Elevating EAL through Administrative Leadership: An ELLSA Spotlight on Asta Reiff

At the American International School Chennai (AISC) in South India, English as an Additional Language has its own independent directorship. With over 50% of AISC’s student population identified as English language learners, this structure reflects a whole-school commitment to language acquisition across Grades K–12. It also creates an opportunity to think about EAL, not simply as a service for students who need additional English, tucked under Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) or Student Support Services, but as a strategic part of how the school approaches teaching, learning, assessment, curriculum, and multilingualism.

We asked EAL Program Director Asta Reiff about her EAL directorship at AISC:

"AISC has always had a point person for EAL work... but the big leap into directorship was that very idea that the school commits to EAL programming as a whole school commitment... EAL is not a support service. EAL is a representation of students that we have at our school”.

Strategic Leadership and Whole-School Impact

Asta's position at AISC is a full-time, non-teaching administrative one focused equally on operational oversight and long-term strategy. Having a dedicated director allows AISC to integrate EAL into strategic planning for enrollment, innovation, and the broader promotion of multilingualism. Asta leads a department of 17 EAL specialists while also working across divisions with principals, teachers, and school leaders to shape how English language development is understood and supported throughout the school.

Reflecting on the strategic scope of the directorship, Asta notes:

"When you have a full-time person doing the work, you can think about the strategy... You have a person who is always advocating not only for operational pieces of assessment and placement and programming and data collection, but also advocating for the strategic place of EAL and, more importantly, multilingualism at the school."

The Annual Rhythm of a K–12 EAL Department

Operationally, Asta’s K-12 EAL department follows a structured annual cycle tied to AISC admissions, assessment, and strategic alignment:

• Fall (start of school year): The department focuses on testing and placing incoming students using the WIDA Model assessment.

• September – November: Attention shifts to fine-tuning classroom programming, holding higher-level strategic meetings, and mapping out 3-to-5-year department priorities.

• Mid-Semester: AISC uses flexible internal assessments to adjust proficiency levels and placement for younger learners as needed.

• January – March: The team conducts major WIDA testing for more than half of the entire school population over a three-month window.

• Spring: Asta analyzes WIDA data alongside sectional principals to determine staffing, course additions, and co-teaching models for the upcoming academic year.

Alongside this annual operational cycle, Asta’s work increasingly focuses on building longer-term systems for EAL at AISC. This includes developing clearer K–12 language pathways, strengthening assessment and placement practices, using student data to inform program decisions, and contributing to the school’s broader thinking about language architecture and multilingualism.

Language as a Bridge for Connection

Asta’s approach to EAL leadership is deeply informed by her personal journey. Born in Lithuania during the Soviet era, she did not speak English until high school. In ninth grade, shortly after Lithuanian independence, two native English speakers visited her class, and she was shocked to discover that despite being a good student, she could only understand "hello" and "goodbye". 

That moment became a pivotal realization:

"To me that was a shocker... All of a sudden that connection was broken because I like to understand people's stories…”

Realizing she was cut off from the world's stories, Asta dedicated herself to mastering English. 

“I then really concentrated on learning English. (Now) I…remind myself to ask when I travel and when I work... is there a connection that's being built or broken? If the connection is broken, partnership and community cannot be built."

That experience continues to shape her work today: she sees language development as a way of opening access to learning, relationships, ideas, and participation, with language instruction as the primary tool for building community and belonging:

"English is not the only bridge that exists in the world, but that's the bridge that I know how to build. When I think about our learners... it's always how can I connect? How can I connect people to knowledge, people to other people, people to communities?”

Empowering Teachers and Building Confidence

Although stepping into a directorship removes her from daily classroom teaching, Asta finds her greatest joy in empowering educators. By supporting EAL specialists and content teachers, she leverages her administrative role to help teachers recognize the scale of their instructional impact and celebrate breakthroughs with multilingual students. 

"As a director, you get kind of removed from daily classroom experiences, but then you get to be a part of a fascinating world of teachers and teachers' self-efficacy and confidence in their craft... One of the pieces that I'm fortunate to be able to do as a director is to empower the wonderful teachers that I work with... It just makes me happy when people believe in their power."

Asta’s ultimate message to teachers is one of empowerment and trust; reminding educators that their school community believes in them and supports them in this vital work.

"Truly believe in yourself—like you are there for a reason... If you cannot find it in yourself, you'll find it in your hiring process... because other people believed in you for you to be here."