The Handbook of TESOL in K-12

Luciana C. de Oliveira, Luciana C. de Oliveira

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781119421719
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Langues et linguistique
• Subtopic: Langue anglaise

The first handbook to explore the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages in elementary and secondary education (K-12)

The number of students being educated in English has grown significantly in modern times — globalization, immigration, and evolving educational policies have prompted an increased need for English language learner (ELL) education. The Handbook of TESOL in K-12 combines contemporary research and current practices to provide a comprehensive overview of the origins, evolution, and future direction of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages at the elementary and secondary levels (K-12). Exploring the latest disciplinary and interdisciplinary issues in the field, this is a first-of-its-kind Handbook and contributions are offered from a team of internationally-renowned scholars.

Comprehensive in scope, this essential Handbook covers topics ranging from bilingual language development and technology-enhanced language learning, to ESOL preparation methods for specialist and mainstream teachers and school administrators. Three sections organize the content to cover Key Issues in Teaching ESOL students in K-12, Pedagogical Issues and Practices in TESOL in K-12 Education, and School Personnel Preparation for TESOL in K-12.

• Satisfies a need for inclusive and in-depth research on TESOL in K-12 classrooms
• Presents a timely and interesting selection of topics that are highly relevant to working teachers and support staff
• Applies state-of-the-art research to real-world TESOL classroom settings
• Offers a balanced assessment of diverse theoretical foundations, concepts, and findings

The Handbook of TESOL in K-12 is an indispensable resource for undergraduate and graduate students, researchers and scholars, and educators in the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages in elementary and secondary education.

1
Key Concepts and Issues in TESOL in K‐12

LUCIANA C. DE OLIVEIRA

This handbook presents state‐of‐the‐art research, discussing the latest disciplinary and interdisciplinary issues in the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages in elementary and secondary education (K‐12). The handbook is divided into three major sections which cover a wide variety of topics. It brings together a global team of internationally‐renowned scholars and provides a state‐of‐the‐art overview of the origins and evolution, current research, and future directions in TESOL in K‐12. Three sections organize its content:

1. Key Issues in Teaching ESOL Students in K‐12
2. Pedagogical Issues and Practices in TESOL in K‐12 Education
3. School Personnel Preparation for TESOL in K‐12

Chapters in each of these sections offer a balanced evaluation of major issues and approaches at this level of teaching and take into account the diverse theoretical foundations, central themes, main findings, and practical applications of TESOL in K‐12. This level of instruction has deserved special consideration over the past 20 years or so, with much work having been done in the past 10 years.

To ensure consistency of focus, chapters are divided into four parts:

1. Overview of Issues and Approaches: organizes thematically different issues and approaches to the topic of the chapter.
2. Main Findings from Current Research: much like a literature review but organized by “findings” or key ideas from current research on the chapter topic.
3. Practical Applications of TESOL in K‐12: current practices related to the chapter topic and other practice‐oriented ideas for teachers.
4. Future Directions for TESOL in K‐12: future directions as they relate to your chapter topic.

Terminology and Acronyms

The terminology used in research on ESOL in K‐12 teaching and learning varies considerably as it relates to the identification of the target student population with whom the authors of each separate chapter address. There is little agreement in the scholarly literature as to what name best describes these students. While each designation has different connotations and problems, different terms are favored by researchers within distinct research traditions depending upon one's philosophical commitment, sociopolitical orientation, and unique focus. These include emergent to advanced bilingual students (EABs), bi/multilingual students, plurilingual learners, additional language speaker, English language learner (ELL), English learner (EL), Limited English Proficient (LEP), non‐native speaker (NNS), L2 speaker, and so on. Authors were free to select whatever terminology they saw best fit the chapter content and focus.

Book Format and Organization

This handbook is divided into three sections. Each section provides insights on various issues, pedagogical practices, and personnel preparation to work in ESOL in K‐12 contexts. Combined, these three sets of chapters afford readers a unique opportunity to familiarize themselves with the current state of ESOL teaching and learning in elementary and secondary schools.

The first section “Key Issues in Teaching ESOL Students in K‐12” starts with Chapter 2 “Plurilingual Learners and Schooling: A Sociocultural Perspective” by Margaret Hawkins. This chapter provides a sociocultural perspective on schooling, premised on a view of education as a social, humanistic endeavor in which people navigate new languages, knowledge and understandings together through linguistically‐ and culturally‐mediated communications and contexts. Advocating for an asset‐based view of plurilingual learners, it offers an “ecology of schooling” lens, in which languages, literacies, and cultures are fully entangled with policies, program design, school environments, pedagogies, and social relations between educators, students and families. It identifies and addresses a range of interdependent issues and factors which, taken together, impact language learning and academic achievement of students who are in the process of learning the language of schooling, and suggests linguistically and culturally responsive approaches and practices.

Chapter 3, “Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Practices for K‐12 ESOL Learners,” by Kristen C. Wilcox, Gretchen P. Oliver, Karen M. Gregory, and Lisa (Fang) Yu, addresses the growing body of literature that has highlighted the importance of disciplinary and interdisciplinary language teaching for ESOL learners. With the emergence of new standards, which emphasize the integration of various language skills and competencies across content areas, the need for teachers to understand and be able to effectively teach ESOL learners the unique ways knowledge is communicated within and across disciplinary boundaries is acute. This chapter focuses on disciplinary and interdisciplinary practices for ESOL students in K‐12 settings with relevant examples from the authors' own field observations, case studies, and first‐hand teaching.

In Chapter 4, “A Developmental and Contextual Perspective on Academic Language,” Maria Estela Brisk and Zhongfeng Tian review the various perspectives on academic language, including those where there is disagreement. They describe approaches that aim at developing students' language, both oral and written, to engage in the school curriculum. Through a cycle of increasingly demanding tasks, these approaches apprentice students to language use appropriate for academic contexts, mainly in school but also outside schools. Finally, the authors propose that the concept of academic language should be viewed as a developmental stage of language learning, emerging from the context children find themselves once they leave their immediate home environment. For many children, these various contexts include more than one language and language variety.

Chapter 5, “Language Rights and Policy in K‐12 TESOL,” by Wayne E. Wright discusses educational language policy that has evolved through debates, legal battles, and major legislation over the responsibilities of schools in addressing the linguistic and academic needs of ELLs. This chapter reviews overarching principles of language rights of children as articulated in United Nations documents, then contrasts these with the realities of language rights in the United States. It then provides an overview of key court cases and the evolution of federal and state policies for ELL education and discusses the implications of the requirements of the new federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) for ELL students.

In Chapter 6, “Translanguaging as an Act of Transformation: Restructuring Teaching and Learning for Emergent Bilingual Students,” Tatyana Kleyn and Ofelia García focus on translanguaging as the way bilingual individuals naturally communicate through the employment of their full linguistic repertoire. This common practice can be found in many facets of life, yet has been contested in schools where students experience policed language learning spaces. This chapter illustrates the potential of leveraging students' translanguaging so as to play a transformative role in the education of emergent bilinguals by allowing them to be fully validated, heard, and included in the teaching and learning process.

Chapter 7, “Incorporating Global Englishes in K‐12 Classrooms,” Ali Fuad Selvi starts out his chapter by addressing the present‐day “messy” sociolinguistic realities of English language in an increasingly superdiverse world and how they have broadened, blurred, and complexified the deeply established notions that underpin English Language Teaching. The chapter discusses the emergence of diverse uses, users, varieties, functions and contexts of English and the implications it holds for educators (collectively known as Global Englishes) and how they have recently begun to transcend the realms of applied linguistics, and to transpire into the field of (teacher) education. Departing from this premise, this chapter has two major aims—(a) underscoring the vitality of aligning language pedagogy vis‐à‐vis the contemporary sociolinguistic realities of the world, and (b) providing sustainable ways of incorporating Global Englishes when teaching ELs in K‐12 settings, while being cognizant to sensitivities surrounding curricular aims, learners' goals and needs, and institutional affordances and constraints.

Section 2, “Pedagogical Issues and Practices in TESOL in K‐12 Education” has two sub‐sections, 1. Practices and Pedagogies for TESOL in K‐12 Education and 2. Teaching Skills and Content Areas. In sub‐section 1, authors address various practices and pedagogies that have developed over the years and form the basis of much of the instruction in K‐12 classrooms today, especially in the United States.

Chapter 8, “Many Ways to Build a Model: Content‐Based ESL Instruction Models and Approaches in K‐12,” by Kate Mastruserio Reynolds and Judy O'Loughlin, examines various Content‐Based Instruction (CBI) models. This chapter provides an overview of CBI models and instructional strategies associated with them so educators may make informed decisions for their ELs. Choosing the appropriate CBI model for your school or district is best informed through a comparison of CBI models and associated instructional strategies.

In Chapter 9, “Promoting Educational Equity in Assessment Practices,” Margo Gottlieb and Gisela Ernst‐Slavit highlight major impediments to the advancement of student achievement that stems from inequities in testing and assessment coupled with the inappropriate, irrelevant, and quite often, invalid use of data. The authors propose how this wrong can be righted through more equitable treatment of assessment practices for multilingual learners. They focus on assessment that impacts the ELL subgroup, those multilingual learners who are in the midst of developing English as an additional language, including ELLs with disabilities.

Chapter 10, “Digital Age Teaching for English Learners,” by Heather Parris and Lisa M. Estrada, provides an overview of current digital age teaching practices for English learners (DATELs). They start by describing how this new frontier for TESOL requires personalized instruction and project‐based activities that encourage engagement and interactivity for ELs and discuss the shift to this student‐centered DATELs approach as providing opportunities for contextually rich, authentic language practice and fosters the development of the 5Cs of 21^st‐century learning—critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity, and culture. The authors explain how a digital age learning environment provides engaging access to academic content, while developing the receptive and expressive language skills of listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing, and visually representing. The authors explain why a DATELs classroom is crucial to an EL's ability to become an informed and engaged participant in our digital age society.

In Chapter 11, “Multimodal Literacies in Teaching and Learning English In and Outside of School,” Youngjoo Yi, Dong‐shin Shin, and Tony Cimasko discuss the changing multimodal literacy practices in which ELs and their teachers in K‐12 contexts engage. The authors begin by briefly giving an overview of issues and approaches within major theories informing multimodal literacy research. Then, they discuss the promises of engaging ELs in multimodal literacy practices in and out of school and potential tensions of implementing multimodal literacies into classroom practices. The chapter concludes with implications for research and pedagogy in TESOL in K‐12.

The first set of chapters in Sub‐section 2 Teaching Skills and Content Areas focuses on the development of oral skills, effective practices in reading instruction, a discourse perspective on writing instruction, vocabulary development, and teaching grammar from a social semiotic perspective. The second set of chapters address the teaching of the content areas to ELs: mathematics, science, English language arts (ELA), social studies, and the arts.

Chapter 12, “Shifting from the Teaching of Oral Skills to the Development of Oracy,” by Aida Walqui, reviews the historical development of the t...