Teachers' Use of Instructional Practices for Teaching Mathematics to Emergent Bilinguals

• In Event: 79.050 - MTCC Roundtable Session 36
  In Roundtable Session: 79.050-10 - Supporting Emergent Bilinguals in STEM

Abstract

Often teachers wait to teach math to emergent bilingual students until their English proficiency has developed. This study describes a Summer Institute professional development (PD) initiative in which inservice teachers learned about instructional practices to support emergent bilinguals in developing their math and language skills. The study reports on the instructional practices which teacher participants identified at the end of the PD as wanting to implement immediately and which practices they actually implemented at the start of the school year. There were discrepancies between what they identified and what they actually implemented. Implications for changing teachers’ practice are discussed.

Authors

• Melissa A. Gallagher, University of Louisiana at Lafayette

• Maria Isolina Ruiz, University of Louisiana at Lafayette