This dissertation provides research and data based on a study of cross-age tutoring and its effects on English language proficiency and English reading achievement of English language learners. The subjects for the study included native Spanish-speakers enrolled in third-grade bilingual classrooms in four elementary schools. The research study focused on the implementation of Reading Together™, a cross-age tutoring program published by The Learning Together Company. The 30-session tutoring program is designed to help English-speaking students progress from decoding words to reading with fluency and comprehension through older students tutoring younger students in a one-to-one setting. This highly structured program is used to provide supplemental instruction to second and/or third-grade students. This study utilized a quantitative approach to compare the results of English language learners who participated in the Reading Together cross-age tutoring program and English language learners who did not participate in the program. A quasi-experimental design was used in the research study. In this design, the treatment group and the control group were selected using specific criteria. Both groups took a pretest and posttest, but only the treatment group received the intervention. The study also determined if there was a relationship between initial language levels and reading gains. The study concluded the following: 1. Cross-age tutoring might possibly be an effective instructional strategy to assist English language learners in improving their oral language proficiency in English. 2. Even though third-grade participants in the cross-age tutoring program did not demonstrate significantly different reading levels from students not participating in the program, cross-age tutoring may still be an instructional strategy to be used with English language learners to assist them in second language reading. 3. Students' initial English oral language proficiency level does correlate to the students' English reading level.

This qualitative study investigated four monolingual, English-only speaking Caucasian elementary music teachers and their reflections regarding instruction of English language learners (ELL). The purpose of this multiple case study was to investigate the teaching practice and curricular decisions of elementary music teachers who instruct Hispanic ELL students. The investigation was conducted during a nine-week period, and data collection included classroom observations, phenomenological interviewing, and teacher audio journals. None of the teachers had prior education or pre-service preparation in teaching music to ELL students. The major theoretical base from which the study was developed was the reflective teaching theory of Donald Schön (1983). The main research question was: "What are the participating teachers' reflections about their curricular and pedagogical decisions when teaching ELL students?" Following a description of the elementary music teachers' reflections on practice with ELL students, the study revealed that the majority of elementary music teachers had a lack of preparation and ELL music curriculum, and negative perceptions of the placement program for ESL students. Despite these factors, the teachers made attempts to include ELL students in all music activities. This study showed that while one teacher accommodated specifically for the ELL students' learning, three out of four teachers did not. This study also suggests that music is a subject by which strong interactions between peers, opportunity for language expansion, and other factors occur which have positive correspondence to recommended ELL instructional strategies. A cross-case analysis revealed that the life history and experience of the elementary music teachers had an influence on the teachers' awareness of ELL students. The analysis suggests a relationship between teacher awareness and accommodation. The study also recognized the need for further inquiry regarding ELL students and issues related to their school placement. This study has implications for music education research including suggestions for music teacher preparation in working with ELL students, ELL music resources and curriculum, and pre-service and in-service ELL music preparation.

Many school districts consider literacy and oral language as a top priority for pre-kindergarten students. In the district under study, pre-kindergarten English language learner (ELL) students are encouraged to attend a special summer school program to increase their oral language ability in English. This study compared three groups of children: ELL students attending summer school v. ELL students not attending summer school v. English speaking students not attending summer school. The students' primary reading inventory scores from the end of pre-kindergarten to the middle of kindergarten in the areas of reading, writing and oral language were compared. As expected, ELLs who attended summer school showed significant growth in oral language development from the beginning of summer school to the end of summer school. While it was hypothesized that ELL students attending summer school would show more improvement in oral language than other children over time, there was no significant difference between summer school and non-summer school children's scores by the middle of kindergarten.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a professional development intervention conducted with mainstream middle school teachers of English language learners (ELLs) in a North Texas school district. Teacher change was examined in the context of this intervention. Three groups of teachers participated in this study. Group 1 (n= 4) consisted of teachers returning to the intervention for a second year. Group 2 (n= 12) consisted of teachers new to the intervention. Group 3 (n = 16) served as the control group and consisted of teachers who were not part of the intervention. Mixed methods were utilized, including a self-assessment questionnaire, an observation tool, and data from the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test. Statistically significant differences were found between teachers in Group 1 and teachers in Group 2 in the perception of self-efficacy. Statistically significant differences were also found for Group 1 and Group 2 teachers between the beginning and the end of the year. Group 3 teachers experienced a decrease in their perception of self-efficacy between the beginning and the end of the year. A statistically significant difference in the use of interaction was found across time for teachers in Group 1 and Group 2. The interaction of ELLs decreased between the beginning and the end of the year for teachers in Group 3. The use of modifications increased significantly for teachers in Group 1 and Group 2 and remained stable for teachers in Group 3 between the beginning and the end of the year. In the area of high expectations, no statistically significant difference was found between intervention teachers and the control group across time. An analysis of data for the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test revealed a statistically significant difference in the percentage of All Students Commended for the writing test and in the percentage of All Students Met Standard in the social studies test between intervention and non-intervention classrooms.

In recent decades, the landscape of the U.S. classroom has been drastically changing. Schools at every level are enrolling increasingly higher numbers of culturally and linguistically diverse learners, many in the process of learning English. These students, frequently called English language learners (ELLs), present new and unique challenges to educators. Many of these challenges concern language and the many ways it affects the educational experience. One concern of great interest involves better understanding the ways language and academic content interact. Language is a pivotal component of the learning experience, and likely to affect students’ perceptions of the classroom environment and themselves, as well as interactions with teachers and peers. This concern remains critical to consider in secondary mathematics, where language demands are high, but teachers may not be trained to attend to both language and content in the mainstream classroom. The present research used data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 to investigate the secondary mathematics experiences of ELL and non-ELL students in two studies conducted at distinct levels: student and teacher. At the student-level, hierarchical linear modeling was used to compare the effects of several student variables on both access to and achievement in mathematics, as well as how these effects differed between ELL and non-ELL students. Findings indicated that both mathematics self-efficacy and interest in early coursework were positively related to access to and achievement in mathematics, and these relationships were significantly stronger for ELL students. Conversely, positive perceptions of the learning environment and classroom engagement were often related to gains in outcomes for non-ELL students, but decreases for ELL students. This study highlighted several key factors of the secondary mathematics experience that behaved differently for ELL and non-ELL students. Implications of these findings are further discussed in Chapter 2. At the teacher-level, hierarchical linear modeling was used to compare the effects of teacher experience, classroom practices, and perceptions of departmental support on the access to and achievement in mathematics of their students, and how these effects differed between ELL and non-ELL students. Findings indicated that more conceptually-oriented teaching practices were beneficial to both students, with greater gains long-term for both ELL and non-ELL students. Procedurally-oriented teaching was beneficial to ELL students in nearly all cases, but detrimental to non-ELL students’ mathematics outcomes. The effects of perceptions of departmental support varied, with mixed effects for some (e.g. principal support) and detrimental effects for others (e.g. sense of responsibility). Implications of these findings are further discussed in Chapter 3. Finally, Chapter 4 discusses overarching themes across studies at both levels, summarizing the results with regards to student variables, teacher variables, and student-teacher-school relationships. Implications for administrators, teachers, and teacher educators are discussed.

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The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) has replaced No Child Left Behind (NCLB), and many changes were made to offer more flexibility for English language learners (ELLs). Historically, teachers have not been well informed of the changes made to the specific requirements of educational policy despite being at the frontline to implement these changes in their classrooms. This mixed methods study includes the development of a comprehensive online survey to investigate how aware Indiana teachers are of the ESSA specific requirements for ELLs and the results of the survey completed by 46 teachers. For the analysis of the survey data, both statistical analysis and visual analytics were employed. Findings suggest that the teachers were not highly informed of the specific requirements of ESSA for ELLs, as well as were not adequately prepared to teach and assess ELLs under ESSA. Accordingly, very few teachers reported that they have made changes to their classroom instruction and assessment practices that would be beneficial for ELLs under ESSA. This study reiterates that the effectiveness of federal educational policy should be examined at the classroom level and suggests that the first step should be to clearly inform the classroom teachers by offering district level professional development, which includes a summary of the changes resulting from NCLB to ESSA. The study further highlights that without informing Indiana teachers of the changes made in federal educational policies, the shift from NCLB to ESSA will be nothing more than a renaming of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Hence, the study underlines that only when these changes are implemented at the classroom level through teachers, all students, including ELLs, will benefit from these new policy changes under ESSA.

Text-related oral participation is ubiquitous in literacy and language instruction. As such, considering how invitations to these interactions are framed is critical, as this framing is directly implicated in the design of equitable classrooms. In this Teaching Tip, one common technique teachers have been encouraged to use—a class set of “equity sticks”—is reconsidered through the lens of asset-based instruction for all learners including emergent bilinguals (EBs). Reframing how EBs are invited to respond to texts requires that teachers get to know their students, privilege multilingualism, provide scaffolding for oral discussion, and encourage responses that transcend linguistic modalities.

This study investigates the intercultural development with young learners from Sweden and New Zealand, when using written telecollaboration as a tool. Telecollaboration; is a tool used for online collaboration, it provides for a possibility of connecting students from across the globe and can function as a supplement to traditional teaching. The exchange, took place over a couple of months, connecting two remote and quite unknown corners of the world, from the students’ perspective. Students shared cultural topics with their peers through the course of two emails each, as well as, creating an overall multimodal presentation of their school. The telecollaborative exchange was done in the quest to develop the students social and self-awareness regarding culture through authentic meetings. The data collected is in the form of mind-maps, multi-choice surveys and unstructured observations. Visible themes, found during the project, is unpacked and analysed in accordance with Byram’s (1997) theoretical model of ICC. These themes are also compared with findings of previous research on telecollaboration in educational settings. The results of the study revealed that a development of the young learners’ intercultural understanding was partially achieved. Furthermore, implications met, was the limitation of time as well as the range of technology available.

International students in the United States enroll in private and public high schools with a goal to graduate and attend an American university. This goal is often difficult to achieve because these students are not acquiring the academic English necessary to be successful in a post-secondary setting. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate what language-learning strategies (LLS) a group of East Asian international students at a private American high school had self-regulated and what strategies their content area teachers had taught them to use to become proficient in academic English. The conceptual framework was Oxford's findings on LLS and self-regulation, which is a self-motivated method of learning that English language learners (ELL) use to become proficient in English through control of the learning environment. The research questions explored which LLS the East Asian international students had used themselves and what LLS the teachers used to help the students attain English proficiency. Data were collected from interviews with 8 East Asian international students who were 12th graders during 2016-2017, 18 years old, and scored 18+ on the English section of the ACT. There were also interviews with 6 core content area teachers. Data analysis involved coding and development of common themes. Findings revealed that East Asian international students self-regulated LLS, and content area teachers did not purposefully plan or use LLS instruction to increase English proficiency among the students. A policy paper project based on the findings included recommendations for professional development, global education, and renewal of the international program. This study promotes positive social change by developing teacher and students' understanding of how to help all ELLs succeed at the secondary and post-secondary levels.