Cultivating Rich Language Development, Deep Learning, and Joyful Classrooms for English Learners

Although there is general consensus among educators of English learners (ELs) regarding the need for contextualized language development, it is not widely implemented. This chapter explains the theory behind this shift in teaching English language development and for teaching ELs in general. The chapter also discusses the kind of professional development teachers need to make this shift, and the importance of meaningful engagement of families in their children's learning. The chapter situates this discussion within the Sobrato Early Academic Language (SEAL) model's work with schools across California. SEAL is a PK–Grade 3 comprehensive reform focused on the needs of English learners, and is designed to create a language-rich, joyful, and rigorous education. California is an important context given the state's large EL population and recent favorable shifts in educational policy, which provide a unique opportunity for laying a foundation for improved practices and outcomes for numerous English learners.

Working With Immigrant Children in Schools

Before one gets into a classroom to teach, he or she needs to have acquired some basic teaching skills. Teaching in a conventional classroom seem simple, although may sometimes be difficult. However, teaching children from diverse backgrounds can be challenging. No matter the number of years of experience a teacher may have, teaching immigrant children with limited language skills and in some cases weak foundation in formal education is a challenging task. This chapter critically examines immigrant children and their education, some of the challenges that hamper their learning, and some practical skills that teachers will need to effectively teach them. Teachers need to understand the complexity and diversity of children under their care, appreciate the circumstances in which immigrant children live, make the necessary efforts to retrain or acquire some additional skills to enable them to become competent to effectively support learning of the increasing immigrant children population that continue to flood their classrooms.

Transcending the Challenge at the Library

One of the greatest challenges immigrant families face in local communities is the harmful quality of mainstream deficit perspectives about immigration. This chapter focuses on a group of Latinx immigrant families' first experiences with local public libraries' education services within the New Latino Diaspora of the U.S. Southeast, which has been the migratory destination of many immigrant families in the last two decades. It discusses a study that interrogates the efficacy of two acclaimed literacy development programs, Every Child Ready to Read and Prime Time Preschool. These programs were facilitated by public libraries in the state of Georgia and attended by Latinx immigrant families with young children. The study findings illustrate how the families' engagement in the programs disrupted injurious social narratives that privilege whiteness and inhibit the recognition of Latinx immigrants as members of local U.S. communities and mainstream American society.

Asian Immigrant Communities' Civic Participation in Cultivating Bilingualism and Biliteracy in the United States

This chapter discusses how Asian immigrant communities in the United States cultivate Asian immigrant children's literacy learning in their heritage languages. Although the United States has historically been a linguistically diverse country, bilingualism has not always been valued and acknowledged. Strong social and institutional expectations for immigrants to acquire the socially dominant language have resulted in language shifts among immigrants. Concerned about their descendants' heritage language loss, Asian immigrant communities make organized efforts to establish community-based heritage language schools. Heritage language schools play an important role in immigrant children's learning of their heritage language and culturally appropriate ways of behaving and communicating. It has also been noted that heritage language schools encounter several challenges in motivating heritage language learners. Heritage language schools should be considered as complementary education for immigrant students because they take critical responsibilities to support immigrant students' language and literacy development in their heritage languages.

The Relationship Between Oral Language and Reading in English-Only, Proficient Bilingual, and Emergent Bilingual Adolescents

The chapter examined the English language and reading outcomes and the relationship between language and reading for two bilingual adolescent groups (Proficient Bilinguals and Emergent Bilinguals) and their English-only peers (n = 78 total). Participants completed a variety of English language assessments, and their scores from a standardized accountability reading assessment were collected from their teachers. Results from the study showed that Proficient Bilinguals performed comparably to their English-only peers in all language and reading measures, suggesting that simply being bilingual does not detract from adolescents' English language proficiency. Furthermore, the relationships between oral language and reading differed as a function of participants' English language proficiency. Oral language skills correlated with reading for both bilinguals and English-only adolescents, but the relationships were more robust for bilinguals than for English-only adolescents. Finally, the relationship between speech production and reading was significantly only for Emergent Bilinguals and not for Proficient Bilinguals.

Roadblocks to Bilingualism

Most teacher candidates have little experience with learning other languages. They therefore become cogs in the assimilationist machine that causes immigrants to lose native languages and become monolingual in English (Rumbaut, Massey, & Bean, 2006). In a time of devaluing immigrants (and their languages) and failure on the part of most Americans to learn other languages, educators need to focus on the role of other languages in promoting multicultural understanding and to increase language learning in the US. This chapter examines bilingual teacher candidates' experiences with language learning. For four years, students studying for ESL/bilingual licensure were asked to rate their language abilities, finding that 30% rated themselves as bilingual, with 70.43% of bilinguals describing themselves as heritage speakers. The authors report the overall findings as well as the bilingual heritage speaker candidates' own words on their experiences with language learning and maintaining their bilingualism.

A Primer on the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act and Advocacy for Students Who Are Culturally and Linguistically Diverse

Well prepared educators are essential to the identification and delivery of services to students who have disabilities, most especially when it comes to students who are culturally and linguistically diverse (C/LD). Professionals must be aware of the requirements in IDEIA and assure that multiple and appropriate assessments are used in determining whether C/LD students are, in fact, disabled before being assigned to special education. This chapter identifies current issues such as the under and over identification of certain students who are C/LD in special education, second language acquisition, and the evaluation of children whose primary language is not English. It is a tool to assist professionals in assessing students who are C/LD and in educating families and guiding them to advocate for the provision of supported interventions in general education, appropriate assessment, and educational planning. Recommendations for advocating for students who are C/LD are presented and discussed.

Educating Refugees

Unlike other migrants, refugees face unique challenges that prevent them from realizing their full potential in schools. Therefore, integrating refugees in the host country requires strong support mechanisms some of which are provided non-profit organizations. Refugee support initiatives may provide educational reinforcement and valuable support to help refugees foster positive education outcomes. This chapter examined how programs offered by non-profit organizations that support refugees in one of the Midwestern states in the U.S. reduce barriers to refugee students' high education outcomes. The results indicate that, through collaboration, non-profit organizations provide a wide range of refugee support services such as enrolling kids in school, support to students with disabilities, and a variety of after-school and summer programs. These services help refugee students, manage their traumatic experiences, integrate into schools, to be self-sufficient, and provide a safe learning space thereby cushioning them against barriers that limit their success in school.

Refugee Parents' Perceptions of Bullying Practices of Their Children in Urban Schools

The purpose of the chapter is to examine how parents from refugee backgrounds understand and perceive school bullying and anti-bullying policies. Given that bullying continues to be a serious problem in schools, and that immigrant and refugee-background students are particularly severely impacted, it is imperative that perspectives from different stakeholders, including refugee background parents, be incorporated in anti-bullying policies and interventions. Data were collected using the focus group method, with parents drawn from the refugee community in a town in upstate New York. Focus group interviews were conducted with a total of 27 parents from refugee backgrounds. Interviews were recorded and transcribed. Data were analyzed and organized thematically. Findings showed that parents (1) experience secondary stress from bullying of their children, (2) advocate for their children, (3) often feel unheard and diminished by school teachers and administrators, and (4) have an interest in meeting and working with teachers and other school officials to address bullying. Findings provide implications for bullying policies and practices for school personnel.

The Language Use of a Bilingual Korean Teacher and Bilingual Korean Students in a Korean Heritage Classroom

Many Korean parents in the U.S. send their children to heritage Korean language schools so that they maintain and further develop Korean as they acquire English. It is, thus, worthwhile to investigate how a Korean teacher and Korean students (as emergent bilinguals) used Korean and English in a Korean heritage classroom. The chapter addresses two research questions: (1) How did the teacher use Korean and English to make her instruction comprehensible during discussions about multicultural children's literature? (2) To what extent were there differences in the two groups of students' (Korean-American and Korean immigrant) use of translanguaging in their oral responses? The findings show that the teacher uses both Korean and English to make her instruction comprehensible and to facilitate her students' participation in class discussions. The findings further reveal differences in the two groups of students' use of language in their oral responses to multicultural texts.