Factors Influencing Special Education Teacher Educators’ Focus on Emergent Multilingual Learners in Preservice Literacy Courses

• In Event: Preparing Equity-Minded Teachers for Multilingual Learners: Practices Across Contexts

Abstract

Special education teachers (SETs) require knowledge and skills to meet the language and literacy needs of emergent multilingual learners (EMLs) with disabilities. However, many SETs have reported not receiving necessary preservice training and, therefore, feeling unprepared and unconfident. As such, it is important to consider the role of teacher educators, whose knowledge is related to their teacher candidates’ knowledge. Yet, research on SET educators’ knowledge and instructional decisions related to literacy for EMLs is limited. Therefore, we investigated SET educators’ knowledge, experiences, and confidence regarding EMLs; their perceptions of the value of preparing SET candidates to support the language and literacy development of EMLs; and the extent to which they incorporate EML content into their literacy courses.

Authors

• Alexandra Shelton, Johns Hopkins University

• Erin K. Hogan, University of Louisville

• Yang Fu, University of Maryland