required.
10.6% of U.S. K-12 students are identified as English learners, and their numbers have grown steadily for over a decade, reaching new states and districts that haven’t always had the resources to support them. (New America, 2025; NCES data)
Gen-ed teachers want to help. Most haven’t been prepared to.
The belief that MLEs will "pick it up" by proximity has held districts back for years. What's missing is a system for sustained professional learning.
Sitting near English isn’t the same as learning English.
Meanwhile, English language teachers have deep expertise isolated inside one department. But the whole school doesn’t benefit from what they know:
- What your specialists know doesn’t make it past their classroom door.
- Professional learning is a box to check instead of a skill to share.
- Strong practices vary classroom to classroom, within the same school.
The best PD doesn’t fly in from out of town. It walks down the hall.
SWEL is a teacher leadership framework built on a simple idea:
Your English language teachers already know what works. SWEL helps them share it.
Instead of bringing in outside consultants, SWEL prepares your English language teachers to lead the work themselves. They coach colleagues as peers, plan lessons together, and run the training in-house.
The result: MLE support runs all day and across every classroom—not just during designated pull-out time. And the expertise stays in your district after the training ends.
How SWEL works
English language teachers — and others who work closely with English learners — complete three connected workshops, designed to be taken in sequence. They’ll receive a certificate and come out equipped to coach and lead PD for their colleagues. For non-specialists, they are better prepared to serve their multilingual learners and work with English language teachers to implement the SWEL framework.
| WORKSHOP 1 | WORKSHOP 2 | WORKSHOP 3 |
| Contextual Language Workshop Deepens educators’ expertise in language learning theory and how to apply it across content areas. |
Professional Development Workshop |
Coaching & Administrators’ Workshop Brings English language educators and school leaders together to co-build action plans, coaching structures, and SMART goals for implementation. |
Available online (global cohort) or as a private on-site engagement for your district. Participants earn a TESOL-issued certificate upon completion.
The expert behind SWEL
SWEL was co-created by a nationally recognized researcher in English language instruction. Her core thesis—that every teacher who works with MLEs is a language teacher—is the foundation on which the whole framework is built.
Dr. Benegas’s research centers on teacher leadership for multilingual success. Her work with districts across the country informed every element of the SWEL design, from the coaching model to the administrator track. The framework is grounded in peer-reviewed research (Benegas & Stolpestad, 2020) and refined through real district implementation.
Districts building MLE strategies from within
District 196 in Minnesota’s Twin Cities metro, which serves 2,500 multilingual learners of English, made SWEL the backbone of its teacher leadership model. Their goal: one SWEL-trained coach in every school.
It has been wonderful having this opportunity to partner with our SWEL coach to plan content objectives and language objectives, learn new ideas for teaching approaches and strategies, and design and develop lessons that support not only our multilingual learners, but all of our learners.
I recommend SWEL training as a resource to create successful ELD coaching partners. We believe in the potential of SWEL coaching to lead to optimum learning environments for our multilingual learners.
Two ways to bring SWEL to your district
When MLE strategies become instinct, every student benefits.
Multilingual learners of English gain greater access to learning, and all students benefit from clearer communication, stronger engagement, and more inclusive classrooms.
TESOL does the heavy lifting. The curriculum is built, the coaching model is tested, and the administrator track is ready. Your district's job is to identify the educators who already have the expertise and give them the tools to share it.
Whether you're ready to register today or still mapping out what this could look like for your schools, the next step is easy.
A conversation, not a commitment.