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Focus on Faculty: Improvingthe Preparation of Teachers ofEnglish Learner StudentsLaura Alamillo a , Frank Padilla a & Rosie Arenas aa Kremen School of Education and HumanDevelopment , California State University , FresnoPublished online: 04 Jul 2011.

To cite this article: Laura Alamillo , Frank Padilla & Rosie Arenas (2011) Focus onFaculty: Improving the Preparation of Teachers of English Learner Students, Journal ofLatinos and Education, 10:3, 261-276, DOI: 10.1080/15348431.2011.581115

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JOURNAL OF LATINOS AND EDUCATION, 10(3), 261–276Copyright © 2011 Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1534-8431 print / 1532-771X onlineDOI: 10.1080/15348431.2011.581115

Focus on Faculty: Improving the Preparationof Teachers of English Learner Students

Laura Alamillo, Frank Padilla, and Rosie ArenasKremen School of Education and Human Development

California State University, Fresno

This article describes a teacher education program in the California State Universitysystem that made significant changes in order to address and change the sentimentsof new teachers in the Central Valley of California. It describes how a teacher edu-cation program focused on preparing faculty and teacher education supervisors tomeet the needs of English learners with the expectation that that they would inte-grate and/or prioritize this focus in their teacher preparation courses and weeklyseminars.

Key words: faculty development, English learner, teacher preparation

Over the past 10 years, California’s public schools have experienced a dramaticrise in their English learner (EL) population. It is reported that 1.6 million ofCalifornia’s 4.7 million students, or more than 34% of all enrolled students, areclassified as ELs (Gándara, Maxwell-Jolly, & Driscoll, 2005). With this largepopulation of ELs comes a greater need to address concerns related to their aca-demic success in schools. Wong et al. (2007) stated, “Teachers must be skillednot only in structuring high quality learning opportunities for diverse studentsin their classrooms, but also in developing informed and sophisticated advocacyskills to challenge and resist processes and systems designed to limit educationalopportunities” (p. 10).

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Laura Alamillo, Kremen School of Education andHuman Development, California State University, Fresno, 5005 North Maple Avenue M/S 202,Fresno, CA 93740-8025. E-mail: lalamillo@csufresno.edu

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We see this need being reflected in testing outcomes of ELs. Gándara et al.(2005) also found that “only 10% of English Learners were able to pass theEnglish Language Arts portion of the California Standards Test in spite of thefact that 47% passed the California English Language Development Test ofEnglish Proficiency in 2004” (p. 2). In the larger school districts such as LosAngeles Unified, San Jose Unified, and Fresno Unified, the push for a morefocused approach to English language development (ELD) is evident. Gándara,Rumberger, Maxwell-Jolly, and Callahan (2003) asserted that ELs are more likelyto receive inequitable access to appropriately trained teachers and that there isinadequate professional development to help teachers address instructional needs.As a result, districts are providing professional development opportunities to fur-ther prepare teachers in this area. Furthermore, California passed Senate Bill 472English Learner Professional Development to provide state funding for districtsto contract with state-approved providers to offer teachers additional professionaldevelopment in the area of reading/language arts and math for ELs. This hasgiven all districts an incentive to address the need. For example, schools are pro-viding additional training for teachers in frontloading language and results for ELsthrough the California Reading and Literature Project (a state-approved provider)and the Focused Approach to Systematic English Language Development (Dutro,2005) in addition to other specialized training. However, despite some of thesepositive changes, new teachers still continue to report that they do not feel pre-pared to work with EL students, and their principals also feel that they are notadequately prepared (Nyberg, 2008).

BACKGROUND ON TEACHER PREPARATION PROGRAMS

It is clear that ELs receive instruction by new teachers who are often not pre-pared to work with language-minority children, and this is seen in districts acrossCalifornia. This inequity is evident when one looks at new teacher placement indistricts that have the highest need. School districts in California with a high per-centage of ELs appear to also have a high percentage of first- and second-yearteachers (see Table 1). Mendota Unified School District, located in the centralpart of the state, hired 64% of its teaching staff in 2007–2008, and more than onethird of its students are ELs. Because such an obvious inequity affects many dis-tricts, institutions dedicated to the preparation of teacher candidates must shifttheir focus by looking at teacher preparation faculty, their knowledge of ELinstruction, and the extent to which they integrate effective EL practices into theircourses. Lucas, Villegas, and Freedson-Gonzalez (2008) described teacher edu-cation programs as not prioritizing this need to have teacher educators focus onEL preparation. They suggested solutions to improve teacher education programs.One solution they proposed is to provide ongoing professional development for

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TABLE 1Percentages of New Teachers and English Learners, 2007–2008

County District New Teachers (%) English Learners (%)

Fresno Kerman Unified 27.0 32.6Fresno Mendota Unified 35.0 64.0Fresno Parlier Unified 18.0 51.1Fresno Sanger Unified 27.0 26.0Kern Arvin Union Elementary 15.0 71.1Kings Hanford Elementary 19.0 25.8Madera Alview-Dairyland Union Elementary 23.0 49.4Madera Chowchilla Elementary 18.0 34.0Merced Los Banos Unified 15.0 32.6Merced Dos Palos-Oro Loma Joint Unified 35.0 33.9Tulare Lindsay Unified 20.0 56.9Tulare Monson-Sultana Joint Union Elementary 29.0 42.5

teacher educators. However, as stated by Gándara et al. (2005), “Although teacherscan not be assigned either all the credit or all the blame for student achievement,they play a central role in students’ education” (p. 3). In addition, other fac-tors such as the unresolved and ongoing budget crisis that has frozen most statefunds; the lack of effective bilingual education programs due to an inaccurateinterpretation of Proposition 227; inequitable access to instructional materials,school resources, and facilities; and other contributing factors result in ineffectiveinstruction in schools.

We agree that teacher educators need to redefine how they prepare their teachercandidates in the area of EL instruction. This becomes much more importantin states such as California, where most teacher candidates will work with ELstudents. The move toward looking at teacher education is essential. In thispreparation, teacher educators need to ensure that teacher candidates know andunderstand effective teaching practices for ELs and, most important, are able toimplement them early on in their teaching. Fillmore and Snow (2000) outlinedlanguage issues that all teachers of ELs should know in a document that pro-vided clarification of pedagogical knowledge to guide professional development.To add to this background knowledge, Gándara et al. (2005) described successfulEL teaching as comprising “[the] ability to communicate with students, [the] abil-ity to engage students’ families, knowledge of language uses, forms, mechanics,how to teach these and a feeling of efficacy with regard to teaching English lan-guage learners” (p. 3). This balance of theory and practice is crucial for teachercandidates to learn, and teacher education programs assist teacher candidatesin making this balance more effective in the classroom. In addition, a knowl-edge base of the communities they will serve is essential. Gandara et al. (2005)described the parent factor as an important component of providing effective

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teaching instruction. These criteria allow teacher educators to assess their ownteaching effectiveness, making sure these skills are addressed in teacher prepa-ration courses. Some teacher education programs are moving toward this focusas a result of the California State University (CSU) Chancellor’s Report (CSU,2003) and research by Gándara et al. (2005) reporting that new teachers do notfeel prepared to work with ELs.

This article describes a teacher education program in the CSU system that madesignificant changes in order to address and change the sentiments of new teach-ers in the Central Valley of California, which encompasses seven counties withapproximately 150,754 ELs (California Department of Education, 2007), withsome changes coinciding with the solutions suggested by Lucas et al. (2008).The changes made in this particular teacher education program involved focus-ing on preparing faculty and teacher education supervisors in the area of ELswith the expectation that newly trained faculty and supervisors would integrateand/or prioritize this focus in their teacher preparation courses and weekly semi-nars, bringing in experts in the field of second language acquisition to provide anin-service for faculty in the program, providing faculty seminars on EL instruc-tion and theory, and providing ongoing professional discussions with faculty in thearea of EL instruction. Since the first in-service provided by Lily Wong-Fillmore,the EL faculty have participated in and led EL faculty seminars, provided trainingin ELD instruction for Curriculum and Instruction faculty, and led in scholarlydiscussions with faculty in the Multiple Subject Program Review Committee.In the spring and fall of 2009, the EL faculty guided Multiple Subject ProgramSupervisors in a discussion of how to identify key effective strategies their teachercandidates were displaying in their lessons.

The purpose of this article is to describe these steps, report the sentimentsof those who attended the faculty seminars, and then propose some solutionsfor other teacher education programs in order to address the concern of unpre-pared teachers of EL students. This article is based on a qualitative, interpretiveapproach. The findings are based on results from surveys and observations. Oncethese data were collected, the EL faculty conducted bimonthly meetings at whichthe results of the seminars and other issues related to the field were discussed.What was found was that these continuous meetings allowed for the EL faculty toreflect on the school’s efforts to improve faculty preparation in the area of effectiveEL instruction.

As faculty researchers, we are aware that teacher preparation is crucial to thequality of instruction that EL students receive in public schools. Unfortunately,teachers of EL students may lack the preparation, knowledge, and skills to beeffective in the classroom. Teacher educators are aware of this reality, and, as fac-ulty, we are reminded of this fact as new teachers return to the School of Educationto report on the difficulties they face at their sites. In addition to the Chancellor’sReport (CSU, 2003), other reports confirm that teachers do not feel prepared to

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work with ELs (Gándara et al., 2005). Gándara et al. (2005) reported that of5,300 teachers surveyed in their study, about half reported that the professionaldevelopment they received on ELs was of “low quality” and “low utility.” Thisstudy indicates that even though teachers are receiving professional developmenton EL methods, teachers do not find it useful. This could be the result of merelyreceiving a set of strategies without the foundational background teachers need tounderstand the reason for using them. This is not encouraging. In addition, newteachers receive mentoring from Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment, butthe providers are not always sufficiently experienced in working with ELs. As aresult of these two factors, new teachers feel ill prepared to work with this grow-ing population. This is of great concern for teacher education. Darling-Hammond(2001) reported that a key indicator of the quality of a teacher education programis that its graduates are “entering, staying, and succeeding as teachers in urbanschools” (p. 10).

THE CONTEXT

In the Central Valley, graduates are entering the workforce not only in the urbanareas of the valley but also in the rural areas of the valley where there is ahigher number of ELs. Research in the area of teacher preparation indicatesthat new teachers generally feel unprepared to work in areas with high con-centrations of ELs. Some districts report more than the state average of 25%ELs (e.g., the number is as high as 51% for Parlier Unified School Districtin Fresno County). Madera County, for example, serves Spanish-speaking fam-ilies and a large population of parents and children who speak Mixteco, adialect from the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. This creates additionalinstructional challenges, especially for those teacher candidates and graduateswho are bilingual in English and Spanish. It only makes their knowledge ofEnglish language instruction so much more necessary. Many of the gradu-ates also serve children of farm workers and recent immigrants. In addition,they serve many communities with minority families who have been in thevalley for many generations and are native English speakers; yet their chil-dren are still considered Standard English language learners. Darling-Hammondand Bransford (2005) added that even though new teachers who went througha credential program felt ill prepared, those who did not complete a teachereducation program felt significantly less well prepared. Even though there arefactors teacher education cannot control, such as teacher salary, BeginningTeacher Support and Assessment mentoring, and low-quality professional devel-opment for new teachers, teacher education programs can improve how theyaddress these issues in preservice courses taught by knowledgeable facultypractitioners.

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Methodology

The CSU School of Education described in this article is located in the CentralValley of California. It prepares the majority of teachers in the Central Valley;however, in the past 2 years teacher preparation by other private institutions hasincreased because of a number of factors in the CSU system, such as mandatorypassage of the California Subject Examinations for Teachers before a candi-date enters the CSU teacher preparation program. The mission of the School ofEducation is “the recruitment and development of ethically informed leaders forclassroom teaching, education, administration, counseling, and higher education”(CSU Fresno, 2006). The mission is realized through a framework of teaching,scholarship, and service that addresses regional, state, national, and internationalperspectives and is nationally and state accredited. In addition to this mission,the school strives toward “leadership for diverse communities.” It exemplifies thegoal of focusing on training teachers who are effective in working with all stu-dents by receiving focused attention on diversity, which might even include havingcandidates learn a second language.

We understand that various terms are used in this field in reference to thechildren in these diverse communities. As researchers and advocates of bilingualeducation, we also understand that the term linguistically and culturally diversemore accurately describes children who are not only learning English but arealso maintaining and retaining their native language and culture. However, thefaculty most frequently used the term English learner (EL) as it is in the stateof California. For the purpose of this article, we use the term English learner(EL) when referring to children learning a second language in the Central Valley.In addition, the faculty who teach teacher preparation courses on EL issues arereferred to as EL faculty.

Description of Participants

The participants consisted of School of Education faculty, including teachereducation supervisors. There are approximately 102 full-time and part-timefaculty in the School of Education. The seminars were open to faculty inall departments; however, the majority of the participants were from theDepartment of Literacy and Early Education and the Department of Curriculumand Instruction because they are directly involved in the Multiple and SingleSubject Credential Programs. There were no faculty from the Department ofEducational Leadership or the Department of Counseling and Rehabilitation.Participation in the seminars was strictly voluntary, and it was up to individ-ual faculty to see the importance and relevance of their participation to theirprogram.

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THE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN

As a result of looking at the research on effective instruction for ELs and teacherpreparation programs in addition to the Chancellor’s Report (CSU, 2003) on thestrengths and weaknesses of teacher education programs in the CSU system,the dean of the School of Education brought together the EL faculty and otherinterested faculty to put a plan in motion that would address the needs of our edu-cational community over an initial 3-year period. This plan included appointing anEL coordinator, establishing an EL faculty focus group, providing a professionaldevelopment day for all faculty in the school, participating in a local district sitevisit/retreat for all faculty, developing and implementing a series of EL seminars,and continuing the discussion on current research in the area of ELs (see Table 2).

The purpose focused on the overall context of preparing teacher candidatesto work with English language learners. At the onset of the 3-year program, wewanted to know the extent of knowledge the faculty involved already had aboutELs and to what extent they would integrate revisited or new knowledge intotheir teacher preparation courses once they completed the faculty seminars. Theresults of a preliminary survey revealed that this CSU School of Education wastaking a unique approach by ensuring that faculty were aware of the most currentresearch and changes in policy in the education of ELs, and faculty were eager tobe involved in this endeavor.

EL Faculty Focus Group

The EL faculty and coordinator were chosen to work on this new project withits focus on faculty. They were chosen based on their expertise and experience

TABLE 2Timeline of Professional Development

Year Action Items Participants

1 • Appoint EL coordinator and establish anEL faculty focus group

• Faculty teaching courses related to ELs

• Professional development day–LilyWong-Fillmore

• All School of Education faculty andsupervisors

• District site visit/retreat • All School of Education faculty2 • Implement EL seminars (4) in fall and

spring• School of Education faculty, voluntary

• Implement EL seminars (4) in summer • CalStateTEACH supervisors3 • Implement EL seminars (4) in fall • School of Education faculty, voluntary

• Strategy discussions with supervisors • Supervisors

Note. EL = English learner.

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in working with ELs both as former classroom teachers and as researchers. Theyconducted bimonthly meetings to discuss the issues of preparing new teachers towork with ELs in the public schools. The meetings consisted of discussing andplanning seminars, specifically to discuss the purpose of the seminars and preparefor the implementation of the different topics to be addressed during the seminars.In addition, faculty looked at the results of studies and surveys related to ELs andbrainstormed ways to improve teacher preparation in their own specific coursesaddressing culture and language contexts in the classroom while looking at theneeds of their credential students through a critical lens. This process gave theEL faculty focus group a forum for its own professional development throughresearch, readings, workshops, and conferences in addition to the opportunity toexplore its own perceived strengths and weaknesses in terms of how EL issueswere being addressed in the credential program.

The EL faculty had strong convictions in regard to the focus on faculty asa means of making changes in the teacher preparation program. They lookedat Lucas et al.’s (2008) table on the Essential Understandings of SecondLanguage Learning for Teacher Educators, which sparked a discussion amongthe researchers in this study. They concluded that as faculty charged with improv-ing EL understandings in the school, they needed to develop a table showingessential understandings for teacher educators to use. Table 3, which is basedon the table by Lucas et al., describes the essential understandings faculty inthe study took back to their courses. They found these understandings use-ful when discussing EL components in their courses. Although they initiallycould have added more essential understandings to the list, the four goalsprovided a starting point for continuing this discussion in teacher education(see Table 3).

EL Professional Development Day

The majority of faculty from the School of Education were involved in the initialphase of this plan by attending an all-day seminar in 2005 presented by Universityof California, Berkeley, Emeritus Professor Lily Wong Fillmore, a leading author-ity on second language acquisition. Dr. Wong-Fillmore was asked to come becauseshe had mentored one of the EL faculty members while she was in the doctoralprogram at the University of California, Berkeley. The EL faculty member wasfamiliar with Dr. Wong-Fillmore’s expertise in ELs and knew the school fac-ulty would benefit from hearing her speak on these issues. Faculty were askedto attend this all-day retreat in order to get a better understanding of EL theoryand practice in the context of K–12 schools. Faculty members worked in groupsaccording to their own discipline and were asked to develop a plan to integrateDr. Wong-Fillmore’s recommendations into their courses.

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TABLE 3Key English Learner Issues and Strategies for Teacher Educators

Goal Issues and Strategies

1 Teacher education faculty should integrate Specially Designed Academic Instruction inEnglish strategies across content areas. These strategies allow the first language to beused as a tool to gain access to the content area (Echevarria & Graves, 2002).

2 Teacher education faculty should teach that the use of the first language does not preventsecond language acquisition. The first language can actually enable acquisition of thesecond language through the use of cognates and other similar language structures andact as a bridge to understanding content (Cummins, 2000; Garcia, 2003).

3 Teacher education faculty must model culturally and linguistically responsive teachingtechniques in the classroom (Gay, 2000; Villegas et al., 2008). This includesincorporating pedagogical practices that validate and affirm linguistic and culturalidentities. Teacher candidates must be reminded of this across courses.

4 Teacher educators must revisit second language theories within their course content.Specifically, teacher education faculty must remind teacher candidates of foundationaltheories such as the five hypotheses of second language acquisition (Baker, 2001) andsecond language acquisition (Cummins, 2000). By revisiting second language theories,teacher candidates will learn of the relevance of the affective filter, the need forcomprehensible instruction, and the connection of second language theories.

District Site Visit/Retreat

The following year, in 2006, the school arranged a retreat at a nearby district withapproximately 95% ELs. In order to have some common background knowledge,faculty were asked to read Moll’s (2005) research on funds of knowledge, fol-lowed with a discussion on his theory and its relation to schools. Moll’s articleprovided a sociocultural context for understanding language-minority children,and it countered deficit approaches apparent in schooling practices. In addition,high school, middle school, and elementary school teachers, district administra-tors, and parents were asked to join faculty to discuss issues pertinent to theirschools and community.

These two all-day retreats were mandatory, and the dean, through encour-aging e-mails, made every effort to have everyone attend. It seemed thatmost faculty who attended taught courses in literacy/early education andcurriculum/instruction, the two departments involved in the credential programs.

EL Seminars

The EL faculty within the Department of Literacy and Early Education and theDepartment of Curriculum and Instruction developed a series of four seminarsfor faculty to attend on consecutive Fridays. The seminars addressed the topic oflanguage acquisition, language policy, cultural contexts, and content area instruc-tion based on the state requirements for the Crosscultural Language Acquisition

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Development. The first seminar consisted of discussing first and second languageacquisition theories. The second seminar looked at language policy at the stateand federal levels. Proposition 227 of 1998 was thoroughly discussed, as it hasaffected the context of how English language acquisition is viewed in Californiaschools, as was the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and the implications ofrigid, mandated instruction for ELs. The third seminar presented specific strate-gies to be used in the content areas to access the grade-level curriculum in English.The Sheltered Instructional Observational Protocol model and Specially DesignedAcademic Instruction in English were introduced and explained to faculty. Thefinal seminar looked at sociocultural understandings of learning a second languagewithin the cultural context of the school. The implications of English immersion inschools on families and communities were discussed. Within all of these seminars,the EL faculty gave recommendations of resources to integrate into their courses.For example, the last seminar recommended using the Rethinking Schools pub-lications in order to provide teacher educators with a critical understanding ofsecond language acquisition.

Attendance at the seminars was strictly voluntary; however, those faculty whowere directly involved in the three phases of the Multiple Subject CredentialProgram were strongly encouraged to attend, and the dean strongly encouraged allfaculty in the school to attend, offering a stipend to those who attended all four ses-sions. Those who attended were also given a certificate of completion. In additionto School of Education faculty, the seminars were presented to CalStateTEACHmentors who worked with new teachers in the San Joaquin Valley. Duringthese sessions, 20–25 participants attended a 2-day seminar addressing thesame topics. An additional seminar was held for student teacher supervisors.Approximately 30 faculty members were involved in the faculty seminars onFridays, 20 CalStateTEACH mentors and 20 student teacher supervisors.

Foundational Research Discussions

It is important to note that in addition to the EL seminars, the School of Educationconducts monthly Multiple Subject Credential Program Review committee meet-ings. These meetings had occurred prior to this new focus on faculty; however,what we found is that these meeting discussions are now more focused and tendto concentrate on how the faculty can better prepare teacher candidates in thearea of ELs. The change is most evident in the Multiple Subject Program ReviewCommittee. The monthly meetings are focused on how faculty in the programcan better prepare teacher candidates in EL instruction. The committee oftendiscusses scholarly articles, provides constructive feedback on how to improvecredential courses, and discusses how the overall program can improve EL instruc-tion. Therefore, even though this is not a new addition to the School of Education

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teacher preparation program per se, the discussion of English language learnerresearch is a key focus of these monthly meetings.

COLLECTION OF DATA

In order to get feedback on the seminars, the EL faculty prepared two surveysfor each attendee to fill out—a survey for attendees to complete prior to theirparticipation and a postsurvey to complete at the end of the series of seminars.The intention of the initial survey was to get a sense of faculty preparation in thearea of instruction for ELs prior to the seminars and then examine how facultyawareness changed after the seminars.

It was our hope to get the participants’ perspectives on how much they knewabout this area and to what extent they talked about these issues in their courses.Once the surveys were completed, they were collected and looked at for themesthat would be discussed later on in the seminars. The participants responded thatalthough they were familiar with the appropriate strategies to use with ELs, theywere not aware of the foundational research and theory behind those strategies,thus making them unaware of the reason why they were appropriate. As the sem-inars took place, EL faculty also took observational notes as they participatedin discussions surrounding the issues discussed. The intention was to documentinformal observations relating to the overall interest of the attendees and theirlevel of knowledge in the issues discussed and to determine whether anythinginteresting was observed to include in the analysis. It is essential to note herethat the EL faculty also took observational notes during a faculty retreat at alocal school district and during the faculty professional development retreat withDr. Lily Wong Fillmore.

Implications of Focus on Faculty for Teacher Candidates

As was previously mentioned, the population of ELs in California has grownexponentially, and the implementation of the restrictive policies of bothProposition 227 and No Child Left Behind has placed this group of students ata major disadvantage in their educational experience in public schools. Teachersentering the profession require the knowledge and specific language acquisitionpedagogy and skills recommended in this article. However, it needs to be intro-duced throughout their coursework and practiced in field placements in localschools. These conditions were of the utmost importance to the EL faculty focusgroup in planning and implementing the 3-year program.

Supervisors for student teachers in the university were invited to attend theworkshops that were provided for the faculty. It was necessary to invite them inorder to achieve continuity and consistency in the message and knowledge the

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seminars had to offer in order to benefit the students in the courses given by fac-ulty and in the supervised field placements in the public schools. Through earlyexposure to these skills while performing student teaching, they are afforded anopportunity to practice under the guidance of the university supervisor and masterteacher. This allows them to practice and learn from their mistakes early on andperhaps assists with retention in the first years of their career.

In focusing on the faculty of teacher preparation courses and supervisors, itwas necessary to explore not only the coursework but also the field experience ofcandidates. Student teaching is one of the most stressful times for students, but itprovides long-lasting memories and opportunities for growth.

When the specifics of a teacher’s workday or culture are not taken into consid-eration, and instead mechanical teacher proof reforms are substituted, the resultsare not surprising. It is evident that classroom teachers are using less and less oftheir creativity and passion for the teaching profession as they comply with therequired demands of imposed schedules. The effect on teachers and their work isa dispassionate view of their work, a loss of efficacy, and a loss of satisfaction.

In order to serve ELs, the teacher can provide a space that addresses students’needs and is controlled by the teacher; these were addressed in the faculty semi-nars. The two areas are policies and planning in the classroom and those embeddedin teachers’ plans. These ideas were embedded in our message to the faculty anduniversity supervisors. We provided examples on every occasion within our pre-sentations in order to expose where and how these two key areas can be used toinform students and student teachers in their respective experiences.

Although standardized testing plays a dominant role in public school educa-tion, teachers can enhance their teaching and success in addressing the needsof ELs in their classrooms by “obtaining materials that are nonbiased and pro-mote positive role models from a variety of ethnic groups and for designing andplanning instruction that makes success possible for all students” (Diaz-Rico &Weed, 2006, p. 305). Teachers have sole responsibility for creating an environ-ment and supplemental curriculum that connects to the students, and this canbe taught.

Expecting the most from students is not only important but necessary fornovice teachers to consider when working with all students. The seeds for suchexpectations can be sown through planned student teaching placement(s) thatallows for rich and frequent contact with communities that are diverse. Suchplacement(s) also allows for students to interact with and discover those com-munities and dispel deficit thinking on the part of preservice teachers based ontheir sometimes narrow experiences with public schools.

As the CSU system has come to realize, although it has not done enough toprepare students from its universities to work with EL students, it is importantthat it embrace successful ideas and solutions from other campuses. As Californiacontinues to evolve exponentially in terms of the number of ELs attending public

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schools, so must the public programs that prepare the teachers who serve them.These programs must also come to realize that they cannot continue to lose stu-dents to private institutions because profit margins do not equal a public concernfor equality in education for the preservation of the common good in a democracy.

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

The move toward preparing faculty in a teacher education program is new andinnovative. This preparation did not imply that the faculty involved were notknowledgeable in the area of English language learners. A number of facultyparticipants specialized in the area of language-minority children or had priorteaching experience in an EL classroom. Faculty who had an area of specializa-tion with EL students added to the seminars with their own personal teachingexperiences and areas of research. The EL faculty welcomed all faculty to partic-ipate regardless of their experiences in this area or their prior knowledge in thearea of English language learners. Their insights made discussions relevant andmeaningful to the seminars.

Faculty who participated in the EL seminars expressed their prior knowledgeand experience working in the area of ELs. They rated their knowledge on a scalefrom 1 to 5. Faculty tended to rate their knowledge as a 3, meaning that they hadan average foundational background on the education of ELs. It seems that theyhad an understanding of the population of students in the area, yet they expressedneeding the theory and background information for understanding why certainstrategies were more effective than others. One faculty member expressed want-ing to know the theory behind certain strategies for specific English languageproficiency levels as they would appear in the classroom. There was an overalllack of understanding of the general characteristics of EL students according toELD level. This seemed to also match teacher candidate lack of awareness onspecific ELD-level characteristics. This can be explained because of the fact thatthe new state proficiency levels came some time after faculty had been trained intheir postgraduate and doctoral programs. These constant changes in the educa-tion of ELs only reinforce the need to keep teacher education faculty up to dateon policy and curricular changes affecting EL students. This current knowledgecan then be integrated into their teacher education courses. In addition, this lackof understanding might help explain misconceptions regarding EL learners. Forexample, students with a beginning level of English language proficiency mayexperience a silent phase in acquiring their second language. Not knowing thismay confuse new teachers, who might misdiagnose EL children as having readingdifficulties or oral language deficiencies. This clarity is crucial in an EL classroom.Furthermore, participants learned that although this silent period was acceptable30 years ago, ELs are now expected to participate in ELD lessons using all four

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modes of literacy—listening, speaking, reading, and writing—regardless of theirproficiency level. This is where teacher knowledge and instruction is crucial tothe acquisition, mastery, and progress of the second language. The EL seminarsprovided clarification in these sensitive areas.

Overall, the survey results indicated that the teacher educators involved hadsome prior knowledge and/or experience in working on EL issues. Facultyexpressed either having studied theory and practice in their doctoral program orhaving attended professional development training on these issues. Their priorknowledge on the topics discussed allowed for rich discussions on the themesaddressed in order to clarify those concepts that were unclear. Faculty expressedintegrating these themes into their courses. EL strategies played a major role inthe courses taught. Specific strategies such as the use of realia, Total PhysicalResponse, and the use of bilingual literature were a few mentioned as havingbeen implemented in science, math, and reading methods courses. Althoughfaculty described an overall awareness and understanding of EL issues, thereseemed to be a lack of full integration of theory and practice in the creden-tial courses. It was apparent that strategies were addressed as they occurred inthe course, yet the connection with theory was not successfully made in themethods courses.

The faculty involved in the seminars expressed a need to increase their knowl-edge base on EL issues and wanted to find ways to integrate EL strategies inmeaningful ways. The need to look at teacher education in EL teacher preparationwas evident. Teacher education needs to address the issue by looking closely athow EL methods and theory are addressed across all methods courses. What wasfound was that EL theory and methods should not be addressed solely in coursesspecifically designed for teaching EL strategies but that it is essential to addressthem across all Multiple Subject credential courses. It is not enough to desig-nate one or two courses to address this; instead, one must look at the programas a whole and inclusive of teacher educator perspectives and decide on how toaddress the way in which teacher candidates are trained in EL methods. The CSUsurvey served as an impetus for this change in the teacher education program. TheEL issue continues to be the top focus in discussions regarding how teachers ofEL students are trained.

RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION

Faculty overwhelmingly expressed that they benefited from the 3-year program,especially the seminars. One faculty member expressed that it gave him the oppor-tunity to openly talk about these issues with other faculty members and findways to integrate effective EL practices into his courses. The seminar discussionrevealed that teacher educators rarely have opportunities to share these practices

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with other faculty within their departments and across disciplines. This lack ofopportunities prevents the sharing of new knowledge, prevents the sharing ofeffective practices in the field, and does not allow for collaboration. The seminarsprovided a space for faculty to discuss and share effective practices. They alsoallowed for faculty to receive feedback on how they discuss EL issues in theircourses. This communication assisted in improving how EL issues are discussedin teacher preparation courses.

As the teaching profession moves forward, it is crucial to look at how newteachers are prepared in teacher education programs when thinking of solutions toeffectively prepare teacher candidates to work with EL populations. The prepara-tion of teacher candidates in the area of ELs heads the list in the ongoing reflectionof the Multiple Subject Credential Program. The EL seminars were just one waya teacher education program addressed the need. When improving teacher qual-ity in California, schools must also consider the preparation of teacher candidatesin their respective teacher education programs. The CSU system was responsiblefor preparing more than 24,176 California teachers in 2006–2007. Estes (2008)recently reported that 10 counties in California will need to hire the equivalentof more than 50% of their current teacher workforce by the 2015–2016 academicschool year. The need to hire more teachers understandably involves teaching thegrowing population of EL students in public schools. Teacher education programsneed to move toward becoming the catalyst in bringing researchers, teacher educa-tors, university supervisors, and teacher practitioners together to meet the needs ofthe communities they serve. It is only through focusing on all levels that meetingthis need will become a reality.

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