Increasing numbers of English-language learners (ELLs) with limited literacy skills in middle schools have resulted in a high percentage of long-term English-language learners (LTELLs). The problem of LTELLs, ELLs who have attended school in the United States for more than 6 years and have not met the state ESL exit criteria, is addressed in this study. Cummins' concept of second language acquisition and Vygotsky's zone of proximal development theoretical frameworks were used in this qualitative case study to explore the perceptions of 6 Title I middle school teachers. The purpose of this study was to explore middle school teachers' perceptions of LTELLs and their impact on classroom instruction. The research questions investigated how middle school teachers perceived the limited literacy skills among LTELLs and respectively how middle school teachers perceived the effect of LTELLs on their classroom instruction. Data were collected through interviews and document analysis, and analyzed with descriptive analytical techniques Findings from the data indicated that middle school teachers' misconceptions about LTELLs, a lack of knowledge of LTELL and second language acquisition, and a lack of linguistic support, contributed to the limited literacy skills among LTELLs. The resulting project, a white paper, focused on recommendations for the stakeholders on how to address the issue of limited literacy skills among LTELLs. This study's contribution to social change includes a better understanding of LTELLs and their learning needs, as well as addressing teachers' misconceptions about LTELLs and second language acquisition. The results and recommendations provide suggestions that, if implemented, may improve ELLs' academic achievement and reduce the number of LTELLs.

For the past 7 years in a public Midwestern school district, 75% of the English learners (ELs) in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades have performed below proficiency on the state examination. To address the declining academic achievement, district administration required that K-5 teachers attend professional development (PD) that featured culturally and linguistically responsive (CLR) instructional practices for ELs. Despite district wide PD, school administration did not monitor implementation of these practices and student achievement continued to decline. This qualitative bounded case study was grounded in Vygotsky's constructivism and Krashen's second language acquisition theories. The purpose of this study was to explore teachers' perceptions and use of CLR instructional practices when teaching ELs. Data were collected via 23 individual interviews with and 22 observations of teachers, who had taught ELs within the last 3 years. Data were analyzed using typological analysis and a priori codes were established based on the typologies. Teachers reported they were using academic language and native language in class, but these instructional practices were not supported in observation data. Furthermore, teachers reported that using the student's native language, incorporating language and content, lack of instructional time, and a need for further training in how to teach ELs were barriers that affected implementation of CRL instructional practices. Based on the findings, a 3-day professional development was created to increase teachers' knowledge of how to develop ELs' academic language, to use ELs' native language in the classroom, and to overcome classroom barriers. These endeavors may contribute to positive social change when administrators provide teachers with CLR instructional practices, ELs may increase their academic performance.

Historically, identifying solutions to the achievement gap between Black and White students has plagued education. Twenty-first century challenges have emerged to include an achievement gap between Black and Hispanic students in literacy as early as 4th grade. Limited research exists on the use of English language learner (ELL) instructional strategies with Black standard English learners (SELs). This project study narrows the gap in previous research. The goal was to use a collective case study approach to investigate the professional development needs of the Northeast School District through the perspective of 5 Title I, ELL, kindergarten through sixth-grade elementary school principals. Social constructivism guided the theoretical framework. The research questions focused on principals' perceptions of the effect of ELL strategies on Hispanic ELL literacy rates and the benefits of systemic professional development on using ELL strategies for Black SELs. Data were collected from the principals through a focus group discussion and 5 semi-structured interviews. The data were then transcribed and coded to establish themes, based on the participants' perceptions. The major themes centered on the need for teachers to understand and incorporate their student culture in lessons through cultural proficiency; the instructional benefits for Black SELs in ELL classrooms; and the importance of consistent, applicable, systemic professional development. School districts may use these findings results to make decisions on systemic professional development for elementary school administrators and teachers, with positive results for Black SEL proficiency in literacy.

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The purpose of this study was to explore what I, a general education classroom teacher, know about using arts integration to build English Learners (ELs) reading comprehension. As the primary researcher, I am a fifth-grade, general education teacher in an intermountain West, Title 1, urban school where the typical classroom contains over 50% EL students. The studys two other participants were Martha, the director of the universitys arts partnership, and Camilla, a fellow faculty member who integrates arts into her curriculum. This qualitative Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher Education Practice research methodology was utilized to uncover my knowledge of teaching practices and pedagogy while simultaneously focusing on student learning (LaBoskey, 2004; Loughran, 2007; Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009). I used Miles and Huberman (1994) to examine three arts-integrated curriculum units, first and second annotations, and critical friend commentaries in order to uncover the practical and theoretical influences resident in my teaching (Fenstermacher, 1984; Miles & Huberman, 1994; Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009). The findings revealed five main themes: arts integration, reading comprehension, intentional planning, teacher knowledge, and class culture. Arts integration increased ELs abilities to build requisite schema, acquire essential vocabulary, and attend to oral reading fluency to increase text comprehension. Furthermore, by understanding these themes and their subcategories, I uncovered my tacit knowledge (Polyani, 1967) as it related to my decision-making process for using arts integration. Likewise, the self-study methodology allowed me to articulate my personal practical knowledge of ELs needs and why I employed art-integrative practices to introduce and reinforce content area understandings.

This study explored the perspectives of speech language pathologists and school psychologists, to identify the systemic challenges they identified that negatively impact how emerging bilingual students are referred, assessed, and identified for special education. This qualitative study used semi-structured interviews with 6 speech language pathologists and 6 school psychologists (n=12) to explore these challenges and barriers, as well as to look at the systems of belief present on campuses, that impact this process. Using a systems thinking framework and detailed inductive analysis of the data many themes emerged related to barriers such as difficulty finding an interpreter and ensuring that interpreter was reliable in their translations, limited access to bilingual resources, and inconsistent and unclear referral systems. Moreover, participants reported that many biases related to race and culture were present on their campuses and impacted how emerging bilingual students were referred for assessment. This study’s findings indicate a need for changes to be made at the federal, state, district, and school levels to address the various challenges present and to improve the overall system.

Secondary educators must be knowledgeable in their content while increasing the academic literacy of their students, a process further complicated when working with students who are long-term English learners (LTELs). This mixed-methods study explored the knowledge, practices, and perceptions of six secondary teachers working to develop the academic literacy of LTEL students in content-specific classrooms. Set within a sociocultural framework, the study provides a greater understanding of the challenges and successes educators experience when working at the secondary level with students with diverse learning needs. The data were collected in two phases. Phase I included a quantitative survey of teachers, designed to acquire demographic information from participants who met the inclusion criteria: educators who taught a content-specific course and had a minimum population of 10.7% LTEL students in at least one of their classes. These data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Phase II consisted of qualitative one-on-one interviews, classroom observations, and follow-up interviews. Data analysis for Phase II included transcribing the interviews and taking notes on emerging themes. Qualitative data were also provided by the classroom observations using the Observation Protocol for Academic Literacies. Notes created in each of the classrooms were coded by themes and used in the creation of profiles for each educator. Themes that emerged through the one-on-one interviews and classroom observations were used to create questions for the follow-up interviews. Findings add to the body of research regarding content-specific secondary teachers’ knowledge and perceptions about the academic literacy development of their LTELs.

Globalization, and the movement of workers in the high technology industries of Silicon Valley have far reaching effects on the school systems which serve their children. This study takes place in a neighborhood public school in the heart of the area known as Silicon Valley, California, during the early implementation of the Common Core State Standards. During the time of this study, the student population in the valley was growing in number and diversity due to the impact of developments in the high technology industries in the valley, and the education system was recovering from drastic budget cuts as well as embracing a nationwide curriculum movement aimed at more standardization, high-stakes testing, and accountability. As the teacher in the role of participant observer and researcher, employing ethnographic methods of data collection, including video recordings, observations, interviews, and reflective journals and video journaling, student interactions were recorded and analyzed through the application of Bernstein’s theories of pedagogic interactions as well as sociocultural learning theory and the work of Vygotsky. The results indicate that Reading Buddies could be an example of an ‘empowering pedagogy’ which gives linguistically and socially marginalized children a voice in an educational milieu driven by high stakes testing and accountability with an emphasis on the use of English. The study highlights strategies used by young children acquiring English as an additional language to interact with and co-construct meaning of English language texts during weekly Reading Buddy sessions. Seeing the diversity found in the classrooms as a strength and benefit to the education system, this study explores how allowing space for children to bring every day knowledge, home languages, and personal experiences into literacy practices impacts their interactions with English Language texts.

Special education teachers in California acquire advanced degrees, credentials, and authorizations to serve students with disabilities who are English language learners (SWD-ELLs), yet continue to be challenged to meet the complex instructional needs of these students. Performance on statewide tests of achievement show continued disparities between the academic achievement of SWD, ELLs, and their non-disabled English-only speaking peers. Bandura's theory of self-efficacy was the theoretical foundation for this research study given that teachers' perceptions of their abilities across the span of their careers can directly affect the achievement of their students. To compare and examine the self-reported sense of self-efficacy of special education teachers in California who serve SWD-ELLs, a concurrent mixed methods design was used. Quantitative, Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and F-tests were utilized to determine statistical significance between the self-reported ratings of novice and experienced special education teachers (N=67) on the Teachers' Sense of Self Efficacy Scale (TSES) questionnaire. Statistically significant differences between the 2 groups of teachers were not found. Coding and thematic analysis of teachers' responses to qualitative open-ended questions resulted in teachers reports of having received some training related to teaching SWD-ELLs. Both teacher groups also expressed a desire for mentorship, in-class coaching, collaborative training with parents, and cooperative training with general education teachers, to increase their ability to meet the complex instructional needs of SWD-ELLs. Results of this study provides educational leaders with insight regarding the needs of special education teachers in California to effectively increase educational outcomes for SWD-ELLs.

In this multiple case study, I examined what types of sociocultural resources adult English learners brought with them from their previous contexts and what new resources they drew upon in the U.S. while learning to write in the essay genre. The study also identified how the participants chose to use previous and new sociocultural resources as mediated by the essay genre in the U.S. The following research foci shaped this study: (1) What types of sociocultural resources do adult English learners use while learning to write in the essay genre prior to and after their arrival in the U.S.? (2) How does the essay genre mediate adult English learners’ choices about sociocultural resources in the U.S.? Data collection involved semi-structured interviews, in-class and out-of-class participant observations and collection of artifacts over a period of seven weeks. Six weeks were dedicated to essay writing in an English composition course and English workshop, and one week was used to conduct a final in-depth interview with each participant. Analysis of data included coding and theme analysis. Four refugee students with diverse cultural backgrounds and who had different contacts within the educational system in the U.S. participated in the study. Results indicate that the participants relied upon seven categories of social, symbolic, and material resources when they learned to write in the essay genre. The categories are not mutually exclusive, but they do capture the variety of resources participants drew upon as writers in the essay genre prior to and after their arrival in the U.S. To draw upon their resources in the U.S., the participants also made choices that resulted in three types of actions. Those actions included losses, retentions, and gains. The essay genre mediated some retentions and gains. Those choices were driven by the essay genre demands of the participants’ new sociocultural context and, consequently, were rooted in their interaction within the new environment. Not all of the participants’ choices were mediated by the essay genre; some of them were shaped by contextual influences. Contextual influences shaped losses, as well as some of their retentions and gains. Those were general choices that were situated within particular contextual realities. As my study shows, the essay genre along with context played a significant role in contributing to shaping participant’s agentive capacity. The essay genre, in particular, shaped the kind of competencies they had to demonstrate; contextual influences shaped the types of resources and their access to them. Understanding this interaction and, in particular, how genre helps students make purposeful choices and act as competent writers contributes to a more holistic understanding of learning to write as a sociocultural act. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.