Mathematics Preservice Teachers Learning About English Language Learners Through Task-Based Interviews and Noticing

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

Preservice teachers often hold deficit views about the students they will teach and their communities. These limiting beliefs can result in lower expectations of and poor outcomes for the students, and need to be addressed in all areas of teacher education, including mathematics courses. In particular, mathematics content courses for preservice teachers offer numerous opportunities for investigating social justice issues and challenging preservice teachers’ beliefs. The assignment described in this manuscript provides an example of the work that can take place in mathematics content courses for preservice K-8 teachers. As part of the assignment, preservice teachers used mathematics to investigate negative perceptions that their campus community has of the surrounding neighborhood. They wrote reflections and created mathematical arguments about household income, poverty rates, educational attainment, crime, and diversity in the neighborhood. Through working on the assignment many preservice teachers began to question their stereotypes about the community. Because of the preservice teacher interest in the topic, and because some problematic beliefs were displayed in the reflections, there is a need for similar assignments in this and other courses, in order to help preservice teachers see the strengths of diverse communities, instead of just their shortcomings.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This study seeks to understand the information-to-knowledge experience of English Language Learner (ELL) students in a Guided Inquiry project undertaken by the librarian and subject teachers. As a pilot study, it provides an in-depth examination of two Korean 11th grade students in a biology class of a high school in New Jersey, U.S. During the project, data were collected through questionnaire, surveys, search journals, search sessions, observation, students’ papers, and interviews. The findings of this study will facilitate the understanding on the information seeking and knowledge construction process of ELL students so that school environments, including school libraries, can provide meaningful instructional and service interventions for them.

This study uses a narrative qualitative research design to explore the role of math applications in the learning experiences of preservice mathematics teachers. Data were collected through interviews with 15 preservice mathematics teachers enrolled in a teacher education program in La Union. The study focused on how preservice mathematics teachers made use of these applications, the difficulties they faced, and the possibilities for incorporating such tools into their future professional practices. Findings revealed that participants utilized Geogebra, Photomath, Gauthmath, Mathway, and Khan Academy applications. These tools enhanced their understanding of mathematical concepts through visual representations, interactive simulations, and step-by-step problem-solving. However, participants encountered difficulties such as poor internet connectivity, subscription limitations, and unfamiliar interfaces. Preservice mathematics teachers intended to incorporate these tools into their future teaching to promote student engagement, an interactive environment, and a deeper understanding of mathematics. These findings support integrating educational technology training among preservice mathematics teachers and highlight the role of digital tools in shaping 21st-century mathematics education. The study emphasizes equipping future educators with the necessary competencies to integrate technology into mathematics education effectively.

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.

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. …

This mixed-methods study describes classroom characteristics and student outcomes from university mathematics courses that are based in mathematics departments, targeted to future pre-tertiary teachers, and taught with inquiry-based learning (IBL) approaches. The study focused on three two-term sequences taught at two research universities, separately targeting elementary and secondary pre-service teachers. Classroom observation established that the courses were taught with student-centred methods that were comparable to those used in IBL courses for students in mathematics-intensive fields at the same institutions. To measure pre-service teachers' gains in mathematical knowledge for teaching, we administered the Learning Mathematics for Teaching (LMT) instrument developed by Hill, Ball and Schilling for in-service teacher professional development. Results from the LMT show that pre-service teachers made significant score gains from beginning to end of their course, while data from interviews and from surveys of learning gains show that pre-service teachers viewed their gains as relevant to their future teaching work. Measured changes on pre-/post-surveys of attitudes and beliefs were generally supportive of learning mathematics but modest in magnitude. The study is distinctive in applying the LMT to document pre-service teachers' growth in mathematical knowledge for teaching. The study also suggests IBL is an approach well suited to mathematics departments seeking to strengthen their pre-service teacher preparation offerings in ways consistent with research-based recommendations.

This exploratory qualitative case study design aims to examine the mathematization process employed by pre-service mathematics teachers during instruction grounded in Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) within Plane Geometry. It was studied as this shall have a cascading effect on the teaching–learning of schools. Carried out at a teacher education college in the Oromia region of Ethiopia, the study used 27 pre-service mathematics teachers, who constituted one class as participants. The methods of data collection encompassed observation, informal discussions, and semi-structured interviews. The findings pinpoint significant progress, persistent challenges, and possible barriers to integrating realist mathematical artifacts and conceptions in class. Through the RME-centric mathematization instruction, these pre-service mathematics teachers crafted individual problem-solving strategies for comprehensive word problems relating to plane geometry and real-life contexts. Impressively, some participants even managed to leverage alternative equations and theorems not covered in the course materials. However, challenges emerged. The breadth of content, the nature of the curriculum, and specific limitations in the pre-service teachers' proficiencies were underscored as potential hurdles in the pre-service mathematics teacher's mathematization process to draw conjectures and mathematical concept formulations, including deriving relations among geometry concepts while solving geometry problems.

Although studies of teacher preparation programs have documented positive changes in mathematical knowledge for teaching with preservice teachers in mathematics content courses, this study focused on the impact of a mathematics methods course and follow-up student teaching assignment. The presumption was that preservice teachers would show growth in their mathematical knowledge during methods since the course was structured around active participation in mathematics, research-based pedagogy, and was concurrent with a two-day-per-week field experience in a local elementary school. Survey instruments utilized the computer adaptive test version of the Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) measures from the Learning Mathematics for Teaching Project, and the Attitudes and Beliefs (towards mathematics) survey from the Mathematical Education of Elementary Teachers Project. A piecewise growth model analysis was conducted on data collected from 176 participants at 5 time-points (methods, 3 time-points; student teaching, 2 time-points) over a 9 month period. Although the participants' demographics were typical of U.S. undergraduate preservice teachers, findings suggest that initial low-level of mathematical knowledge, and a deep-rooted belief that there is only one way to solve mathematics problems, limited the impact of the methods and student teaching courses. The results from this study indicate that in (a) number sense, there was no significant change during methods (p = .392), but a significant decrease during student teaching (p < .001), and in (b) algebraic thinking, there was a significant decrease during methods (p < .001), but no significant change during student teaching (p = .653). Recommendations include that the minimum teacher preparation program entry requirements for mathematical knowledge be raised and that new teachers participate in continued professional development emphasizing both mathematical content knowledge and reform-based pedagogy to continue to peel away deep-rooted beliefs towards mathematics.

The population in the USA has become more diverse, but the number of teachers in public schools who are fluent in another language is limited. Furthermore, statistics attest that few teachers have adequate training to work with English language learners (ELLs). Teachers who lack training and have not struggled to learn another language may not realise the complexity faced daily by ELLs. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to apply instructional methods, which mirror experiences faced by real children in real classrooms, in order to allow pre-service and/or in-service teachers to be subjected to the mixed emotions experienced by ELLs in their class. In six different classes, the researchers immersed a total number of 155 undergraduate and graduate students in a 15-minute oral presentation in Dutch. Data from a post-survey indicated that teacher candidates developed empathy and extrapolated the message that ELL students in classrooms in the USA face serious, but surmountable challenges that take time to overcome. As a result of the findings, we recommend teacher preparation programmes which include language requirements and interactions between teacher candidates and language learners.

An examination of multiple intelligence domains and learning styles of pre-service mathematics teachers: Their reflections on mathematics education