Teachers and Linguistically Diverse Learners

How can we help teachers accommodate linguistically diverse learners?

Globalization opened doors for immigrants to come to the United States to find economic opportunities (Zervas, 2017). The increase in the immigrant population drastically changed the diversity in the school population. Schools played an essential role to the immigrants as early as the 1800s. They helped immigrants be educated and learn the language to be comfortable in their new environment (Zervas, 2017). Most immigrant parents and children do not speak English. Because of this, there is no reinforcement of the English language at home. Increased cultural diversity posed a challenge to educators as most of the teachers in the field for more than ten years did not have training for cultural diversity in the classroom. The school leadership team initiates professional development sessions to provide teachers training to help them in the population diversity. In this blog post, I will share how the school leadership team provided help to me in accomodating ELLs. Below are some examples of how the school leadership team help teachers to accommodate the culturally linguistic diverse learners

1. School districts invest in computer programs like Rosetta Stone to help teachers communicate with ELLs and their parents. Rosetta Stone is a program to learn a foreign language, and the goal of the district is to help teachers learn a new language. A few years ago, I had a chance to teach in a high Hispanic school where students and their parents do not speak English. The school administrative team bought the program for teachers. Teachers tried to use this program to learn Spanish but were not very successful as it requires time from teachers to sit down and learn the language. Plus, it is more challenging to teach an adult a new language than young students. Teachers use Google translate for their students because it is easier to access. Still, some translation with Google translate is not accurate, especially in content area classes. According to PACTRANZ (n.d.), Google translate does not translate language as a whole sentence but translates it word for word. The word-for-word translation makes students confused as the translation does not make any sense.

2. Co-teaching in the classroom. This strategy is used in inclusion classrooms wherein a special education teacher teaches with the general education teacher. Some school districts initiate applying this strategy wherein the ELL teacher is in the general education classroom and assisting the content area teacher. Tigert and Peercy (2018) mentioned that school districts utilized co-teaching between ESL and the content area teachers to solve the problem of the lack of ESL teachers’ knowledge with the content area and the content area teacher lack of strategies in teaching ELLs. Based on my own experience, using this strategy results in higher academic achievement in my class. The ELL teacher shared strategies that I can use in my class and help students understand concepts.

3. ELL teachers to teach general education classes. Co-teaching with ELL teachers is a great strategy to use in the classroom. The teacher shortage that the school system is experiencing is that the school cannot utilize co-teaching. ELL teachers do not feel confident to teach content area classes as they do not have the expertise. The school leadership team sees a solution for ELL teachers to teach content area classes (Tigert and Peercy, 2018). Some school districts are offering scholarships for teachers to go back to school to get their certificate in teaching ELL students. This initiative from the school district motivates general teachers to go back to school and learn how to accommodate the ELL learners.

Teacher shortage in the U. S. is one of the significant problems the public education system faces now (Garcia and Weiss, 2020). Because of this, schools cannot utilize co-teaching. Funding for professional development opportunities is one of the reasons why school districts cannot provide assistance to teachers in accomodating ELLs. Universities, in general, need to give students opportunities to immerse themselves in a linguistically diverse environment to prepare the students for globalization. Teacher preparation institutions should provide double degree programs to prepare future teachers in teaching a content area and be ELL teachers. Globalization offers opportunities for all, and schools play a vital role in helping each student to succeed in the future.

Reference:

Garcia, E., and Weiss, E. (2020, October 15). A Policy Agenda to Address the Teacher Shortage in U. S. Public Schools. Economic Policy Institute. https://www.epi.org/publication/a-policy-agenda-to-address-the-teacher-shortage-in-u-s-public-schools/

Pacific International Translations (n. d.) How accurate is Google Translate? - what it's good for and when not to rely on it? https://www.pactranz.com/google-translate-accuracy-issues/

Tigert, J. M., & Peercy, M. M. (2018). Preparing to Teach Both Content and Language: Four ESOL Teacher Candidates’ Experiences. TESOL Journal, 9(3), 542–556. https://eds.p.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=5&sid=3737d58d-0163-4faf-a0d9-efddfd5f9467%40redis

Zervas, T. G. (2017). Finding a Balance in Education: Immigration, Diversity, and Schooling in Urban America, 1880-1900. Athens Journal of Education - Volume 4, Issue 1 – Pages 77-84. https://doi.org/10.30958/aje.4-1-5