Preparing ESL and Bilingual Teachers for Changing Roles: Immersion for Teachers of LEP Children

Abstract

With increased emphasis on integration of language and content-area instruction, the roles of bilingual and ESL teachers are becoming increasingly interrelated—a situation that calls for development of common training experiences in the preparation of ESL and bilingual personnel. This article describes a teacher training course designed to meet both the differing language proficiency needs of bilingual and ESL teachers, as well as the common needs of teachers learning to implement content-based strategies for teaching language. Specifically, (a) ESL specialists receive an immersion experience in Spanish, (b) bilingual specialists are provided opportunities to enhance their proficiency in academic Spanish, and (c) both ESL and bilingual specialists receive intensive simulated classroom experiences in small-group, content-based instruction following a cooperative learning approach. A rationale for following an integrated approach in the preparation of language educators for limited English proficient (LEP) children is presented, and data collected from participants in the course are discussed in relation to the potential effectiveness of this type of teacher training format as a vehicle for attaining important teacher preparation goals.