For a variety of reasons, in US post‐secondary contexts the growth of online course enrollment continues to moderately outpace registration in traditional face‐to‐face courses offered by institutions of higher education. Online language learning is also gaining popularity. Much of the existing research has focused on comparisons between online versus traditional course delivery. However, online teaching requires a new discussion of the pedagogical implications of teaching in a virtual classroom, as there are unique considerations for online teaching. Such considerations include the need to support social presence, create a sense of community, design authentic methods of conducting field work, and employing innovative and creative means of assessment.
Background/Context Current research addresses the marginalization of social studies and trends in teaching English learners (ELs) in monolingual schools; however, few studies have examined the way in which support services provided to ELs impact their exposure to social studies instruction. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study Social studies is a difficult content area for ELs, as they grapple with culturally specific concepts in addition to language barriers. School structures and institutional practices sometimes result in less access to social studies instruction for ELs than their English-speaking peers. We sought to describe ELs’ opportunities to learn social studies in the face of educational reforms designed to increase accountability. We also examined how institutional structures, such as ESL programs, influ-enced ELs’ exposure to the social studies curriculum. Setting The study took place in a suburban elementary school with a moderate population of ELs, situated within a large, urban school district in the southeastern United States. Participants Six classroom teachers, three instructional specialists and one administrator participated. Research Design We present a qualitative participatory inquiry that was guided by an opportunity to learn theoretical framework, in addition to research that suggests an important relationship between the quality and intensity of classroom instruction and students’ academic success. Data Collection and Analysis Data were collected across one academic year and included transcribed interviews, field notes from observations, classroom artifacts, teacher journals, and district resources. We employed a multitiered inductive analysis using a three-phase coding process. Findings/Results Our findings suggest that ELs do not receive an equitable opportunity to learn social studies. Factors included variance in social studies time, instructional schedule design, the ESL program structure, and communication/collaboration gaps. Additionally, we found disparities between the type and general overall quality of social studies for these linguistically diverse learners and their native speaking peers. Conclusions/Recommendations We recommend the inclusion of instructional specialists, such as the ESL teacher, in planning, professional development, and decision-making. Furthermore, we advocate for flexible, yet monitored scheduling of special services to ensure curricular access to all content areas. Furthermore, we emphasize that administrators must have a clear understanding of the needs of their ELs and that they must adopt a long-term vision for these students that includes simultaneous support for their content and language development.
Contemporary K-12 standards-based educational reform has emerged as a central focus of scholarship in TESOL, with robust discussions (practical and theoretical) addressing the shift from ESL as a subject matter unto itself to teaching standards-based content in English (and the standardized assessment of students' achievement across those content areas, including literacy and reading). However, relatively few studies have examined how veteran ESL professionals understand themselves and what their work accomplishes in instructional contexts where literacy and literacy test scores have emerged as the gold standard of adequate yearly progress. In this qualitative narrative, the researchers draw from a 7-month study of an ESL teacher and her first-grade colleagues' negotiation of a balanced literacy program. Analysis reveals that for this teacher the schoolwide adoption of "balanced literacy" created tensions between what she was expected to do and who she wanted to be or even was capable of being. It was only with great reluctance and even sadness that she realized that if she were to stay at her school and enact her professional functions with any degree of credibility, she would have to reconsider what teaching ESL could encompass. The authors conclude with implications for TESOL preservice and in-service teacher education.
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