Developing Agency for Advocacy: Collaborative Inquiry-Focused School-Change Projects as Transformative Learning for Practicing Teachers

This qualitative study investigated four monolingual, English-only speaking Caucasian elementary music teachers and their reflections regarding instruction of English language learners (ELL). The purpose of this multiple case study was to investigate the teaching practice and curricular decisions of elementary music teachers who instruct Hispanic ELL students. The investigation was conducted during a nine-week period, and data collection included classroom observations, phenomenological interviewing, and teacher audio journals. None of the teachers had prior education or pre-service preparation in teaching music to ELL students. The major theoretical base from which the study was developed was the reflective teaching theory of Donald Schön (1983). The main research question was: "What are the participating teachers' reflections about their curricular and pedagogical decisions when teaching ELL students?" Following a description of the elementary music teachers' reflections on practice with ELL students, the study revealed that the majority of elementary music teachers had a lack of preparation and ELL music curriculum, and negative perceptions of the placement program for ESL students. Despite these factors, the teachers made attempts to include ELL students in all music activities. This study showed that while one teacher accommodated specifically for the ELL students' learning, three out of four teachers did not. This study also suggests that music is a subject by which strong interactions between peers, opportunity for language expansion, and other factors occur which have positive correspondence to recommended ELL instructional strategies. A cross-case analysis revealed that the life history and experience of the elementary music teachers had an influence on the teachers' awareness of ELL students. The analysis suggests a relationship between teacher awareness and accommodation. The study also recognized the need for further inquiry regarding ELL students and issues related to their school placement. This study has implications for music education research including suggestions for music teacher preparation in working with ELL students, ELL music resources and curriculum, and pre-service and in-service ELL music preparation.

The Impact of Language Status on Pharmacy Admissions: A Comparative Study of English Language Learners and Native English Speaking Students.

This article explores educator perceptions of gifted and talented (GT) English language learning (ELL) students. Nine educators from two schools within a school district with high population of ELL students were interviewed in this qualitative study. Discussion focused on understanding teachers’ ideas regarding ELL gifted students. Three main themes emerged from interviews: educator perceptions, identification, and professional development. Implications from the study include the need for specific professional development to restructure thinking regarding ELL students and to inform educators on the myriad of ways giftedness may manifest itself.

Sheltered instruction (SI) is a teaching strategy that allows the school library media specialist to collaborate in the English-as-a-second language (ESL) program to help English language learner (ELL) students integrate second-language acquisition skills with content area instruction. By aligning ESL Standards for Pre-K-12 Students with Information Power standards, a powerful collaborative effort is formed between the school library media specialist and ESL teachers. These two United States standards for education allow ESL teachers to learn selection criteria and teaching strategies for using informational trade books with ELL students while providing an opportunity far the school library media specialist to learn how better to assist ELL students with acquiring information. Read-alouds, puppetry, book talks, storytelling, author studies, and listening centers are useful approaches for incorporating the various genres of informational books into sheltered instruction.

Hi I like basketbol and I'm tall. I'm friendly with every one. I like to go to the mall a lot. I'm from Mexico but I think that is a great oportunity to learn two lenguages. I'm Proud of myself. I love animals expecialy cats. ... I'm pretty sure that I will be a good teacher when I grow up. And I think I'm pretty but I'm not sure about that. When I get mad is thanks to a boy. ... Oh and one more thing I'm so silly and not funny. -Rosa, 12-year-old English language learner in a sheltered English class hy my sprin brek wos borin cos i diren bon naten des ste sterin the wall cos i wos panish cos i hit my breter cos hi wos roin in the hausi end thas hoan i hit may broter. [Hi, my spring break was boring because I didn't do nothing just sat staring at the wall because I was punished because I hit my brother. He was running in the house and that's why I hit my brother.] -Jorge, seventh grade English language learner in the same class Both Jorge and Rosa (all names are pseudonyms) are adolescent English language learners (ELLs) in the same seventh grade sheltered English class, a type of instruction in which students receive extra support in learning the language while still learning grade level content. Despite the disparity in their levels of English fluency evidenced in the above excerpts, both students have been placed in the second and final year of sheltered courses in their middle school. In the coming academic year, both will exit into a full day of regular courses for which they must be prepared to undertake grade-level academic concepts in a language that they are still struggling to make their own. In short, both are doing what Short and Fitzsimmons (2007) have recently called double the (p. 1) of ELLs in U.S. schools as they try to learn the English language while simultaneously trying to keep pace with their peers with what can seem an even faster-paced curriculum. Meeting the needs of both Jorge and Rosa, with such a discrepancy in their language levels, can be challenging even to the most experienced language teacher. This article documents how two educators-Jessica, an ESL specialist, and Paige, a researcher interested in language learning-teamed up to find a way to help shelter teachers who are new to the instruction of English language learners. In a two-year project, we matched cohorts of Jessica's students in one-on-one writing partnerships with preservice and inservice teachers who were taking courses focused on ELL pedagogy. In this online writing project, Jorge and Rosa, together with their ELL peers, interacted in a weekly writing exchange that we hoped would be a mutually beneficial experience for the students and inservice teachers. We anticipated, for example, that the ELLs would be more motivated to write when using technology to correspond with a partner outside the school context and that, as a consequence, they would also write more fluently and more confidently in English. We also anticipated that the teachers would benefit from the opportunity to better understand adolescent language learners through a personal one-on-one relationship. This article documents how online writing became a practical, engaging forum for teachers to discuss language learning and teaching and, specifically, to learn how to teach writing to ELL students. Learning about language learners Demographics are changing in many parts of the country, making it quite common for teachers to find a wide variety of ELL levels in their classrooms. In the decade between 1995 and 2005, for example, the overall school population only grew by 3.7%, while the population of limited English proficient (LEP) students grew by 57% (NCELA, 2005). Within the ELL population in secondary schools, 44% are first-generation students who were born outside the United States (Capps et al., 2005). Due to such rapidly changing demographic patterns, many teachers in public schools who work with ELL students are not trained language specialists. …

Many school districts consider literacy and oral language as a top priority for pre-kindergarten students. In the district under study, pre-kindergarten English language learner (ELL) students are encouraged to attend a special summer school program to increase their oral language ability in English. This study compared three groups of children: ELL students attending summer school v. ELL students not attending summer school v. English speaking students not attending summer school. The students' primary reading inventory scores from the end of pre-kindergarten to the middle of kindergarten in the areas of reading, writing and oral language were compared. As expected, ELLs who attended summer school showed significant growth in oral language development from the beginning of summer school to the end of summer school. While it was hypothesized that ELL students attending summer school would show more improvement in oral language than other children over time, there was no significant difference between summer school and non-summer school children's scores by the middle of kindergarten.

English language anxiety appears in some International students while learning in the country that use any language other than their native language. International students may get anxious while learning in another country. This research tries to answer two issues. The first one is the factors causing anxiety of Thai students in English language learning and the next one is the strategies of Thai students in coping their anxiety in English language learning. The data for this qualitative study were gathered from observation and semi-structured interview. The participants are two Thai students who took English Education Department in IAIN Salatiga. From the data, the researcher find that there are three factors causing anxiety of Thai students in English language learning namely communication apprehension, test anxiety and fear of negative evaluation. The researcher also find that there are two strategies of Thai students in coping the anxiety in reading class. They are preparation and peer seeking. The results of this study are hopefully can be beneficial to English teacher and students. Not only for domestic students, but also International students.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) offer high quality, free courses to anyone with an Internet connection. However, these courses may be relatively inaccessible to the large global population of students who are English Language Learners (ELLs). Current efforts to understand student motivation in MOOCs do not take into account the specific needs of ELL students. Through interviews with 12 ELL online students, and a survey with 20,084 ELL respondents, we investigate ELL students’ motivations for taking online courses. We show that ELL students’ motivations are highly socialized strategies for achieving long-term goals of economic, social, and geographic mobility. Although research studies show that ELLs interact sparingly with other students in MOOCs, we present evidence that they have unmet needs for interaction, and discuss how student interaction systems in MOOCs can better address these needs. Finally, we show evidence that ELLs deliberately use English MOOCs to improve their language skills, even when the content is not language-related. This implies that meeting ELL students’ needs and access to MOOCs involves translating MOOCs to their local languages, but also providing language support in English-language MOOCs.

Twenty-five percent of students in the United States are children of immigrant parents, who are considered English language learners (ELLs). As a collective ELL group, their performance level on every measure from achievement scores to graduation rates tends to be lower than almost any other category of students. With over five million ELL students enrolled in U.S. schools, it is likely that teachers (including those in physical education [PE]) will, at some point in their careers, have taught at least one ELL student. The purpose of this article is to provide PE teachers with practical instructional strategies, such as visual supports, to foster ELLs' independent and group learning and to augment their chances for successful language development and participation in the PE classroom.

English language learners (ELLs) and their teachers, schools, and communities face increasingly high-stakes consequences due to test score gaps between ELLs and non-ELLs. It is essential that the field of educational assessment continue to investigate the meaning of these test score gaps. This article discusses the findings of an exploratory study of the response processes of grade 5 ELLs and non-ELLs on multiple-choice science test items from a high-stakes test. We found that the ELL students in our sample were more likely than the non-ELL students to answer incorrectly despite demonstrating knowledge of the science content targeted by the test items. Investigating the interview transcripts of ELL students who answered in this way revealed that ELL students’ interactions with specific linguistic features of test items often led to alternative interpretations of the items that resulted in incorrect answers. The implications of this work for the assessment of ELLs in science are discussed.

Nationwide, K–12 students designated as English language learners (ELLs) must learn both language and content simultaneously, and ELLs score far below the national average in math achievement. Many educators have suggested that identifying or developing teachers with skills specific to ELLs’ instructional needs may be critical to addressing this challenge. This study seeks to identify the characteristics and learning experiences of general education teachers who are differentially effective at promoting math achievement among ELLs compared to non-ELLs. Our analyses indicate that individual teachers can learn specific skills that make them more effective with ELL students. In particular, prior experience teaching ELLs predicts improvements in novice teachers’ differential instructional effectiveness with ELLs. We also find that both in-service and pre-service training focused on ELL-specific instructional strategies are associated with higher differential gains for ELLs. Our findings lend support t...

This chapter discusses academic achievement and social identity development among bilingual students with respect to changing demographics of increased linguistic diversity and poverty for school-aged children in the United States. Institutional policies and practices are described that lead to blaming the victims of institutional inequity for low test scores and high dropout rates. Contrasting paradigms in literacy research are also discussed in relation to how perspectives of monolingual meritocracy lead to language loss and perpetuation of deficit discourses that negatively affect social identity formation for bilingual students. The authors argue that educators can play an important role in transforming inequities in the politics and practices of schooling, and they provide a model for the successful academic achievement of English language learning (ELL) and bilingual students. The model includes three essential components for literacy development and academic achievement: (a) human resources, including ELL students, their families and communities, and ESL and bilingual education professionals; (b) dialogic pedagogy; and (c) a curriculum for democratic citizenship, and economic and community development.

This study documents how an urban high school science teacher engaged her English Language Learners (ELLs) in the discourse-intensive science and engineering practices of (1) arguing from evidence and (2) obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information. The teacher taught an introductory integrated science course to classes with a large percentage (44%) of students who spoke Spanish as their first language. We investigated the instructional strategies this teacher used to support her ELLs in the practices of argumentation and communication, and the ways ELLs constructed and communicated claims, evidence, and reasons in whole class and small group settings as a result. From qualitative analyses of teacher interviews, classroom interactions, and student products, we found that the teacher routinely implemented three types of instructional supports to help ELL students argue from evidence and communicate information: primary language support (although she herself was not fluent in Spanish), deliberate scaffolds, and small group instruction. Further, given these multiple opportunities for engagement, we found that ELLs experienced both successes and challenges participating in class, crafting arguments from evidence, and reading and producing written texts: While ELL students constructed aspects of arguments in small groups, the substance of their discussions was not necessarily reflected in their whole class participation or written products. Taken together, our findings emphasize the need to more closely attend to the teaching and learning of discourse in science. We end with ways to strengthen both research on and teaching of science for ELLs. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 51: 31–64, 2014

With the steady increase in the English Language Learner (ELL) population in the U.S., this case study was aimed at capturing elementary teachers’ perceptions of how well their teacher preparation program was prepared to teach ELLs. This work utilized the case study design, and included five North American elementary teachers as the subjects of the research who were teaching ELLs in a small Christian Academy located in southern Haiti. All of the teachers were fluent in English, and two of the teachers from Canada were also fluent in French. All of the elementary students spoke Creole. The instruments in the case study included a questionnaire, two interviews, and classroom observations of teaching. The data was coded and triangulated. The results of this study supported existing research, and specifically included a desire for explicit coursework on how to teach reading to ELLs within their teacher preparation program, as well as increased time instructing ELL students in high ELL population schools that utilized inclusive instruction during their student teaching placements. Required second language coursework was also recommended, as the teachers believed it would have enhanced their understanding of the complexity of language acquisition and develop empathy for ELL students.   Key words: Teacher education, English Language Learners, teacher perceptions.

Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores are widely used as part of the decision-making process for selecting candidates for admission to medical school. Applicants who learned English as a second language may be at a disadvantage when taking tests in their non-native language. Preliminary research found significant differences between English language learners (ELLs), applicants who learned English after the age of 11 years, and non-ELL examinees on the Verbal Reasoning (VR) sub-test of the MCAT. The purpose of this study was to determine if relationships between VR sub-test scores and measures of medical school performance differed between ELL and non-ELL students. Scores on the MCAT VR sub-test and student performance outcomes (grades, examination scores, and markers of distinction and difficulty) were extracted from University of California San Diego School of Medicine admissions files and the Association of American Medical Colleges database for 924 students who matriculated in 1998-2005 (graduation years 2002-2009). Regression models were fitted to determine whether MCAT VR sub-test scores predicted medical school performance similarly for ELLs and non-ELLs. For several outcomes, including pre-clerkship grades, academic distinction, US Medical Licensing Examination Step 2 Clinical Knowledge scores and two clerkship shelf examinations, ELL status significantly affects the ability of the VR score to predict performance. Higher correlations between VR score and medical school performance emerged for non-ELL students than for ELL students for each of these outcomes. The MCAT VR score should be used with discretion when assessing ELL applicants for admission to medical school.