Meeting the Needs of Diverse ESL Classrooms: A Team Approach to the Professional Development of Educators

Introduction

The diversity of schools in the United States (U.S.) is evident in most classrooms where multiple languages and cultures are represented primarily due to an increase in immigration. The population of English learners (ELs) is heterogeneous, and it includes learners from a range of racial and ethnic groups, length of residence in the country, life experiences, educational backgrounds, socioeconomic levels, abilities, and disabilities (Navarrete & Watson, 2013). Unfortunately, this diversity sometimes comes with certain negative effects. For example, many ELs struggle during their school years for a variety of reasons, including because of difficulties with the adjustment to a new learning environment and the development of new learning habits, trauma from having been in a refugee camp, interrupted schooling, personal, physical, psychological, and family factors (Hamayan et al., 2013). Thus, those who teach, assess, and provide services to ELs need to be able to recognize all the factors affecting their students’ academic progress and be prepared to address them adequately. Along the same lines, the Office of English Language Acquisition (http://www.allgov.com/departments/department-of-education/office-of-english-language-acquisition-oela?agencyid=7365) suggests that educators who serve ELs in K-12 schools (i.e., from kindergarten to 12^th grade) must not only be well qualified in their area of teaching but also be appropriately trained to work with all ELs. Respectively, training opportunities must be provided to ensure those educators acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to successfully work with the millions of ELs in the public school system and decrease the misdiagnosis of ELs in special education (De Jong & Harper, 2005; Haas & Brown, 2019).

Depending on state laws, instruction for ELs may vary from inclusion in general education classrooms to bilingual, dual language, and/or structured English instruction. Regardless of the type of program, federal law requires ELs to receive an appropriate English language development instruction, an equitable education, and the same learning opportunities as their English-speaking peers do (U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division & U.S. Department Education, Office for Civil Rights, 2015). Furthermore, ELs with disabilities must be provided with appropriate special education and related services that address their disabilities as well as their English language development (U.S. Department of Education, Office of English Language Acquisition, 2017). Thus, federal and state regulations, coupled with the realities of diverse classrooms, have significant implications for the way in-service general education teachers need to be supported in their attempts to meet the diversity needs of their classrooms.

Despite the current reality many schools in the U.S. face nowadays, teacher preparation programs are still slow in providing their teacher candidates the appropriate training to work effectively with culturally and linguistically diverse ELs (Santibañez & Gándara, 2018; Villegas et al., 2018). At best, some of them have attempted to address those gaps, for instance, by including in their curricula courses on cultural diversity or by focusing on the instruction of specific skills like reading, or even by offering specialized degrees like bilingual special education (Ortiz & Robertson, 2018; Villegas et al., 2018; Wissink & Starks, 2019). Although those efforts have merit, they seldom prepare educators to take a team approach to the education of diverse ELs in inclusive classrooms. Considering the complexity of the EL population, all involved in their education must be knowledgeable about the stages of second language (L2) learning, the factors affecting second language acquisition (SLA), the intricate relationship between ELs’ native language (L1) and English as the target language, and the impact of academic language growth on ELs’ school success (Ortiz & Robertson, 2018). Thus, school personnel, both administrative and instructional, especially in high-need school districts, need to be offered additional support and training to successfully accommodate ELs with diverse learning needs and decrease their misdiagnosis in special education (De Jong & Harper, 2005; Haas & Brown, 2019; Villegas et al., 2018).