Teacher Discussion Forums

In classes and/or scenarios where you might try teaching academic content (such as science or social studies), eliciting student responses could be accomplished as they traditionally are in K-12 general education... Adult students learning content and ESL simultaneously could be easily motivated by ...

I am enrolled an ESL teacher training program in which I am studying the application and effectiveness of an often dizzying milieu of "approaches", "techniques", "methods", etc. I am previously trained as a Social Studies teacher, and am interested in dovetailing the teaching of Social Studies conte...

There is a place for both bilingual ed and English-only programs, and sound arguments have been made for both based on sound research. The problem is that so many of us (and now three states) are trying to pick one over the other as the "better" option and apply that across the board. The diversity ...

The current funding crisis in our schools, nationwide, is bad enough. Conditions in the future (the near future at least) will be even worse - that’s not a prediction so much as a reality that is currently unfolding and just hasnt’t hit us yet in full force. This concerns all realms of education in ...

I think it's too difficult - probably impossible - to come up with one ultimate test for all ELLs in a bilingual program to take. There are too many variables between programs, student populations, district policies, curricula... And I'm not sure I would trust any such test, were it drafted, or it's...

Sorting through the research on ESL, in terms of statistical data and metanalyses, is difficult for me. I have trouble making sense of the charts/graphs, especially when analyses can vary so widely, revealing such wide and different results based on any number of varying factors. I suppose researche...

This topic gets at the core of how challenging and complex these issues are. How do we juggle the varying needs/challenges students face in terms of satisfying both content knowledge and language knowledge, especially in the later grades? I think a possible solution (or something that would at least...

Analyzing the achievement gap through the lens of actual data studies reveals a great deal about how complex the issue is. A compelling example is the case of how widely the achievement gap (across all subjects) changes between the fourth and eighth grades. What explains this? Is it related to cogni...

I agree completely that language informs identity. I went to Hebrew school as a kid and now teach Hebrew school as an adult, part-time. Jewish families send their kids to Hebrew school to learn about their ethnicity and identity, through the vehicle of an ancient language. So I know what it means to...

I lived in MA for roughly five years (from 2003-2008), beginning college up there just a couple years after Question 2 was implemented. During college, I earned credits through a TESOL program and a teacher certification program at Mt. Holyoke College, through which I completed field-studies in loca...

I agree that Bilingual Education can be an important feature of English language education. I am especially in favor of BE as a way to boost L1 proficiency/literacy, which is necessary to possess before going on to learn an L2. This is especially true when in comes to literacy skills. If people must...

Everyone can agree that the initial contact between Europeans and native inhabitants of the Americas was disastrous... Columbus, Cortes, Pizarro, and then the tiniest but nastiest Consquistador of them all - the smallpox virus. Yet it is somewhat heartening to know that in those darkest of days that...