Preparing Mainstream Teachers to Teach ELLs

Abstract

This capstone aims to prepare mainstream teachers with the knowledge and skills to teach the culturally and linguistically diverse population of English language learners (ELLs). ELLs are highly prevalent within the United States and require teachers who are prepared with specialized knowledge and skills to aid their English learning experience. Most mainstream teachers are unprepared to teach ELLs and doubt their academic capabilities. These academic inequities increase ELLs’ risk of dropping out of high school, ultimately sabotaging ELLs’ opportunities for successful futures. Solutions to the identified problems of mainstream teachers include learning strategies like creating language objectives, building background, and frontloading vocabulary with native language support to aid ELLs’ academic learning and language development. Conclusions have found that ELLs improve their abilities to access content and acquire a new language through the implementation of these learning strategies as they scaffold upon students’ existing knowledge and bridge academic and language learning gaps. Recommendations include identifying clear language objectives that align with the content objectives, building background in the beginning of instruction through connecting students’ personal lives to the content, and explicitly pre-teaching/frontloading vocabulary while allowing students to utilize their native language to translate unfamiliar words or concepts.