If you are reading this book, there is a good chance that you are a teacher, teacher educator, or administrator who has asked a question: How can we better serve the English language learners in our PreK–12 grade settings? While this is a complex and multifaceted issue, Andrea Honigsfeld and Maria Dove take a brilliant step toward providing an answer that makes sense and can be implemented in a number of different contexts.
It is well documented that U.S. schools are experiencing rapid growth in terms of the number of students whose native language is not English. In fact, the data show that enrollment in public schools in the United States for ESL students between the years 1991 and 2000 grew by 105 percent, compared to a 12 percent overall growth rate among the general school population (Kindler, 2002). Combined with this is the fact that many general-education teachers, who are specialists in their specific disciplines, are often underprepared to work with ELLs in the general-education classroom, and ESL teachers, while specialists in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) pedagogy and theory, often are not aware of the actual curricular demands placed on ELLs in general education. In fact, research has found that only 26 percent of teachers reported taking part in professional development that addresses issues of ELLs (NCES, 2001). In addition, only 27 percent of teachers report being very well prepared to work with ELLs in the general-education classroom (U.S. Department of Education, NCES, 2001). There is usually some requirement in teacher education programs that involves understanding the needs of ELLs, but research tells us that only 20 percent of programs offer a specific course on this topic (U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2009). Finally, the acquisition of the academic language needed, Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency, as Cummins (1979) names it, takes years to acquire. Students entering school and simultaneously acquiring language and content skills, under the best of circumstances, can take seven to ten years to develop this type of language, depending on their level of academic preparation upon entering school as a second- or additional-language learner (Collier & Thomas, 1989). Combined with the aforementioned growth in the ELL population and the level of preparedness among teachers who have ELLs in their general-education classrooms, it seems that we might be reaching a tipping point in terms of providing the most effective service to students who need both to be successful in their general education, content classes and acquire English as an additional language, both for social and academic purposes. While ESL teachers are in the best position to build these language skills in a highly contextualized and sheltered setting, such as a pull-out ESL program, the content or general-education teacher is the one qualified to deliver the discipline-specific material. In a traditional pull-out program, these activities take place in isolation from each other and may not be connected to the extent that they need to be. As a teacher educator who works with both ESL and content-area teachers, I have often heard the lament from the subject area teacher: I’m not really sure what happens in the ESL classroom … what the ESL teacher does with the students. Conversely, the ESL teachers I work with tend to be unclear on the types of skills and language necessary for success in general education. An example of this can be seen in the following reflection of a TESOL teacher candidate who participated in a jointly scheduled methods class (TESOL and secondary-level English) where the aim was to build collaborative relationships across the disciplines during the teacher education experience. This candidate’s writing focused on what she learned about her own practice and the actual curricular demands of the secondary-level English curriculum that her ELL students have to master as a result of working with an English education teacher candidate:
I was teaching very different kinds of writing. We did a lot of journal entries and letters and five paragraph essays, which I thought was the kind of thing they [ESL students] needed for their classes. Then, the English teachers in my collaboration group started talking about the critical-lens essay, and I had no idea what this was. When I found out, I realized that this is a really hard kind of essay for ESL students to write since you need a lot of different things. You need background knowledge, intense information on two novels, and, hardest [sic] of all, the ability to interpret a quote, which can be metaphorical. I said to myself, “Wow, I’ve been really wasting my and their time by focusing on this five-paragraph essay!” (Roxie1, reflective journal entry, November, 2007 [DelliCarpini, 2009])
This teacher candidate learned from her English education colleagues in the class about the actual demands that the curriculum placed on students and reflected that, while the writing activities she was working on were good ways for her learners to develop written communication skills in English, the format the writing was taking was not exactly what would be most helpful for them in this particular academic endeavor. When teachers collaborate and co-teach, the content and language become interconnected in a way that is not possible when students receive content instruction in one class and language instruction in another.
Co-teaching between ESL and general-education teachers is not without its challenges. Aside from the usual constraints of time, administrative support, and the needed skills to form effective co-teaching partnerships, the issue of positioning between the ESL and general-education teacher has emerged in the literature as one that could potentially prevent an effective partnership from ever occurring. For example, Arkoudis (2006) discusses that effective collaboration between ESL and general-education teachers assumes an equitable relationship between the two, but in fact, ESL teachers are frequently marginalized and have low status in the schools where they work. Based on this marginalization, meaningful co-teaching and collaboration can be a challenge. However, this challenge can be overcome: When teachers are provided the necessary support, underlying theory, and have the ability to practice and reflect on practices, these partnerships can be successful and benefit both teachers and students. The supported act of building collaborative relationships can ameliorate the negative effects of not understanding each other’s discipline. In addition, strong collaborative partnerships can have a positive effect on the whole school community: When teachers work across disciplines, combining skills to ensure the success of ELLs, all students benefit, the community of learners becomes more inclusive, and all teachers share in the responsibility of the education and success of students who are learning English in that school community—another factor that can break down some of the barriers that may exist in terms of teacher positioning.
If we are truly committed to enhancing outcomes and developing effective educational contexts for English language learners, collaboration and co-teaching must become part of the landscape. Students do not learn in isolation; in fact, they learn best and retain the most when they are able to see the interconnectedness not only between their school subjects and their own lives, but how the different subjects they are learning connect to each other. When teachers engage in collaborative partnerships, students are receiving interconnected and relevant instruction that targets their needs and positions them as key members of the general-education learning communities to which they belong.
In Collaboration and Co-Teaching: Strategies for English Learners, Andrea Honigsfeld and Maria Dove have developed a theoretically grounded text that provides readers with underlying knowledge and theory regarding collaboration and co-teaching in general and specifically between ESL and general-education teachers. The text is engaging and user-friendly and offers what I consider to be a “one-stop” approach in terms of developing collaboration and co-teaching skills in both preservice and inservice teachers. Honigsfeld and Dove have addressed all of the issues that, in my experience, have critical impact on the success of these relationships and provide vignettes, examples, and opportunities for development of both knowledge and skills through activities. These features allow readers to not only understand the collaborative and co-teaching process, but to also see, through the vignettes, co-teaching, and collaboration in practice, both the successful and challenging experiences. In addition, this text also provides a section in each chapter on the role of program administrators, therefore increasing the ability for teachers engaged in collaboration and co-teaching to be supported in their efforts.
Honigsfeld and Dove open this text with an excerpt from the Rudyard Kipling poem accompanying “The Elephant’s Child,” inviting you to take a journey with them to explore ESL and general-education teacher collaboration and co-teaching. The journey takes readers through the what, when, where, how, and why of collaborative practices and deconstructs the process in a way that can be implemented across contexts, whether in a teacher education program, professional-development venue, or the PreK–12 grade setting. As I read this text, I saw a wonderful world of possibilities opening up before me in terms of building collaborative relationships in the preservice and inservice teachers with whom I work, and I believe that this book will become a road map for your own journey into ESL and general-education teacher collaboration and co-teaching.
Margo DelliCarpini
Editor, TESOL Journal
TESOL Program Coordinator
Department of Middle & High School Education, Lehman College
The City University of New York
1. Pseudonym