Preparing Teachers for English Language Learners: A Research Synthesis

• In Event: Preservice Teachers' Perceptions on Their Preparation to Teach English Language Learners

Abstract

This paper reviewed approximately 100 research articles published in the past two decades that examine the status quo of immigrant children/ELLs in US, mainstream teachers' perceptions of their preparedness to teach the increasing ELL population, suggested knowledge base for teachers of ELLs, and effective practices of teacher education programs to prepare teachers for ELLs.
Although ELLs now constituted 9.2% of public school students (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2015), their educational goals and needs are yet well addressed. There exist a persistent achievement gap between ELLs and their native speaking peers (Lucas & Villegas, 2013), and ELLs continue to have disproportionately high dropout rates (Menken, 2010; Sheng, Sheng, & Anderson, 2011), low graduation rates (Menken, 2010), low college enrollment and completion rates (Kohler & Lazarín, 2007), and overrepresentation in special education placement (Sullivan, 2011). One factor contributes to the status quo of ELLs is teachers' ill-preparedness to teach ELLs. According to Durgunoglu and Hughes (2010), teacher education courses fail to either sensitize pre-service teachers to cultural and linguistic differences they can expect to encounter in their future classrooms, nor to provide them with actual tools and strategies to address these differences. Therefore, in this era of tests, standards and accountability, teachers’ lack of preparation prevents them from providing support and targeted instruction for ELLs (Colombo, McMakin, Jacobs, & Shestok, 2013).
To address the ill-preparedness of teachers for ELLs, researchers and educators have been working on identifying the specific areas of knowledge that teacher education curriculum should cover to prepare all teachers .We categorize these areas of knowledge into four categories, namely
(1) beliefs and orientations of teaching ELLs, such as affirming attitude towards linguistic and cultural diversity, beliefs of their responsibility for ELLs’ learning, hope for transcribing the live of ELLs, commitment to advocates for ELLs, etc.;
(2) knowledge of leveraging the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of ELLs and their families;
(3) knowledge of teaching language and content and balancing between these two in mainstream classrooms; and
(4) knowledge of educational contexts, particularly reforms and policies that will affect the teaching and learning of ELLs
Our review on effective practices of preparing teachers with the proposed knowledge revealed that holistic incorporation of the knowledge base in teacher education programs is rare and hard to achieve, and that whether or not and how it is incorporated is highly dependent on individual coursework provided by certain teacher educators who have personal experience and/or expertise of teaching ELLs.

Authors

• Guofang Li, University of British Columbia

• Yue Bian, Michigan State University