Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

Advocating For English Language Learners: The Role Of The Literacy Educator, Briana Asmus, Austyn Sabin

Michigan Reading Journal

The authors explore how place-based advocacy effects and pedagogies have provided a way to address the needs of students. Insights on the ways authors have confronted challenges in their elementary and secondary settings reveal strategies that can be carefully integrated by literacy educators into other “places” of learning.

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Pax Populi: Empowering Afghans Through Virtual Tutoring, Lara Chuppe

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

I began tutoring two Afghan high school students through Pax Populi as a service-learning component of HONR 39900: Virtual Abroad Central Asia. This semester, I will be assisting Purdue students with developing successful tutoring partnerships with Afghan refugees through Pax Populi. The non-profit Pax Populi seeks to empower Afghans through virtual, one-on-one English tutoring. Originally, the program matched young people living in cities across Afghanistan with volunteer tutors, but in light of the Taliban’s rise to power, the organization is now working to provide virtual English lessons to newly arriving Afghan refugees. Many of the refugees speak little English. They …

Esl Teachers And School Leaders Perspectives: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy In Elementary And Middle Grades Social Studies, Matthew John Wynne, Landon Hadley

Journal of Research Initiatives

The American public education system is undergoing significant changes. This is in regard to what students should be learning and how teachers should deliver quality instruction. English language learners (ELLs) are a group that demands time, attention, and special consideration. This is due to their increasing population in public schools and their low academic performance when compared to their native English-speaking students (Samson & Collins, 2012). English language learners are one of the fastest-growing student populations in the United States, with over 4.6 million students as of 2015 (McFarland et al., 2017). This qualitative study with a narrative inquiry approach …

Can High School Students Check The Veracity Of Information About Covid-19? A Case Study On Critical Media Literacy In Brazilian Esl Classes, Karin Paola Meyrer, Dorotea Frank Kersch

Journal of Media Literacy Education

In a globalized world, critical media literacy is imperative when selecting the content we consume amid countless offers. Therefore, the purpose of this case study is to analyze which resources 3rd year high school students (16-17 years old) from an English as a Second Language class in Brazil use in the construction of authorial journalistic articles demystifying fake news about COVID-19 and if the interventions conducted previous to the task were helpful in their process of developing critical media literacy. To this end, firstly students analyzed news about COVID-19 from international websites; secondly, they discussed aspects of a video that …

Fifty Definitions Of English Learner: A Proposed Solution To Inconsistent State-By-State Systems In The United States For Classifying Students Who Speak English As A Second Language, Rolf Straubhaar, Pedro R. Portes

Educational Considerations

Although nearly one in 10 U.S. students is an English Learner (or EL), the definition of the term EL varies considerably from state to state, as does the means of assessing English language proficiency and the period of time for which the label is applied to individual students. As EL populations are growing throughout the U.S., both in school systems familiar with teaching ELs and in systems that do not have such experience, it is urgent that the methods by which this population is identified and by which its needs are met in acquiring English language proficiency are backed up …

Transcribing In Esl: An Investigation Into Role, Accuracy, And Skills, John G. Patkin

The Qualitative Report

The role, accuracy, and skills of a team of ESL researchers who transcribed more than 3,000 English language learning histories (LLH) from university students in Hong Kong is examined in this paper. The paper provides an insight into the role of transcribers, how they approach their work, the problems they face, and how they overcome them including the conflict of their prior English language learning. A self-administered semi-structured interview and thematic analysis were used in this qualitative study. The findings show that transcribers learned experientially as they combined project guidelines and prior experience to achieve accuracy Transcribers feel more comfortable …

Enhancing Cultural And Linguistic Responsiveness In Argument Writing Pedagogy Through Effective Adaptations For English Learners: Insights From C3wp Resource Analysis And Three Experienced Teachers’ Practices, Katelyn Walsh, Katey Robinson, Rachel Deacon, Zuzana Tomaš

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

This article examines recommended adaptations for English Learners (ELs) in the nationally-recognized C3WP argument writing program through the lens of effective EL literacy practices and culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy. We present an analysis of C3WP EL tips and EL notices and argue that when evaluated from the second language literacy and linguistically and culturally responsive pedagogy perspectives, the C3WP program could be enhanced by adding guidance for 1) specific instructional supports designed to increase ELs’ access to the resources and 2) helping teachers leverage these learners’ multicultural and multilinguistic capital. To help imagine how such effective additional guidance could …

Literacy Uses And Practices Of Schoolchildren Living In A Contemporary Malaysian Context, Syerina Syahrin

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This paper reports the uses and practices of literacy in English of primary schoolchildren in Malaysia. Data was gathered from two children, their parents and the English subject teacher. The results reveal four major findings. First, the results reveal that the students’ experience with out-of-school literacies in English were largely afforded by new technologies Second, popular culture played a considerable role in the students’ out-of-school lives. Third, the students’ engagement with out-of-school texts was influenced by cultural artefacts and social discourses, and fourth, there were also complementing and contrasting literacy practices reflected in both environments. This paper argues that …

Southeast Asian Refugee-Learners: Identities Informing Esl Education And Support, Andrew J. Perlman

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

Serving as a synthesis of previously published studies and digests, this paper focuses on Southeast Asian refugees in America to address the complex interaction between refugee-learners’ ongoing construction of identity and the ESL environment. Drawing on a wealth of historical and contemporary research on one of America’s most prominent refugee populations, this exploration highlights the traits that constitute Southeast Asians as a unique group of learners due to their shared histories of trauma; social, cultural and religious influences; and ongoing sociocultural and linguistic negotiations of identity during resettlement. As a result, ESL programs and practitioners become critical to both language …

How Much Is Enough To Learn? Exploring The Effects Of An Abbreviated Implementation Of The National Writing Project’S College, Career And Community Writers Program (C3wp) On English Learners’ Argumentative Writing Growth, Samantha J. Manzo, Kelsey Decamillis, Sarah Lorenz

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Without doubt, explicit instruction is essential as English learners develop important academic skills such as argument writing. Less clear is the extent to which students need to receive such explicit instruction and engage in practice in order to benefit from it. The National Writing Project’s College, Career, and Community Writing Program (C3WP) provides teachers with resources and assessments for the explicit instruction of argument writing. Prior research on C3WP has indicated that in order to see student growth, teachers must implement at least four short cycles in an academic year. The four cycles can seem ambitious and difficult for teachers …

Three Ways To Help Esl Content Linger Beyond The “El Course” In Teacher Preparation Programs, Melanie Gonzalez

Journal of English Learner Education

Like many other states, our teacher preparation program arrived at this compartmentalized, “single-experience” ESL-focused course model as a result of local, state, and federal policies in the United States that have increasingly placed ELs into mainstream classrooms rather than into language and literacy development courses (de Jong, 2014). TESOL faculty might have questioned: how can everything related to effective ESL teaching be covered in one semester? The fact of the matter is that the onus on this work largely rests upon teacher candidates’ shoulders after they depart the ESL-focused course. What follows are three practices that largely have arisen …

The Impact Of Math Vocabulary On Conceptual Understanding For Ells, Vanessa Valley

Networks: An Online Journal for Teacher Research

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of teaching daily math word problems in a 3rd-6th grade ELL classroom on math vocabulary use and math word problem and place value comprehension. This teacher research study used a pre and post word problem test graded on a 16 point scale and a frequency tally to track math vocabulary use. The results showed a small increase in word problem comprehension and a large increase in math vocabulary frequency. While math problems help some students’ math comprehension, the written format in English combined with the students’ lower English reading ACCESS …

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 …

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 …

A Pedagogy Of Care For Adolescent English Learners: A Formative Experiment, Mary Amanda Stewart, Alexandra Babino, Katie Walker

TAPESTRY

In the case of educators of adolescents in the dynamic process of English acquisition, it is our goal to increase the fulfillment and success of the students we are privileged to serve through nurturing their academic, emotional, personal, social, and civic development. It is, therefore, essential that educators understand the implementation and impact of teaching through a framework of care.

The Language Of Learning In Family And Consumer Sciences: English Language Learners In Career Technical Education, Kali S. Lenhoff

Empowering Research for Educators

Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) content and English as a Second Language (ESL) strategies can be organically incorporated to create a successful education for an English Language Learner (ELL). The first objective of this research project is to discover how prepared Family and Consumer Sciences teachers feel to work with English Language Learners in the classroom. The second objective is to identify practical and effective methods and strategies that are useful for Family and Consumer Sciences teachers instructing English Language Learners. The rationale for this project is that by identifying the challenges faced by English Language Learners in education, teachers …

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 …

Attending To Hu'huk: Lessons For A Teacher, Elizabeth Park

Occasional Paper Series

Elizabeth Park, a middle school ESL teacher and adjunct faculty member at Bank Street, draws on her Master’s research done at the College to describe how she learned to work with three challenging students. Park brings to life her passion for her subject matter, for knowing her students, and for learning while teaching. These are the foundations of an effective progressive pedagogy.

Introduction: Welcoming The Stranger, Jonathan Silin

Occasional Paper Series

Jonathan G. Silin introduces the 17th issue of Occasional Papers with the concept of "strangers" - people of all ages who perceive themselves or have been perceived by others as outsiders. The ability to welcome the stranger - or groups of strangers - into the classroom is essential to building a productive, caring community of learners. This philosophy sets the tone for the following essays that illustrate the importance of creating a healthy learning environment for immigrants.

The Looking Glass Effect: A Phenomenological Study Of Graduate Asian Students’ English Writing Challenges, Papia Bawa, Sunnie L. Watson

Journal of Research Initiatives

Increasingly more students from China are looking to the USA for learning opportunities. Despite being beneficial for both stakeholders, this phenomenon has some deep-rooted issues pertaining to cross cultural language acquisition barriers that may be preventing such learners from reaching their full potential in academic accomplishments. This phenomenological study of five Chinese students in the USA, engaged in the process of English language communication, is a step towards understanding this phenomenon. The study’s findings led to the development of a new metaphorical paradigm (Looking Glass Effect Paradigm) to explain the key issues faced by such learners, a new pedagogical approach …

“It Was Like Really Uncomfortable But Kind Of Comfortable”: An Ethnographically-Informed Radio Play Of Adult Esl Classes With Educational Drama, Won Kim

Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism, and Practice

This chapter explores possibilities and challenges of educational drama-based second language instruction for adult emergent bilingual learners. A part of the key findings from an ethnographic multiple case study of four adult ESL classes with educational drama in Canada will be represented, using playwriting as a means to uncover diverse nuanced insights and reflexive understandings of the phenomenon under investigation. The primary purpose of this ethnographically-informed radio play script is to serve as reflexive, dynamic, and artistic expressions that speak (about and to) students’ voices concerning their learning experiences in the course as heard/felt/perceived by the researcher as a participant …

Fostering Transformative Learning In An Online Esl Professional Development Program For K-12 Teachers, Karin Sprow Forte, David Blouin

The Qualitative Report

This qualitative study examines evidence of transformative learning surrounding sociocultural issues in the K-12 classroom of in-service teachers, while participating in an online English as a Second Language (ESL) professional development program. Using inductive data analysis, precursors and catalysts to transformative learning were identified to understand the ways in which 24 purposefully sampled participants experienced learning. Areas explored included ways in which the candidates participated in critical reflection of their own perspectives, ways in which this process affected their meaning making of their experiences, potential for action in changing their practice as ESL educators, and transformative learning features present throughout …

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 …

[Special Issue On Hmong Newcomers To Saint Paul Public Schools] The Affective Consequences Of Cultural Capital: Feelings Of Powerlessness, Gratitude, And Faith Among Hmong Refugee Parents, Bic Ngo

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

In education research, the analysis of the role of cultural capital has focused primarily on its role in parent involvement. Little attention has been paid to how cultural capital affects the attitudes or feelings of parents about their worth and roles as parents. In this article I examine the impact of the exclusionary characteristic of cultural capital on refugee Hmong parents from Wat Tham Krabok. I highlight themes of uncertainty, powerlessness, gratitude and faith that parents repeatedly raised when speaking about their childrens education. I suggest that paying attention to the affectiveemotionalconsequences of cultural capital is critical for understanding the …

[Special Issue On Hmong Newcomers To Saint Paul Public Schools] Supporting Hmong Newcomers Academic And Social Transition To Elementary School, Martha Bigelow, Letitia Basford, Esther Smidt

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

When elementary aged Hmong children were resettled in St. Paul Public Schools after the closing of the Wat Tham Krabok refugee camp in Thailand, their families largely enrolled them in either a Transitional Language Center or a Language Academy program. This study reports on the perceptions teachers and educational assistants had about how well these programs met the needs of this unique population of newcomers. Findings show that the Transitional Language Centers were better able to ease the adjustment to school for the Hmong newcomers because of the safe, bilingual environment they created.

Perspectives On Teacher Quality: Bilingual Education And Esl Teacher Certification, Test-Taking Experiences, And Instructional Practices, Nancy Lemberger, Angela Reyes-Carrasquillo

Journal of Multilingual Education Research

This descriptive exploratory study looked at the certification process, test-taking experiences, and instructional practices of a group of graduate bilingual education (BE) and English-as-a- Second-Language (ESL) teachers to understand why some had problems passing teacher certification tests after completing their degrees. The study surveyed 63 BE and ESL teachers on their certification and test-taking experiences and their perceived instructional strengths. From this group of 63 participants, 15 volunteer teachers were interviewed and observed in their classrooms. Findings reveal most teachers passed certification tests on the first or second attempt. However, several failed tests due to language, content, and time difficulties, …

Confounded And Compounded By Language: English Language Learners And High Stakes Testing, Elizabeth Park

Occasional Paper Series

As her students prepare to take their tests to exhibit English proficiency, the atmosphere, writes Park, "becomes military at best, prison-like at worst. Regulations are distributed. Teachers are warned that state examiners may appear unannounced to look for infractions of the myriad rules..." Scare tactics are used to try to assure that the testing activity remains uncontaminated by human desire, fear, or simple boredom.

The Communicative Approach To Language Teaching: Some Important Aspects, Roland T. Williams

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The past decade in the study and teaching of language - foreign Ianguages (FLI. English as a second language (ESLI. and English as a foreign language (EFL) - has seen a shift away from perceiving language as 'code' (a linear sequence of structural elements) to perceiving language as the performance of communicative acts within social contexts. Up to the early 1970s language teaching was seen as a matter of exposing students to sequentially·graded grammatical structures (for example, the pres~nt continuous verb form, I am walking might l;Ie taught before the past form I walked) and invented language forms divorced from …