Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

Black Lives Matter In Teaching English As A Second Language!, Kristin Lems

Faculty Publications

The Winter 2020 issue of theIllinois Reading Council Journal published a special issue focusing on “action for equity,” with thoughtful articles and abundant family and classroom resources. This issue of the “wELLcome”column, which is dedicated to topics regarding English language learners (ELLs), continues in that same vein. In this issue, we place the spotlight on ELLs of African descent, their teachers, and their schools.

All About The American Flap, Kristin Lems

Faculty Publications

In this column, I am going to talk about the American flap, a phonological feature of the American English dialect. Those of us with backgrounds in ESL/EFL learn about this in our master’s programs, but I have found that even teachers who have taken a course in linguistics may not be aware of the flap and its important implications for listening, reading, and spelling in English (Lems, Miller, & Soro, 2017)

Advocating For Integration: Acculturation In A Non-Profit Serving Immigrants Organization, Daniel Calderon

SPACE: Student Perspectives About Civic Engagement

This paper presents acculturation practices in a non-profit, serving immigrants organization in a Midwestern city in the United States. Although the programs and services offered at this organization become pertinent vis-à-vis the welfare of the immigrants, their expected outcomes seem to foment the Americanization of the organization’s clients.

Through a critical examination, certain services and practices within this organization respond to a unidirectional process of acculturation, in which the immigrants turn out to be the ones who have to acquire certain sociocultural and linguistic repertoires for them to adapt and fit in the U.S. mainstream society.

The utilization of the …

Implementing The Sociocultural Theory While Teaching Esl, Michele S. Lee

SPACE: Student Perspectives About Civic Engagement

Abstract: Previous literature presents there is a demand to teach adult learners English due to the amount of non-English speaking citizens. Therefore, educators have responded to the need for programs that teach adult learners English. English as a Second Language (ESL) classes help adults by providing a foundation of comprehension for the English language, this foundation helps adults navigate their lives. Previous educational research states that Vygotsky’s (1978) Sociocultural Theory is a theory practiced in the ESL classroom because the Sociocultural Theory consists of cultural approach in addition to an educational approach. The Sociocultural Theory and has been beneficial for …