HEAR THE DISCUSSION ON THE U.S. TEACHER SHORTAGE

National Public Radio's Morning Edition examines the national problem of soon-to-retire teachers in Teacher Shortage. The U.S. Department of Education says over the next ten years the country will need to hire two million new teachers. Some school systems, however, say the problem is exaggerated. (Requires free "RealAudio" software.)

To download the RealAudio Player consult RealAudio's home page. For the free Player go to the download page.

• Action Research/Teacher as Researcher

The Mid-continent Regional Educational Laboratory (McREL) provides this comprehensive index of links to Action Research/Teacher as Researcher sites. The concept of teacher-as researcher is included in recent literature on educational reform, which encourages teachers to be collaborators in revising curriculum, improving their work environment, professionalizing teaching, and developing policy. Teacher research has its roots in action research. Action research is deliberate, solution-oriented investigation that is group or personally owned and conducted. The focus is trying out ideas in practice as a means of increasing knowledge about and/or improving curriculum, teaching, and learning.

• American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE)

The AACTE is the primary professional organization for university personnel involved in the education of US teachers. With the usual sorts of membership pitches, organizational overviews, and events information, their homepage offers a look at hot issues affecting teacher preparation, education in general and a directory of pertinent Internet resources including the ERIC Clearinghouse on Teaching and Teacher Education.

• BECA

San Diego City Schools' Elementary Bilingual Education Credentialing Alternative (BECA) District Intern Program is an alternative certification program for the training of elementary bilingual English-Spanish speaking teachers.

• Bilingual Education and ESL Teacher Education Programs in the U.S.

Are you interested in becoming a Bilingual Education or ESL teacher, or advancing your career teaching linguistically diverse students? This page from the National Clearinghouse on Bilingual Education provides links to U.S. universities, colleges, and school districts offering teacher education and/or professional development programs in bilingual education and ESL.

• Bilingual/ESL Teacher Education Programs

Links to over 150 bilingual and ESL teacher education programs throughout the United States.

• California Commission on Teacher Credentialing

Guidelines for teachers serving limited-English-proficient (LEP) students. This informative provides a summary of the documents issued by the Commission that authorize instruction to LEP students including credentials, certificates, and supplementary authorizations issued by the commission that authorize instruction to limited-English proficient students.

• The California State Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment Program (BTSA)

To keep you informed and in touch with others who are interested in new teacher induction, the California Department of Education provides the BTSA Web Page. In 1988, California began to develop policies to address the crucial induction period for beginning teachers including support for the professional development of first-year and second-year teachers, and assessing their competence and performance in the classroom. The findings of the pilot project led the Legislature to initiate the Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) Program.

• Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement (CIERA)

CIERA's mission is to improve the reading achievement of America's children by generating and disseminating theoretical, empirical, and practical solutions to persistent problems in the learning and teaching of beginning reading. To accomplish this mission CIERA consolidates current knowledge on early reading, conducts programmatic research on specific early reading problems, identifies best practices among successful early reading educators, and establishes powerful interactive mechanisms for disseminating the resulting information and products.

• CEA Science Education Homepage

Berkeley's Center for Extreme Ultraviolet Astrophysics (CEA) terrific Science Education Home Page. The site is a gateway to a variety of K-12 science sections within the server, including the Internet-based Classroom Resources for K-12 pages, with teacher-developed lesson plans that incorporate the Web. The site also serves the Science Information Infrastructure (SII), which links earth and space science data to American science museums; and the NASA-funded Science On-Line (SOL) project, which offers Science Resource Toolkits for K-12 teachers and students with classroom activities on topics such as Weather, the Solar System and Space Science. Spanish language programs are also included.

• The Children's Literature Web Guide

The Children's Literature Web Guide is an attempt to gather together and categorize the growing number of Internet resources related to books for Children and Young Adults. Much of the information that you can find through these pages is provided by others: fans, schools, libraries, and commercial enterprises involved in the book world.

• Clinical Schools Clearinghouse

The Clinical Schools Clearinghouse, supported by a grant from the AT&T Foundation and administered by the American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE), collects and disseminates information on professional development schools, clinical schools, and similar institutions. A national database on professional development schools is maintained by the clearinghouse.

• The Consortium for Equity in Standards and Testing (CTEST)
  
  

The Consortium for Equity in Standards and Testing (CTEST) focuses attention on how educational standards, assessments, and tests can be used more fairly. CTEST's goals are to: Help understand standards, assessments, and testing; Examine the values and beliefs that underpin various proposals for standards and testing; 3.Provide a place where parents, teachers, advocacy groups and others can discuss the positive and negative impact of testing and standards on all students; 4.Recommend improvements in standards and testing that would identify and nurture talent, especially among racial, ethnic and linguistic minorities; and, 5.Help parents, teachers and advocacy groups develop and disseminate information and resources about standards and testing.

• Cooperative Learning: Response to Diversity

This comprensive effort by the Califonia Department of Education presents cooperative learning as a powerful educational approach for helping all students attain high academic standards and develop the interpersonal skills needed for succeeding in a multicultural world.

• The Curriculum Web

An organized and indexed collection of existing, educationally related internet resources including an on-line distance learning adventure, lesson plans and activities.

• ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English, and Communication (ERIC/REC)

The ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English, and Communication is dedicated to providing educational materials, services, and coursework to everyone interested in the language arts. They offer FREE exemplary lesson plans extracted from publications in their Bookstore. Also available FREE is the chapter "Using `Real Books' in Your Program," from Teach a Child to Read with Children's Books. Learn about and subscribe to the listserv READPRO, providing a forum via which reading educators may discuss issues confronting the profession.

• ERIC Clearinghouse on Teaching and Teacher Education

Provides information on teacher recruitment, selection, certification, training, preservice and in service preparation, retention, and aspects of health, physical education, recreation, and dance.

• ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education

UEweb offers manuals, brief articles, annotated bibliographies, reviews and summaries of outstanding publications, and conference announcements in urban education. Many items in UEweb are published by the ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education and are available for free or a nominal charge, as described in its publication list.

• The Importance of Minority Teachers: Selected References

Includes links to annotated bibliographies and resource lists on the importance of minority teachers. Most of the documents and journal articles have been entered into the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) database. Journal articles can be read at libraries with journal or UMI collections. Most non-journal documents are available at libraries with ERIC microfiche collections . Links to ERIC Abstracts provide summaries and ordering information.

• Improving America's Schools: Newsletter on Issues in School Reform

Distributed by the U.S. Department of Education

• InSITE

Information network of the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education is a World Wide Web resource dedicated to exploring ways in which the Internet can be used both to benefit teacher education programs at colleges and universities around the world and to support K-12 staff development technology initiatives.

• Library of Congress' American Memory

Consists of primary source and archival materials relating to American culture and history. These historical collections are the key contribution of the Library of Congress to the National Digital Library. Most of these offerings are from the Library's unparalleled special collections. Check out Resources for Teachers Learning Page.

• Making Teaching a True Profession

U.S. Department of Education "Teaching as a True Profession" homepage. Reviews existing demographics of teaching in America and hosts the Teacher Forum to seek teachers' perspectives on important educational issues and to promote teacher leadership in education reform.

• On-Line Educator

The Online Educator is a bridge between classrooms and the rich world of information and knowledge available on the Internet. It is intended as a supplement to the published version of The Online Educator, the monthly journal dedicated to making the Internet a useful classroom tool. Each month The Online Educator provides teachers with valuable ideas and lessons that involve using the global network of computers in their classrooms. Each week they highlight new places to visit in your travels along the Information Superhighway.

• Parents as School Partners
  
  

Parents As School Partners is a volunteer research initiative of the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) and its applied research institute, the Center for the Child. This action/research project focuses on parent involvement to promote their children's school success. This effort considers policies, programs, practice, and research to determine the status of current knowledge in the field of parent involvement.

• Second Language Instruction: Strategies and Programs for Teachers and Students

Includes links to annotated bibliographies and resource lists on second language instruction strategies and programs for teachers in training, experienced teachers and students. Most of the documents and journal articles have been entered into the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) database. Journal articles can be read at libraries with journal or UMI collections. Most non-journal documents are available at libraries with ERIC microfiche collections . Links to ERIC Abstracts provide summaries and ordering information.

• Smithsonian Office of Elementary and Secondary Education

The Smithsonian Institution dusts off its best and brightest to bring learning to life at the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE)'s Web site. The office's programs, publications, and online networks inform teachers about Smithsonian educational resources and provide instructional approaches in art, language arts, science, and social studies.

• Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education

The Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education is an international association of individual teacher educators, and affiliated organizations of teacher educators in all disciplines, who are interested in the creation and dissemination of knowledge about the use of information technology in teacher education. The Society seeks to promote research, scholarship, collaboration, exchange, and support among its membership, and to actively foster the development of new national organizations where a need emerges. SITE is the only organization which has as its sole focus the integration of instructional technologies into teacher education programs.

• TeachNet: The Teachers Network

The site is sponsored by Impact II/The Teachers Network, "a nationwide, educational, non profit organization that supports innovative teachers who exemplify professionalism, independence, and creativity in public school systems." TeachNet lets educators share their techniques and ideas through the Let's Talk bulletin board and the Sharing Curriculum database of classroom projects. The database goes to the head of the class -- search by subject area, grade level and region for terrific projects posted by contributing teachers.

• Technology and Teacher Education

The Mid-continent Regional Educational Laboratory (McREL) provides a comprehensive page on Technology and Teacher Education that provides reports, articles, bibliographies, tools for teachers and other useful resources.

• United Nations CyberSchoolBus

The United Nations CyberSchoolBus is designed for students and teachers everywhere and carries projects and resources about the United Nations and the world we all share. View the site En español, En français .

• U.S. Department of Education

Student financial aid materials, tips for parents, statistics & the latest findings on what works in education are among the myriad of documents stored on the site, helping make it one of the most widely used education resources on the Internet.

TEACHER EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

FULL TEXT RESOURCES AND ARTICLES

• Academic Achievement for Secondary Language Minority Students: Standards, Measures and Promising Practices
  
  

by K. Anstrom. This document summarizes, analyzes, and integrates findings from relevant research pertaining to the education of language minority students in the content areas. The study focused on the instruction of secondary-level language minority students in mainstream social studies, science, mathematics and language arts classes. Specifically, the document focuses on several key questions: What does the relevant literature pertaining to content area instruction of linguistically and culturally diverse learners (LCDLs) contribute to the theory and practice of (1) standards for LCDLs? (2) measures of achievement, proficiency, and/or academic literacy for LCDLs? (3) the field of promising practices in content area instruction for LCDLs? The report includes preparation of mainstream teachers to work with language minority students.

• Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Teaching

The nation's schools are increasingly multiracial even as the teaching force continues to be predominantly white. This juxtaposition of burgeoning "minority" school populations against dwindling numbers of "minority" teachers has drawn much scholarly attention. Yet, few studies include data on Asian and Pacific Islander (API) teachers rendering information partial, at best. This ERIC digest A. Lin Goodwin reviews available data on APIs in order to assess their presence in the teaching profession.

• Assessing Integrated Language and Content Instruction
  
  

by Deborah J. Short. Integrated language and content instruction has become a popular alternative to traditional ESL instruction. Researchers have recommended this instructional approach to develop students' academic language ability and facilitate their transition to mainstream classes. Practitioners have also favored this approach to prepare students for mainstream classes, increase student motivation and interest with content themes, and make ESL students feel part of the mainstream school curricula. This article addresses the issue of assessment in integrated classes and provides a framework for organizing assessment objectives. It recommends using alternative assessment measures, such as checklists, portfolios, interviews, and performance-based tasks.

• Assessment Strategies for Professional Development Activities:

by Judith Wilde. This document provides information to those who might be planning professional development activities for educational personnel. While the focus is on assessment of those participating in professional development activities related to English language development, sheltered content instruction, and bilingual instruction, the processes involved can, and should, be applied to any professional development activity that results in a certificate or license of some type -- any professional development activities that will result in better educational programs for all students within the school.

• Baby Talk

by Shannon Brownlee. U.S. News artilce in which Ms Brownlee reveals that learning language, researchers are finding, is an astonishing act of brain computation--and it's performed by people too young to tie their shoes. Geneticists and linguists recently have begun to challenge the common-sense assumption that intelligence and language are inextricably linked, through research on a rare genetic disorder called Williams syndrome, which can seriously impair cognition while leaving language nearly intact (box). Increasingly sophisticated technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging are allowing researchers to watch the brain in action, revealing that language literally sculpts and reorganizes the connections within it as a child grows.

• Bilingual Reading Instruction

Reading is a discipline that requires a significant transfer of skills, knowledge, and concepts from one language to another for bilingual students. In the classroom, bilingual educators must provide instruction that builds a strong foundation for reading literacy in both the first and second language. The research and classroom practices highlighted in this pathway provide bilingual educators with specific methods and materials that can be used to build a strong foundation in reading.

• Bilingual Special Education Teacher Preparation: A Conceptual Framework
  
  

by Diane Rodriguez and Angela Carrasquillo. The purpose of this article is to discuss a conceptual framework for bilingual education teacher preparation. The framework described is based on information provided by experienced bilingual special education field specialists (teachers, administrators, clinicians, and professors) about the competencies bilingual special education teachers need to demonstrate in order to meet the unique needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students with disabilities. The article describes five areas relevant to the preparation of bilingual special education teachers: language proficiency, assessment, planning and delivery of instruction, culture and advancement in the profession.

NOTE: To read this article you will need a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat. Click here to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

• Classroom Strategies For Encouraging Collaborative Discussion
  
  

by Carmen Simich-Dudgeon, Patricia Anne DiCerbo. This article is written primarily for English as a second language (ESL), bilingual and mainstream teachers who have English language learners in their classroom. The methods and activities described throughout can be successfully adapted for use with elementary, middle, and high school students. In reworking these activities for their own classrooms, teachers will want to consider the literacy and English proficiency levels of their students, along with such factors as age, cultural and education background, and learning style.

• Communicative Language Teaching: An Introduction And Sample Activities
  
  

by Ann Galloway. This digest looks at the communicative approach to the teaching of foreign languages. It is intended as an introduction to the communicative approach for teachers and teachers-in-training who want to provide opportunities in the classroom for their students to engage in real-life communication in the target language. Questions to be dealt with include what the communicative approach is, where it came from, and how teachers' and students' roles differ from the roles they play in other teaching approaches. Examples of exercises that can be used with a communicative approach are described, and sources of appropriate materials are provided.

• Cultural Differences and the Construction of Meaning: Implications for the Leadership and Organizational Context of Schools

Robert A. Peña investigates the relationships between student achievement, student culture and practitioners' attitudes and expectations. Student achievement was defined as academic performance but also included perceptions, rationales and explanations for student behaviors and conduct. Student culture described students' Mexican American origins, customs and beliefs. Practitioners' attitudes described how middle school personnel generally perceived Mexican American high and underachieving students, and practitioners' expectations described how personnel interacted and behaved toward Mexican American students.

• Developing Target Second Language Skills Through Problem-Solving Activities in Mathematics

by L. Radford, J. Netten, and G. Duquette. This article provides classroom teachers with clear directions and specific classroom strategies which will enable students to develop target second language skills through the teaching of mathematics. Students learn a number of problem-solving strategies and they apply these strategies to specific, real context situations using arithmetic and algebraic formulas. Students are encouraged to co-operate and communicate in finding solutions to the mathematical problems they face and thus develop communications skills related to the problem-solving activities.

NOTE: To read this article you will need a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat. Click here to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

• Diversifying the Teaching Force: Preparing Paraeducators as Teachers

This digest by Michael Genzuk suggests that the nation's nearly 500,000 paraeducators working in K-12 classrooms embody a promising source of prospective teachers. Paraeducator-to-teacher programs capitalize on the attributes that paraeducators bring to the program and the program streamlines their pathway into teaching. Studies suggest that paraeducator-to-teacher program graduates bring a wealth of community and student knowledge to their practice, attributes that are highly regarded in today's diverse classrooms.

• Educating All Our Students: Improving Education for Children from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds

by Barry McLaughlin & Beverly McLeod. Researchers at the National Center for Research on Cultural Diversity and Second Language Learning have identified instructional strategies that are effective for educating students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. They have also studied reform efforts that have important lessons for the school, the teacher, and the classroom. This research has a bearing on how schools can be organized and how teachers can teach to meet the needs of all their students.

• Educating Teachers for Cultural and Linguistic Diversity: A Model for All Teachers

All educators must face the reality of culturally and linguistically diverse students in today's classrooms according to author JoAnn Parla. School districts which never before had to instruct these students are now finding they must meet this need. Often, the number of bilingually trained personnel in these areas is limited. This article discusses issues related to the multicultural classroom. It presents a teacher-training component that includes information on cultural sensitivity, linguistic diversity, and teaching strategies.

• From College to First-Year Teaching How the United States Compares to Several Other Countries

U.S. Department of Education report. Up to one-third of new U.S. teachers leave the profession within the first few years. One reason for this "wastage" of teaching resources, according to the Commission, is our typical "sink-or-swim" attitude toward teacher induction. In contrast, new teachers in some other countries are provided with resources and guidance that help them to make a successful transition from being students themselves to becoming self-confident, skilled professional teachers. This paper reviews a cross national study of teacher induction practices.

• From Students of Teaching to Teachers of Students: Teacher Induction Around the Pacific Rim

Edited by Jay Moskowitz and Maria Stephens, this publication is the result of the second phase of a study on teacher training and professional development sponsored by APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation). Phase I of the study described teacher preparation systems across APEC members, to identify key issues and challenges for teacher preparation and professional development, and to identify promising practices for the future of teacher preparation. The findings of Phase II, focusing on policy and practices of teacher induction in 11 participating APEC members, are presented here.

• Funds of Knowledge: A Look at Luis Moll's Research Into Hidden Family Resources

This work was done in collaboration with Norma Gonzalez, James Greenberg, and Carlos Velez. How can committed city teachers boost the literacy skills of their poor, minority students? According to some educational researchers, the answer lies in a more "sociocultural" approach to literacy instruction.

• Funds of Knowledge for Teaching

Funds of Knowledge for Teaching" (FKT) is a project of the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology and the College of Education at the University of Arizona. At the core of this project is a notion of culture as a dynamic entity--a way of using social, physical, spiritual, and economic resources to make one's way in the world. In FKT, anthropologists, teacher educators, and teachers learn about the funds of knowledge possessed by students and their families in order to gain insight about connections among ordinary curricular goals and students' experience in the community. Together they devise new academic materials, strategies, and activities that build more sturdily on what students know and can do outside of school.

• Funds of Knowledge: Learning from Language Minority Households

by N. González, L. C. Moll, M. Floyd-Tenery, A. Rivera, P. Rendón, R. Gonzales, and C. Amanti. This Digest describes a research model that has shown that classroom practice can be developed, transformed, and enriched by drawing upon the existing funds of knowledge in minority students' households. Funds of knowledge refers to those historically developed and accumulated strategies (e.g., skills, abilities, ideas, practices) or bodies of knowledge that are essential to a household's functioning and well-being. Through participant-observer visits to minority student households, researchers and teachers became aware of these funds of knowledge.

• A Guide to Family Reading in Two Languages: The Preschool Years

by Theodore Andersson. This article focuses attention on bilingual children between birth and age five and considers their potential desire and ability to learn to read not only one but often two languages before entering kindergarten or first grade. The main focus of the study is family reading. This is a particularly rich field of study; for, whether the family under consideration is a small nuclear or large extended family, the number and ages of the children, the presence or absence of grandparents or other relatives, the particular relationships among the family members, and the time available for reading provide an almost infinite number of variables and possibilities.

• Has Whole Language Failed?

by Stephen Krashen. The "failure" of whole language in California has been widely reported. The author attempts to give a clear definition of whole language, discuss some of the research, and provide some information about the impact of whole language in California.

You can download/view the full report in a PDF file also.

To read this article you will need a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat. Click here to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

• Helping Teachers Teach Well: Transforming Professional Development

This policy briefs by T. B. Corcoran reviews what is known about professional development, where it is now, and where it needs to be. The brief discusses its organization, costs, and effects on practice. It also suggests some principles to guide professional development in the future and offers a framework for designing and assessing policies and programs.

• Infusing Technology into Preservice Teacher Education

This Digest examines the relationship between K-12 teachers' use of computer-based technologies to deliver and support classroom instruction and the training provided to prospective teachers by teacher education institutions. It offers an overview of obstacles faced by teacher educators in providing appropriate technology instruction and outlines approaches to addressing these obstacles.

• Inner City Life Through Drama: Imagining the Language Classroom

by Shirley Brice Heath. Both language learning theorists and practitioners of teaching English as a second language or dialect have argued that role playing moves language learners beyond their usual performance in ordinary classroom presentations. This paper tells the story of how inner city youth organizations use dramas that young people write, cast, and direct to enable them to retain their first language or dialect while gaining standard English and preparing for job entry. The story ends with implications for the language classroom.

• The Instructional Conversation: Teaching and Learning in Social Activity

by Roland Tharp and Ron Gallimore. Newly understood through the principles of socio historical theory, real teaching is understood as assisting the learner to perform just beyond his or her current capacity. This assistance in the "zone of proximal development" awakens and rouses to life the mental capacities of learners of all ages. This assistance is best provided through the instructional conversation, a dialogue between teacher and learners in which the teacher listens carefully to grasp the students" communicative intent, and tailors the dialogue to meet the emerging understanding of the learners.

• Instructional Strategies for Teachers of Limited-English-Proficient Students: A Bibliography

by James A. Vasquez et al. This bibliography, with 310 references, is a good sampling of the literature that is currently available and includes practices that many educators have found lead to successful teaching of LEP students. The bibliography provides a beginning point for those interested in bilingual and ESL instructional settings.

• Integrating Language and Culture In Middle School American History Classes

by Deborah J. Short. This report describes preliminary findings from a study examining middle school American history classes with English language learners. The study has investigated the construction of social studies knowledge in these classes and the development and implementation of lessons that address the cultural and educational backgrounds of the learners while integrating language, content, and culture objectives. Attention is paid to teacher accommodations, student oral and written participation, and the infusion of multicultural issues and perspectives.

• Junior Historians: Doing Oral History with ESL and Bilingual Students

by Irma M. Olmedo. Teaching social studies to bilingual or ESL students in the U. S. can create both linguistic and cultural difficulties. Because social studies textbooks and materials use abstract vocabulary, teachers need to develop comprehensible examples for students with limited English skills and information retrieval skills and a knowledge base to make the curriculum content accessible. Many teachers are already rethinking the way the social studies is taught in order to find ways to make the subject more interesting and comprehensible to students. One approach helps students understand that history is filled with stories. By employing oral history approaches with bilingual and ESL students, teachers can "bring history home" and help students understand that history is not just something that happened long ago and now lives only in their textbooks, but rather that they and their communities are players on the historical stage.

• Linguistic Diversity and Reform: Can Practices be Identified?

This 1997 paper, authored by Adel Nadeau, draws on the author's experiences leading a major school reform effort in an urban elementary school with a large limited English proficient (LEP) student population. The discussion offers insights into successful reform practices premised on the language and academic needs of LEP students. The context for reform as it existed at the author's school is presented first. Pedagogical premises that apply to programs for LEP students are outlined next, followed by the reform practices.

• Mentoring the Bilingual Teacher

The purpose of this article by María E. Torres-Guzmán is to present a review of the literature on mentoring bilingual teachers and to pose alternatives to extant models. A question and answer format has been used to provide a definition of mentoring, discuss implementation efforts and problems encountered, identify salient issues emerging from the pairing of mentors in bilingual settings and suggest mentoring alternatives.

• Model Strategies in Bilingual Education: Professional Development
  
  

Published by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Language Affairs

• Myths and Misconceptions About Second Language Learning: What Every Teacher Needs to Unlearn
  
  

by Barry McLaughlin. By discussing commonly held myths and misconceptions, this paper attempts to clarify a number of important issues in the area of second language learning. These include the ease and rapidity with which children learn a second language, the optimal age at which to begin second language instruction, the importance of the extent of exposure to the second language, the relationship between oral communication skills and academic language skills, and cultural and individual differences in language learning styles. Each myth presented in this paper is followed by a discussion of related research on second language learning and its implications for classroom teachers.

• New Skills for New Schools: Preparing Teachers in Family Involvement

by A.M. Shartrand, H.B. Weiss, H.M. Kreider, and M. Elena Lopez. Researchers at the Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP) have collected data to determine not only why training teachers to work successfully with families is so critical, but also how to train teachers to work in partnership with parents and families. In addition to identifying the skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary for teachers to prepare for family involvement, the findings confirm three needs of teachers: (1) more direct experiences with families and communities, (2) support in making school conditions conducive to family involvement, and (3) opportunities to share successful experiences and outcomes with their colleagues.

• Overview of Foreign Language Education in the United States

by Nadine Dutcher. This Overview presents a picture of language education in the United States, its context and its dimensions, especially at the secondary level of education. Topics include: Language in society; Language policy; Primary and secondary language education; Post-secondary language education; and Teacher education and professional development, including an annotated list of organizations that support teacher development. Separately we include a review of English as a second language education, a topic not of concern to the other participating countries but of strong interest in the United States. Sources for the Overview are U.S. government publications, reports from the professional associations of language teachers, academic researchers, and personal communication with language educators.

• Paraeducator-To-Teacher Pipeline: A 5-Year Retrospective on an Innovative Teacher Preparation Program for Latina(os).

This article by Michael Genzuk and Reynaldo Baca from the "Journal on Education and Urban Society" provides a 5-year retrospective on the experience of planning and carrying out a paraeducator-to teacher pipeline program. Described are how the project works, lessons learned to date, and directions for the future.

• Para-Educators: A Source for Remedying the Shortage of Teachers for Limited English-Proficient Students

This article by Michael Genzuk, Magaly Lavadenz, and Stephen Krashen suggests bilingual paraeducators are a promising source of bilingual teachers. It discusses possible barriers and support to the process of preparing this potential work force to take its place among the ranks of the nation's teachers.

• Peer Coaching: An Effective Staff Development Model for Educators of Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Students
  
  

by Paul Galbraith and Kris Anstrom. The leadership role on the part of educators of LCD students along with interdisciplinary cooperation between bilingual/English as a Second Language (ESL) and mainstream staff is critical for the effective education of LCD students. The education of these students has been perceived as the domain of only a small group of specialized individuals, namely ESL and bilingual teachers. This perception has often led to the isolation of LCD students from the rest of the school and to the provision of a separate curriculum for those students. This study suggests a staff development model to address these concerns.

• Preparing Secondary Education Teachers to Work with English Language Learners: SCIENCE

by K. Anstrom and S. Lynch. The focus of this report is on the education of secondary-level English language learners within mainstream science classes. The intent of this document is to give teachers and teacher educators a better understanding of how mainstream science instruction can be designed and implemented to enhance academic achievement for these students. Research for the report included an extensive search of the NCBE bibliographic database, the ERIC bibliographic database and various World Wide Web sites for information regarding effective curriculum and instruction, content standards, student assessment, teacher training and education. In addition, the national content standards documents for science (National Science Education Standards) and three other core areas (language arts, math, social studies) were analyzed to determine whether their theoretical bases were consistent with what educational research tells us is effective practice for English language learners.

• Preparing Teachers for Muliticultural Classrooms

This paper by Ines Marquez Chisholm focuses on the need for the multicultural preparation of preservice teachers. The intent is neither to prescribe a uniform teacher education program for all institutions nor to encompass all aspects of a good teacher preparation program. Rather, this paper suggests institutional and programmatic practices that will prepare future teachers for classroom diversity.

• Prisoners Of Time

The report of the National Education Commission on Time and Learning suggests that learning in America is a prisoner of time. For the past 150 years, American public schools have held time constant and let learning vary. The rule, only rarely voiced, is simple: learn what you can in the time we make available. It should surprise no one that some bright, hard-working students do reasonably well. Everyone else-from the typical student to the dropout- runs into trouble.

• Professional Development for Teachers in Culturally Diverse Schools

by Nancy Clair and Carolyn Temple Adger. This digest focuses on professional development for teachers in culturally diverse schools. It summarizes what is known about effective professional development and the conditions that allow it to succeed. It provides three examples of professional development that are grounded in the academic achievement of English language learners as a fundamental ingredient to overall school success.

• Rating Instructional Conversations: A Guide

by Robert Rueda, Claude Goldenberg, Ronald Gallimore. The current focus on more effective ways to foster literacy in school-age children, especially language minority students, has led to the development of alternative instructional approaches. One such approach is the instructional conversation (IC), based on early work in the Hawaiian Kamehameha Elementary Education Project (KEEP), on neo-Vygotskian theory, and on recent classroom based research on reading comprehension. The present report outlines preliminary efforts to operationalize more fully the concept of the IC and describes an observational tool, the IC Rating Scale, to examine classroom-based reading comprehension lessons. Preliminary data on the reliability and validity of the IC scale are presented, followed by sample transcripts of instructional conversations from actual reading comprehension lessons.

• Reading in the Bilingual Classroom: Literacy and Biliteracy

by Kenneth Goodman, Yetta Goodman and Barbara Flores. The purpose of this monograph is to examine the issues of reading in bilingual education. The focus is primarily on the contemporary classroom in the United States. The authors examine the problems, issues, trends, and research. They also include suggestions on promising directions.

• Responding to Dialogue Journals in Teacher Preparation: What's Effective?

by D. M. Brinton, C. A. Holten, and J. M. Goodwin. This article suggests that dialogue journals can lead novice teachers to a deeper and more personal learning experience in methodology or practicum courses. In order to discover how TESOL teacher educators can most effectively respond to the dialogue journal entries of teachers in preparation, the authors examined the commenting strategies of three teacher educators using dialogue journals in MA-level methodology and practicum courses.

• Rethinking Schools: An Urban Educational Journal Online

Founded in 1986 by activist teachers, Rethinking Schools is a nonprofit, independent publisher of educational materials. They advocate the reform of elementary and secondary education, with a strong emphasis on issues of equity and social justice. While writing for a broad audience, Rethinking Schools emphasizes problems facing urban schools, particularly issues of race. Rethinking Schools strives to balance classroom practice and educational theory. It is an activist publication, with articles written by and for teachers, parents, and students. Yet it also addresses key policy issues, such as vouchers and marketplace-oriented reforms, funding equity, and school-to-work.

• Re-Thinking the Education of Teachers of Language Minority Children: Developing Reflective Teachers for Changing Schools

by Robert Milk; Carmen Mercado; Alexandria Sapiens. The authors suggest that as teaching contexts change, so, too, must teacher training and staff development programs adapt to reflect shifting realities. Impetus for change in teacher education is particularly strong in today's environment and is currently being driven by three significant forces: political, demographic, and programmatic. Each of these forces is described in this paper.

• Staff Development in Multilingual Multicultural Schools

This ERIC Clearinghouse for Urban Education digest by Margarita Calderon presents recommendations for a staff development program for a multilingual multicultural teaching staff based on a model that has been tested and shown to be effective.

• Standards of Program Quality and Effectiveness for Professional Teacher Preparation Programs for Multiple and Single Subject Teaching Credentials with a (Bilingual) Crosscultural, Language and Academic Development (CLAD/BCLAD) Emphasis

California Commission on Teacher Credentialing document that details the standards for teacher preparation programs preparing teachers for students of diverse language and cultural background.

• Teacher-As-Researcher
  
  

This ERIC Clearinghouse on Teacher Education Digest by Beverly Johnson focuses on teacher as researcher. The article reviews "action research" a deliberate, solution-oriented investigation that is group or personally owned and conducted. It is characterized by spiraling cycles of problem identification, systematic data collection, reflection, analysis, data-driven action taken, and, finally, problem redefinition. The linking of the terms "action" and "research" highlights the essential features of this method: trying out ideas in practice as a means of increasing knowledge about and/or improving curriculum, teaching, and learning

• Teacher Recruitment and Training in After-School Programs

Office of Educational Research and Improvement U.S. Department of Education paper suggesting that after-school programs can be a great source of prospective teachers by starting teacher cadet programs for middle school and high school students. after-school environments can introduce prospective teachers to diverse student populations and at-risk students. By beginning to work with at-risk students and their families prior to entering the teaching force, future teachers will be better aware of the challenges they will face in regular classrooms.

• Teacher Research on Funds of Knowledge: Learning from Households

An article by Norma González, Luis C. Moll, Martha Floyd-Tenery, Anna Rivera, Patricia Rendón, Raquel Gonzales, and Cathy Amanti from the University of Arizona National Center for Research on Cultural Diversity and Second Language Learning. The article reports the conceptualization of working-class Latino students' households as being rich in funds of knowledge has engendered transformative consequences for teachers, parents, students, and researchers. The qualitative study of their own students' households by teachers has unfolded as a viable method for bridging the gap between school and community.

• Teachers' Beliefs About Reading Assessment With Latino Language Minority Students
  
  

by Robert Rueda and Erminda Garcia. This study investigated teachers' belief systems or mental models and everyday practices regarding the nature, function, and uses of assessment with a special focus on reading with Latino language minority students. These mental models can be seen as integrated systems of concepts, scripts, and scenes which function to lend meaning to the action systems of classrooms.

• Teacher Professionalization and Teacher Commitment: A Multilevel Analysis

This report from the National Center For Education Statistics reviews teacher professionalization-the movement to upgrade the status, training, and working conditions of teachers. This report is concerned with the effects of teacher professionalization on elementary and secondary teachers in the United States. The analysis assesses the effects of teacher professionalization by examining the relationships between a selected set of characteristics, traditionally associated with professions and professionals, and one of the most important aspects of the quality and performance of teachers: their commitment to their teaching careers.

• Teacher Research on Funds of Knowledge: Learning from Households

An article by Norma González, Luis C. Moll, Martha Floyd-Tenery, Anna Rivera, Patricia Rendón, Raquel Gonzales, and Cathy Amanti from the University of Arizona National Center for Research on Cultural Diversity and Second Language Learning. The article reports the conceptualization of working-class Latino students' households as being rich in funds of knowledge has engendered transformative consequences for teachers, parents, students, and researchers. The qualitative study of their own students' households by teachers has unfolded as a viable method for bridging the gap between school and community.

• Teacher Talk: Cultural Diversity
  
  

This electronic issue of Teacher Talk addresses the concerns of preservice teachers regarding diversity issues. Teacher Talk is published by the Center for Adolescent Studies at the School of Education, Indiana University. It is a publication for preservice and secondary education teachers that exists as a series of World Wide Web documents.

• Teaching Science to Language Minority Students in Elementary Classrooms

by Bernard Laplante. This article proposes a number of language and science related teaching strategies that are appropriate for elementary science teachers working with language minority students. Each of the nine strategies proposed are described and their theoretical underpinnings discussed. When appropriate, classroom examples are given. Commonly held teachers' beliefs (about language and science) are discussed, as these beliefs are sometimes contrary to the theoretical underpinnings of alternative strategies and impact negatively on their implementation in the classroom. It is hoped that this approach will allow teachers to reflect on their classroom practice not only in terms of teaching strategies but also by considering how their own beliefs guide this practice.

NOTE: To read this article you will need a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat. Click here to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

• Technology and the New Professional Teacher: Preparing for the 21st Century Classroom
  

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) Task Force on Technology and Teacher Education, a group of educators from diverse institutions and backgrounds, was assembled to consider ways that NCATE can provide leadership and support initiatives to meet the technology challenge facing teacher education institutions. The first section of the report presents the task force's vision of what teachers must be able to do in order to take advantage of technology for instruction and student learning, identifies current teacher education program deficiencies, and suggests what teacher education programs need to do to correct the deficiencies and bring vision into reality. The second section advances three broad recommendations regarding what NCATE can do to: (1) stimulate more effective uses of technology in teacher education programs, (2) use technology to improve the existing accreditation process and to reconceptualize accreditation for the 21st century, and (3) improve and expand its own operations through greater uses of technology. Brief case illustrations that demonstrate innovative technology use in a variety of teacher preparation programs appear throughout the text to highlight and illustrate points made in the report. The task force finds that a watershed for education and training has been created by rising costs for P-12 and higher education, by educational reform efforts at the state and federal levels, and by developments in modern information technology that have already affected the U.S. economy and society.

• Training, Development, and Improvement (TDI): A New Approach for Reforming Bilingual Teacher Preparation

by Leonard Baca, Jim Bransford, Chris Nelson, Leroy Ortiz. The University of Colorado TDI BUENO Project addresses the need for improving and expanding training programs to increase both the quality and quantity of bilingual/ESL teachers in thirty IHEs in a twelve state area. This article provides the rationale for the development of the University of Colorado BUENO TDI Project and discusses findings from the first eighteen months of the three-year project.

• Using Critical Thinking to Stimulate In-Service Teachers' Cognitive Growth in Multicultural Education

by Virginia Gonzalez. The two-fold purpose of the present qualitative study was: (a) to describe patterns of cognitive-ethical development, using Perry's model (1970), and (b) to explore the use of critical thinking for changing in-service teachers' personal and professional beliefs. In-service teachers taking a multicultural education graduate course participated as insightful subject-researchers. Written assignments and in-class discussions were used as both tools for data collection and stimuli for changing in-service teachers' beliefs. Three major qualitative patterns were found in the data. First, experienced teachers linked their beliefs and practices indicating higher cognitive-ethical developmental levels. Second, different content modules led to various cognitive-ethical developmental levels. Third, teachers could not connect teaching practices, research, and multicultural education courses. In conclusion, in-service teachers need to transform their educational beliefs into concrete strategies in multicultural education courses.

NOTE: To read this article you will need a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat. Click here to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

• What Are The Characteristics Of The Bilingual Teacher Shortage?

By Veronica Fern. Education Secretary Riley estimates that about two million new teachers will be needed in the next ten years. However, he cites significant barriers to providing an adequate pool of qualified teachers. These include the failure to recruit sufficient numbers of talented minorities to the profession, and the failure to prepare teachers adequately in the subject areas. This digest addresses the question of how do we best prepare teachers for linguistically- and culturally-diverse settings?

• What to Expect Your First Year of Teaching

By Amy DePaul - U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Research and Improvement. If you wanted to know what the first year of teaching school is like, you'd ask teachers who just completed their first year on the job. This book attempts to capture the fascinating and inspiring answers received. It is based largely on a series of discussions held among winners of the First Class Teacher Award sponsored every year by Sallie Mae, a corporation dedicated to education.The teachers talked in frank terms about what it's like to feel rebuffed by veteran teachers, to struggle with budget cutbacks, to see children in distress. But the obstacles they related are only half the story. They also share how they surmounted challenges, what they would want new teachers to know, and why being a teacher is so crucial to their sense of self.

• Where Have All the Teacher Gone?

By Mark Fetler. A rising need for teachers is projected for California and the nation during the next decade. Sound policy for teacher preparation should not only foster a capable workforce, it should also assure that the supply of qualified teachers balances with employment demand. A conceptual model is proposed to describe the flow of individuals through teacher preparation programs and the workplace. Evidence for a lack of balance between supply and demand is found in an upward trend of emergency hiring of teachers who do not meet all requirements for a credential and low employment rates for first-time college and university prepared teachers. The asymmetry between supply and demand could be redressed partly through better retention of working teachers and closer coordination of preparation programs with the needs of schools in their service areas.

• Writer's Workshop and Children Acquiring English as a Non-Native Language

by Katharine Davies Samway. Although there is no single way to implement a writers' workshop, there are some key elements that are integral to the implementation and maintenance of this very important classroom event. This article provides a comprehensive overview of the process, ethnographic insights, and valuable examples of the writer's workshop process.

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