Training Bilingual Educators at a PBI
AbstractWhile Bilingual Education has traditionally been associated with linguistic diversity, the rise of the number of African-American teacher candidates in a Bilingual Education program at a mid-west Predominantly Black Institution (PBI) is causing the authors to reevaluate the input of this program’s curriculum and the output of the candidates’ understanding. The focus of this article is the training and preparation of bilingual educators at a PBI. The first section focuses on theoretical aspects of bilingual programming, and helps the reader understand how demographics and legislation have a strong impact on the educators who obtain licensure to work in the field of Bilingual and English as a Second Language (ESL) Education. The second section focuses on (1) results obtained in a review of national and state demographics, (2) results from a survey highlighting the experiences of teacher candidates in a Bilingual Education program at a PBI in the mid-west, and (3) results from interviews with teacher candidates regarding the experiences of these same candidates. Results are used to draw conclusions about program strengths and weaknesses to improve and broaden the understanding of the instructional methods needed in this Bilingual Education program curriculum.