Teacher Preparation for Linguistically Diverse Classrooms: A Resource for Teacher Educators

"...a valuable resource for helping teacher educators redesign their programs to better prepare teachers to successfully educate all of our students. This book makes a convincing case that pre-service teacher education, continuing teacher professional development, and the preparation and development of teacher educators all need to incorporate greater attention to the education of ELLs, and that the preparation of linguistically competent teachers is an essential element of social justice education."羶Kenneth M. Zeichner, from the Foreword

"...a critically important text that incorporates both concrete examples of practice along with a supporting theoretical and policy foundation."羶Michael Vavrus, The Evergreen State College

"The uniqueness of this book is that [it] addresses particular knowledge gaps of educators of mainstream teachers羶that is, why and how to address the education of ELLs within mainstream teacher preparatory programs."羅Lorrie Stoops Verplaetse, Central Connecticut State University

Teacher educators today need knowledge and practical ideas about how to prepare all pre-service and in-service teachers (not just bilingual or ESL specialists) to teach the growing number of students in K-12 classrooms in the United States who speak native languages other than English. This book is at the forefront in focusing exclusively on the preparation of mainstream classroom teachers for this population of students. Part I provides the conceptual and contextual framework for the book, including a comprehensive discussion of relevant demographic trends and an analysis of national and state policies. Part II presents examples of initiatives in different institutional and geographic settings, highlighting three essential elements of teacher preparation: curriculum content, program design, and program coherence.

Meeting a pressing need among teacher educators left to figure out, largely by trial and error, how best to prepare non-specialist classroom teachers to work with ELLs, this book both contributes to the research base and provides practical information to help readers envision possibilities they can apply in their own settings.