Preparing to Teach English Language Learners: Cross-Departmental “Virtual” Fieldwork

• In Event: Designing Hybrid Field-Based Experiences: Insights From Faculty in One Urban Teacher Education Program

Abstract

Objectives & Perspectives
As teacher educators in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and English Education, the challenge of preparing teacher candidates to provide instruction to secondary English language learners (ELLs) in the English classroom is one that depends upon expertise from both fields. Cross-departmental collaboration, as well as rich clinical experiences, are increasingly seen as a means to develop teacher candidates’ understandings about ELL instruction (De Oliveira & Shoffner, 2009; Dellicarpini, 2009; Lucas & Villegas, 2011; Zeichner, 2010), with technology readily providing the necessary tools. This paper will describe the results of TESOL and Adolescent English Education teacher candidates being partnered to scaffold ELLs’ academic writing through a weekly “virtual” fieldwork experience.

Specific research questions included:
1. What did TESOL and Adolescent English teacher candidates experience through participation in this “virtual” fieldwork project?
2. How did cross-departmental collaboration inform teacher educators about teacher candidates’ needs in supporting the academic writing of English language learners?

Methods
Qualitative methods were employed to construct a case study (Stake, 1995). Participants were drawn from teacher candidates enrolled in either TESOL and Adolescent English methods. For six weeks, 12 teacher candidates worked in pairs using Google Blogs to tutor a small group of ELLs enrolled in an ESL class at a large public high school in New York City. Each blog group consisted of 4 ELLs, one TESOL, and one Adolescent English participant.

Data Collection and Analysis
Data collected included an online questionnaire completed by teacher candidates, the cooperating teacher, and ELL students, regarding their experiences and opinions of the project; archived transcripts from the blog sessions, and online protocols used by the cooperating teacher to manage the blog interactions. Data were analyzed using the constant comparative method (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) to identify patterns across the data set that were then assigned codes. Codes were compiled to generate themes that addressed the research questions.

Results
As a whole, the virtual, collaborative fieldwork project was viewed very positively by teacher candidates, and less so by the ELLs and their teacher. Adolescent English teacher candidates reported a desire for more such “real” fieldwork, which would put them into contact with ELLs, and TESOL candidates felt they learned about the demands of high school academic writing through the tasks and the blog responses posted by their Adolescent English counterparts. The cooperating teacher and the ELL students believed that the blogs were a potentially authentic and dynamic medium for developing writing skills, but the technology demands outweighed the benefits. The data also revealed candidates’ beliefs and attitudes about instructing ELLs, critical to teacher educators.

Scientific & Educational Significance
This study suggests that teacher educators need to provide scaffolded opportunities for content teacher candidates to interact with ELLs and that TESOL teacher candidates benefitted from the content-specific approaches to the teaching of English Language Arts. Technology needs to suit both the writing task and be easy to access in the K-12 environment in order for such virtual fieldwork projects to be easily replicated and sustained.

Authors

• Laura Baecher, Hunter College - CUNY

• Melissa B. Schieble, University of Wisconsin - Madison