Decentralization, teacher quality, and the education of English learners: Do state education agencies effectively prepare teachers of Els?

English learners are entitled to participate meaningfully and equally in educational programs. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) includes provisions to ensure success for all students, including English learners. However, the federal government does not prescribe specifically how states should meet these provisions; instead, it is the responsibility of states to develop respective plans of action. This decentralization means that states play a primary role in setting policy for teacher credentialing. In this paper, we address the following question: Do state education agencies effectively prepare teachers of ELs? We reviewed the teacher credentialing requirements to teach classified English learners in bilingual education, English language development, and sheltered English immersion settings, as well as the professional teaching standards for reference to culturally and linguistically diverse learners across the 50 states and the District of Columbia. We found inconsistencies across the US with regard to the education of classified English learners and document wide variation in teacher certification for working with English learners. We highlight implications for policy and teacher preparation.

Monolingual Language Ideologies and the Massachusetts Sheltered English Immersion Endorsement Initiative: A Critical Policy Analysis

With U.S. classrooms increasingly characterized by linguistic diversity, policies mandating teacher training around English learning have proliferated. Recent federal oversight prompted Massachusetts to implement an initiative to endorse its 70,000+ teachers in Sheltered English Immersion (SEI). While policy research has productively emphasized teachers as policy interpreters within such initiatives, almost no research exists on the role teacher educators play in the policy interpretive process. Therefore, this study documents how teacher educators across Massachusetts interpreted and operationalized the SEI endorsement policy. Drawing on document and interview analysis, findings highlight key experiences, contextual factors, and ideological dispositions that informed participants’ policy interpretations. Instructors navigated tensions between their own goals to affirm linguistic diversity and the monolingual orientations produced through the state’s recently overturned English-only policy. These findings demonstrate the affordances of examining the role of language ideologies in policy interpretation, with implications for large-scale language policy initiatives and educational policy interpretation more broadly.

Teaching For Justice: Introducing Translanguaging in an Undergraduate TESOL Course

This study investigates how introducing translanguaging as a way to affirm language and culture impacted students’ understandings of learning and teaching in a TESOL certificate course offered at a university in the northeast of the United States. As researchers, teachers, and students committed to justice, we explored the impact of introducing translanguaging in a course that was originally designed as a Sheltered English Immersion (SEI) course through collaborative, qualitative approaches of thematic analysis and macro- and micro-level analyses of power based on our unique individual experiences in the classroom. We found across our analysis that introducing translanguaging provided opportunities to shift assumptions and that, overall, students demonstrated critical sociocultural understandings of language that are foundational in teaching for justice. Ultimately, while we recognize the need for more explicit discussion about the purpose and pedagogy of translanguaging, the shifts towards teaching and embracing multilingual and multicultural realities through translanguaging which the study identified can contribute to the field of language education by demonstrating how teachers might open up possibilities in teaching for justice.

“It’s Not Really My Job”: A Mixed Methods Framework for Language Ideologies, Monolingualism, and Teaching Emergent Bilingual Learners

Teacher education has redoubled efforts to prepare a predominantly monolingual teaching force for linguistic diversity in U.S. schools. Some jurisdictions are requiring specific teacher preparation, such as mandated Sheltered English Immersion (SEI) endorsement in Massachusetts, the context of this study. Previous research has explored the intersections of language ideologies and practice through such coursework. However, few studies have accounted for the underlying monolingual ideologies that inform U.S education. Therefore, this study employs a mixed methods approach to analyze language ideologies among 127 preservice and beginning teachers engaged in SEI methods coursework. Drawing on written reflections, survey data, and reported practices, this study offers a framework for exploring teacher language ideologies. This framework highlights a trajectory of lived ontologies, pedagogical orientations, and key contextual “filters” that may distort language ideologies in practice. The framework is operationalized through an analysis of monolingual ideologies across educational policy, practice, and teacher preparation.

The impact of language and high-stakes testing policies on elementary school English language learners in Arizona.

This article reports the results of a survey of third-grade teachers of English Language Learners (ELLs) in Arizona regarding school language and accountability policies—Proposition 203, which restricts bilingual education and mandates sheltered English Immersion; the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB); and Arizona LEARNS, the state’s high-stakes testing and accountability program. The instrument, consisting of 126 survey questions plus open-ended interview question, was designed to obtain teacher’s views, to ascertain the impact of these polices, and to explore their effectiveness in improving the education of ELL students. The survey was administered via telephone to 40 teacher participants from different urban, rural and reservation schools across the state. Each participant represents the elementary school in their respective school district which has the largest population of ELL students. Analyses of both quantitative and qualitative data reveal that these policies have mostly resulted in confusion in schools throughout the state over what is and is not allowed, and what constitutes quality instruction for ELLs, that there is little evidence that such policies have led to improvements in the education of ELL students, and that these policies may be causing more harm than good. Specifically, teachers report they have been given little to no guidance over what constitutes sheltered English immersion, and provide evidence that most ELL students in their schools are receiving mainstream sink-or-swim instruction. In terms of accountability, while the overwhelming majority of teachers support the general principle, they believe that high-stakes tests are inappropriate for ELLs and participants provided evidence that the focus on testing is leading to instruction practices for ELLs which fail to meet their unique linguistic and academic needs. The article concludes with suggestions for needed changes to improve the quality of education for ELLs in Arizona.