Teachers’ Opportunities to Learn About English Language Learners: Subject-Specific Challenges in Standards Implementation

• In Event: Roundtable Session 28
  In Roundtable Session: Common Core State Standards, Language Standards, and English Language Learners: An Exploration of Implementation Processes

Abstract

The development of teacher capacity to support English language learners (ELLs) is especially important in the context of national efforts to develop rigorous content standards. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) represent a significant shift in the language competencies required of students that will pose particular challenges for ELLs and their teachers as they work to meet them. This paper focuses on the implementation of the standards across the subject areas among teachers in schools serving ELLs. Drawing on data from three school districts in the Midwestern US, the study addresses the following research question: How do teachers’ opportunities to learn about ELL instruction differ depending on the school subject?
Research has documented teachers’ on-the-job learning from their interactions with peers (Eraut, 2004), especially when they collaborate. When teachers share expertise, talk about new material, and discuss teaching strategies, they create opportunities to learn. Teachers’ sharing of advice and information is especially important, as advice and information are fundamental building blocks for developing knowledge and improving instruction (Elmore, 1996; Hill, 2004).
This study uses a social network analysis to examine elementary school teachers’ advice and information seeking and providing behaviors in English language arts (ELA), mathematics, and other content areas (e.g., science and social studies) in 40 schools across three school districts. All school staff members completed a social network survey in 2013 that asked to whom they turned for advice and/or information in each school subject. The sample includes 350 teachers in 12 schools in an urban district, 310 teachers in 14 schools in a suburban district, and 298 teachers in 14 schools in a rural district, with an overall response rate of 85 percent.
The analysis explores how teachers with language training (e.g., ESL certifications and/or positions) were situated in school staff networks in each subject area and the extent to which they served as central actors and brokers of advice and information. Findings will show that, by and large, teachers with language training were positioned as experts solely in ELA, and that other teachers’ opportunities to learn from these language experts was severely limited in mathematics and other content areas. Figure 1 shows how these experts (labeled “ELL”) are well-integrated in a school’s ELA network, but are isolated in other subject areas.
These findings suggest that the implementation of the CCSS and NGSS will be particularly difficult for teachers of ELLs in mathematics and other subjects. This study thus supports collaboration between ELL experts and other teachers so that teachers in all subjects can develop capacity to support ELLs in meeting the new standards.

References

Elmore, R. F. (1996). Getting to scale with good educational practice. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 1-26.
Eraut, M. (2004). Informal learning in the workplace. Studies in Continuing Education, 26(2), 247-273.
Hill, H. C. (2004). Professional development standards and practices in elementary school mathematics. Elementary School Journal, 104(3), 215-231.

Author

• Megan Hopkins, The Pennsylvania State University