To Effectively Support English Learners, Build Teachers’ Skills, Experts Say
In The News Piece in Education Week
Nov. 30, 2023
Amaya Garcia was quoted in Education Week about English-learner teachers.
Back in her early days of teaching, Rebecca Bergey thought it was her job as a teacher of English learners to prepare her students with enough language to survive in content area classes. But as Bergey—now a principal researcher at the nonprofit American Institutes for Research—grew in her teaching, she realized that language learning operates at a systems level.
Her job wasn’t about preparing her students to understand general education classes. It was to prepare general education teachers to effectively teach and support those students with unique linguistic assets.
“The onus isn’t only on the students, but on the system,” Bergey said. “So how do we all work together?”
When schools and districts need to decide how to place English learners—whether grouping them apart from non-English learners or making sure they have more class time with the rest of their peers—researchers say one of the key factors to consider is whether or not teachers have enough training and capacity. For instance, while English learners benefit from language exposure in classrooms with non-English learners, they won’t benefit if their content area teachers don’t know how to support them in class.