Education Commons^™

Project Study Secondary Teachers’ Perspectives In Supporting English Language Learners, Yushica T. Walker

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The problem for this study was that an average of 60% of eighth-grade English Language Learners (ELL) in one Virginia county were not meeting reading proficiency based on Virginia Standards of Learning. A basic qualitative design was used to explore teachers' perspectives on their successes, challenges, and the resources they need to teach eighth-grade ELLs in reading. The resulting project was a three-day culturally responsive professional development training for English language (EL) teachers. Krashen's language acquisition theory was the conceptual framework used to explore teachers' perspectives on their successes, challenges, and the resources necessary to teach eighth-grade ELLs. Learning should …

Seeing The World Through Their Eyes: The Impact Of Place Attachment On Teachers' Understanding Of Worldviews, Kathleen Murray

Theses & Dissertations

Over the past 20 years, Long Island, New York, has seen an increase in linguistic and racial diversity within its schools. The growth in linguistic diversity has brought with it an increase in English language learners (ELLs), representing almost a 50% increase since 2012. As the ELL population has grown, so has the achievement gap between ELLs and their non-ELL peers. The current teaching staff on Long Island does not match the diversity of its student population. Prior research has shown that the cultural mismatch between the teachers and students is one contributing factor to the aforementioned achievement gap. In …

Preparing Future Teachers To Meet The Needs Of English Language Learners: A Proposal For Curriculum Reform, Alyson Haley

Honors College

English language learners are an underserved population within the public school system, and there is not enough being done to prepare future teachers to teach these students. The University of Maine College of Education and Human Development is one of the leading teacher preparation programs in Maine, but they no longer offer undergraduate courses on how to teach ELL students. The classes offered at the University address ELLs within the special education context and teaching multiculturalism in a mainstream classroom. Teaching ELLs is different than teaching native English-speaking students, therefore the instructional strategies used within a mainstream classroom are not …

Authentic Low-Stakes Practice To Make Meaning Lasting For Ells: Creating Vocabulary Chants And Songs To Enhance The Word Generation Curriculum, Lori Cohen

Masters Theses/Capstone Projects

This curriculum creation is designed to supplement the Word Generation (WordGen) vocabulary program for middle school students. It adds songs and chants of the weekly focus words for use as a mnemonic device to remember and synthesize word meaning. The WordGen curriculum is heavily based on reading and writing and English Language Learners (ELLs) are at a disadvantage when tasked with learning and understanding academic vocabulary due to the short length of time for mastery (Cummins, 1999; Collier, 1987; Thompson, 2017). This curriculum is inspired by the desire to appeal to ELLs who would respond favorably to music or kinesthetic …

Use Of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy In Supporting International Students: A Canadian Experience With An Online Reading-Writing Program, Elaine Khoo, Xiangying Huo

Teaching Culturally and Linguistically Diverse International Students in Open or Online Learning Environments: A Research Symposium

International students with low Academic English proficiency face great academic challenges in remote learning. The Reading and Writing Excellence (RWE) program was delivered fully online during the pandemic to meet these students’ unprecedented needs. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed to investigate the effects of the Culturally Responsive Pedagogy. Nine groups were investigated in the winter cycle 2021 at the University of Toronto in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada. In the group, where Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (CRP) was implemented, low English proficiency students wrote 11,500 words each in journal entries, the highest volume of writing output and engagement metrics as compared …

The Poetry Café: An On-Line Writing Workshop For Refugee And Newcomer Youth, Christin Taylor, Sana Abuleil

Teaching Culturally and Linguistically Diverse International Students in Open or Online Learning Environments: A Research Symposium

The objective of this paper is to discuss the use of cross-disciplinary partnerships to design and implement a creative writing workshop for English-language learners (ELLs) in an online setting. The methodology utilized collaborative, cross-disciplinary feedback and revision cycles to identify key areas of consideration in facilitating the workshop. The findings revealed cultural and grammatical considerations, emotional nuance considerations, idiomatic language considerations, and internal translation and time considerations in the creative writing process for ELLs. In addition, a reflection, after the completion of the workshop, revealed that while the curriculum successfully implemented three scholarly fields of knowledge, the advances made by …

Poetry Beyond The Page: A Case For Spoken Word Poetry In Florida's Secondary Classrooms, Sarah Matherly

Senior Honors Theses

Florida’s B.E.S.T. Standards, Florida’s most recent K-12 educational standards to promote literacy, lack the rising art of Spoken Word Poetry. However, Florida’s Department of Education should integrate Spoken Word into Florida’s Secondary curriculum. Spoken Word Poetry, by its definition, holds researched benefits that align with the B.E.S.T. Standard’s poetry recommendations and literacy-centered goals. In light of such benefits, Florida’s Department of Education should consider various Spoken Word poets and poems to include in Florida’s Secondary Curriculum, as well as explore the resources and integration methods included in this thesis for both teachers and students.

Ells And Stem Education: Charting A Path After The Covid-19 Pandemic

The Graduate Review

No abstract provided.

Embracing The New Normal: Infusing Academic Language And Technology To Empower Ells, Scott B. Freiberger

Journal of English Learner Education

This au courant, research-based article offers specific program ideas for teachers during this unprecedented time when supporting our ELLs is especially needed.

English Language Learners And Cultural Responsivity In The Art Classroom, Jessica Wycoff

Masters Theses

English Language Learners are a heterogeneous population of students that face social, emotional, and academic obstacles as they assimilate into a new culture while learning new subjects in a new language. In this study, I discuss the educational, social, and emotional needs of English Language Learners (ELLs) in PK-12 education and offer strategies to support kindergartener’s social and cultural identity while improving their language and academic skills in the unique environment of the art classroom.

Resources For Content-Area Teachers Educating Ells: A Literature Review, Heidi Jo Bartlett

The Nebraska Educator: A Student-Led Journal

Educating English Language Learners (ELLs) is a rapidly growing need in K-12 schools. While often viewed as a homogeneous group, in reality this population is varied in terms of prior knowledge, access to formal education, age, and native language. Despite these differences, students must be taught first social, and then academic, English in order for them to be successful in their classes and graduate. While in previous decades, ELLs were isolated from the mainstream population, common education practices now integrate them into their grade-level classes. However, while working with this high-need population, mainstream content-area teachers often lack the time, professional …

What Registers In The Body: Place And The Physicality Of Painting, Elizabeth Houston

Master’s Theses and Projects

Integrating twenty-first century skills within the classroom has become a global driving force within the educational field. While schools have adopted models of one-to-one technology or digital formats for native English speakers, addressing the twenty-first century skills for English language learners have been absent. Given that the present global society is drivenon bilingualism and multilingualism, English language learners need to be given the equitable digital opportunity to build their twenty-firstcentury skills. The purpose of this mixed methods research study is to explore the influence and use of the digital application, Flipgrid, on the oral,English development for foundational, beginning, English language …

Best Approaches For English Acquisition With Primary English Language Learners, Roxanna Gario

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The education reform that took place in the emirate of Abu Dhabi set the standard that all students attending state-governed schools would be literate in their native language of Arabic as well as English, which was being taught in schools as a second language. However, school data documented achievement gaps in English reading among English language learners (ELLs) at a primary school in Abu Dhabi. The purpose of this study was to investigate the best approaches used by English medium teachers to teach reading to ELLs in order to provide recommendations for student improvement. Guided by Krashen’s monitor model, this …

Welcoming Deaf Or Hard Of Hearing English Language Learners: A Guidebook For English Educators, Sarah Chang

Master's Projects and Capstones

Research in the Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH) English Language (EL) Education has shown that there is a significant lack of published research and resources within the past ten years.

The purpose of this project is to fill the gap between what is available and what is needed to give EL educators in public universities in the United States a resource and a guide to help them when working with DHH English Language Learners (ELL). Useful information, suggestions, and practices are provided within this guidebook and separated into three different chapters. The goal is to help DHH ELLs feel …

No Habla Espanol: Are Monolingual Teachers Getting The Support They Need?, Selena Banuelos

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

For this Capstone Project, the researchers investigated how monolingual teachers view the support and resources they received to teach English Language Learners (ELL) and what they thought could be done to improve their teaching effectiveness. An evidence based argument is offered that monolingual teachers were not being provided with effective support and resources. More specifically, three themes emerged from an analysis of the data obtained from interviews of monolingual teachers and administrators. Based on the emergent themes, an action was undertaken to help monolingual teachers better address the needs of ELLs. This is an important issue for monolingual teachers because …

No Habla Espanol: Are Monolingual Teachers Getting The Support They Need?, Alisha Miranda

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

For this Capstone Project, the researchers investigated how monolingual teachers view the support and resources they received to teach English Language Learners (ELL) and what they thought could be done to improve their teaching effectiveness. An evidence based argument is offered that monolingual teachers were not being provided with effective support and resources. More specifically, three themes emerged from an analysis of the data obtained from interviews of monolingual teachers and administrators. Based on the emergent themes, an action was undertaken to help monolingual teachers better address the needs of ELLs. This is an important issue for monolingual teachers because …

A Matter Of Time: English Language Learners And The Rti Process, Eric J. López, Mariya T. Davis

Special Education Faculty Publications

The Response to Intervention (RTI) process is being used to assist all students, including English Language Learners (ELLs), who are experiencing academic difficulties and potentially qualifying for special education services. This article discusses suggestions for improving the RTI process by incorporating congruent time frames within the model and aligning it with timing necessary for language acquisition in ELLs. In addition, practical recommendations for expanding the expertise of current and future educators are presented to assist in providing effective services to ELLs students in the RTI process.

The Relationship Between English Language Learners’ Mathematics Problem Solving Strategies And The Mathematics Register, Sarah Reeves Frederickson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This case study followed three Hispanic and three Marshallese students’ participation in a seventh grade pre-algebra unit over the course of four weeks. Pre-assessment items indicated that the students had difficulty with aspects of the mathematics register. Their teacher employed an interpretation of the gradual release model of instruction in which direct strategies for translating word problems into equations with unknowns were modeled prior to students doing similar problems on their own. In these situations, students showed some success in solving similar problems. However, post-assessment results indicated that none of the six students were able to successfully solve open response …

A Semiotic Analysis Of Linguistic And Conceptual Development In Mathematics For English Language Learners, Hyunsook Shin

Doctoral Dissertations

This study explores how an elementary mathematics teacher supported English language leaners’ (ELLs’) academic language and concept development in the context of current high- stakes school reform. The conceptual frameworks informing this study include Halliday’s theory of systemic functional linguistics (e.g., Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014) and Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of concept development (Vygotsky, 1986). Specifically, this study analyzes the interplay between academic and everyday language and how this interplay can facilitate the development of what Vygotsky referred to as “real” or complete concepts as students shift from “spontaneous” to more “scientific” understanding of phenomenon (Vygotsky, 1986, p.173). This year-long qualitative …

English Language Learners In K-12 Classrooms: Problems, Recommendations And Possibilities, Trisha Henderson

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Since California is the state with the highest number of English Language Learner (ELL) students in the nation (Abedi and Levine, 2013; Estrada, 2014), there is clearly a need for what Abedi and Levine (2013) call "accommodation" in educating ELLs in K-12 classrooms. This paper is an attempt to synthesize the current scholarship surrounding K-12 educational practices of ELLs nationally, but with special emphasis on key states: California and Arizona. It begins by describing the achievement gap between the growing number of ELLs and their native English speaking peers (NSP). The paper will first discuss possible reasons for this achievement …

Teachers' Perceptions Of Implementing Differentiated Instruction For English Language Learners, Mary E. Pegram

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Administrators and teachers are concerned that English Language Learners (ELLs) in an urban elementary school in a southern part of the United States are not meeting required state standards in reading. Teachers have indicated that they do not always know how to differentiate instruction for ELLs. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate teachers' implementation of differentiated instruction for ELLs. This research study was guided by the conceptual framework of Vygotsky's zone of proximal development and Tomlinson's theory of implementing differentiated instruction. The research questions investigated teachers' perceptions of differentiated instruction and their professional development for mediating …

Effective Instruction For English Language Learners, Kelly Picard Brown

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The problem addressed in this study is that English Language Learners (ELLs) in a California school district are not meeting the targeted yearly grade level expectations or making the same progress as non-ELL students. Meeting this goal will help close the achievement gap between ELLs and their native-English speaking peers. The purpose of the qualitative study was to explore the local problem and identify how teachers provided academic instruction to support ELLs with academic instruction and investigate perceived causes of the inadequate progress in learning English and the academic content. The research was guided by Vygotsky's theory of development and …

The Information-Fluent English Language Learner: Cultural And Pedagogical Considerations, Megan Hodge

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Online Learning Through Libguides For English Language Learners: A Case Study And Best Practices, Megan Hodge

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

Many of the international students in the U.S. first experience American education through English language programs, so the cultural norms taught by these programs are vital to the academic success of these students: without them, students struggle to recognize plagiarism in their writing, find reliable sources, and more, resulting in lower grades and honor code sanctions including expulsion. Librarians are uniquely equipped to meet this instructional need. This chapter introduces best practices for making the most of these opportunities for significant impact via Springshare's LibGuides platform.

Expanding Capacity To Serve Multilingual Learners: A University-School District Partnership, Beth Clark-Gareca, Kim Fontana

Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning

In a time of new teacher certification requirements in New York, school districts are grappling with how to meet the regulatory expectations imposed by Commissioner’s Regulations Part 154. One way that schools are solving staffing challenges is by forging new collaborations with university partners to expand their collective capacities to serve Multilingual learners (MLLs). In this article, we document a partnership between SUNY New Paltz’s Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) program and the Pawling Central School District during the 2017-18 academic year. We describe the partners’ distinct roles in the university-district collaboration, and discuss the logistical considerations …

Benefits Of Instructional Models For Teaching Elementary English Language Learners, Alanna Elder

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

English language learners are the fastest growing population in education and make up nearly one out of every four students in California classrooms. They are in need of successful classroom models in the mainstream elementary classroom to benefit their education. The purpose of this study is to examine the benefits of instructional models for teaching mainstream elementary English language learners, which is done through the review of literature and mainstream teacher surveys. Of the surveys conducted, 84% of the teachers believe that their current classroom models in place are beneficial; however, there is little evidence to support this in Monterey …

Language Socialization Of Mainland Chinese Adolescents In U.S. Science Classrooms, Fang Yu

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Secondary schools in the United States are enrolling an increasing number of Mainland Chinese students, and this cohort of students is often seen as a “model minority” that can achieve academic success without much if any, extra support. However, many Chinese students encounter difficulties not only in learning English but in learning other content areas raising questions as to what they experience as the affordances and constraints to their learning.

Using The Discourse Domain Hypothesis Of Interlanguage To Teach Scientific Concepts: Report On A Case Study In Secondary Education, Fernando Naiditch, Larry Selinker

Department of Teaching and Learning Scholarship and Creative Works

This paper reports work-to-date on a particular practical context, applying one approach to interlanguage, the discourse domains approach, merged with the rhetorical-grammatical approach, involving both language and content. The context is an MA course for teacher residents placed in urban schools, and their English language learners (ELLs) in math and science classes, providing content area teachers the linguistic support they need to teach the language of their content, and thus the content itself. We were interested in how exactly learners' interlanguage creation interacts with their understanding of scientific concepts. We primarily look at the rhetorical function "definition," with discourse level …

Using Multimodal Modules To Address Pre-Service Teachers’ Knowledge Gap In Learning To Teach English Language Learners, Guofang Li, Denisse M. Hinojosa, Lindsay Wexler, Yue Bian, Jose Manuel Matinez

TAPESTRY

Researchers have argued that teacher education programs fail to prepare effective teachers for the increasing English language learner (ELL). In response to the under preparedness of pre-service teachers (PSTs) for ELLs, the authors designed a six-module online lab course for a group of 22 TESOL minor PSTs. The content of the modules included knowledge of ELLs and their parents, the socio-political context of teaching ELLs, and strategies of teaching knowledge and content to ELLs. PSTs reported they benefited from the learning opportunities these modules provided, including: familiarizing them with the challenges ELLs faced, the importance of and ideas for involving …

English Language Learners In The Mathematics Classroom, Julia Mccormick

Senior Honors Projects

Mathematics is often considered a universal language. Most of us have heard this statement from a math teacher at some point throughout our academic careers. However, for students moving to the United States from another country with minimal fluency in English, this is clearly not the case. They may walk into math class, a subject area in which they may have excelled in their native country, and see the words “polynomial”, “coefficient”, and “differentiate” on the board. Regardless of their experiences in their native language, there are disconnects and cultural differences between languages and skills emphasized that prevents mathematics from …