Standard 2 (4): The unit must ensure each program provides effective instruction on the knowledge and skills needed to provide appropriate instruction to multilingual learners to support and accelerate academic literacy, including oral academic language and achievement in content areas in a regular classroom setting. 

Historically, multilingual students have been marginalized in schools given their cultural and linguistic backgrounds, identities, and life experiences differ from English-centered and assimilationist norms in schools and society. However, at UED we believe that students engage more fully in learning once they feel a sense of belonging and believe they are valued by their peers and teachers. UED recognizes multilingualism as an asset that needs to be nurtured in a classroom in order to create a learning community that develops its full potential. Given their varied relationships with English, teacher candidates are taught how to recognize individual needs of multilingual students and avoid implementing a one-size-fits-all, English-only approach to the classroom.

To ensure understanding of the benefits, opportunities and challenges of teaching multilingual learners and meeting the need to support and accelerate their academic literacy, including oral academic language, all UED teacher candidates must successfully complete a full course addressing the needs of multilingual learners. Rather than be taught just a few weekly sessions within a course on diversity or general methods, UED teacher candidates in Elementary Education, Secondary Education and Special Education licensure programs are required to complete the Teaching and Assessing English Language Learners (EDU 435/635) course in K12 Content Area Classrooms. Early Childhood Education candidates must complete both the Urban Infant and Toddler Curriculum and Methods (EDU 321) and the Language and Communication Development (PSYC 417) courses where working with children from multilingual families is an emphasis.

In these courses, candidates are equipped with knowledge and skills to support multilingual learners and create meaningful opportunities to learn and grow. For example, to meaningfully engage multilingual learners and provide high-quality support that attends to both their wellbeing and academic success, UED teacher candidates are taught to: (a) take time to figure out who their students are, (b) recognize the unique perspectives, knowledge, experiences, and skills multilingual learners contribute to the classroom, (c) provide regular opportunities for students to interact with their peers and with the teacher, (d) provide timely feedback on student coursework, (e) be strategic in their feedback, and focus on more than just grammar, (f) build in opportunities for reflection and assessment, (g) provide numerous opportunities for students to ask questions, and (h) intervene when they notice a student is struggling.

The knowledge and skills needed to provide appropriate instruction to multilingual learners are addressed so that our urban teacher candidates learn how to modify general education classroom course materials and instructional strategies so that ELL students can engage in course content while simultaneously developing their English language skills. Teacher candidates receive guided instruction that allows them to gain an understanding of characteristics of limited English proficiency as related to placement options, diagnosis, exit, and evaluation. There is a requirement of a 10-hour field experience in an urban school setting involving classroom observations and working with an ELL student.

Students in the Urban Early Childhood education program learn about the process of second language acquisition and about strategies to support the learning of students whose first language is not English when enrolled in the Urban Infant and Toddler Education (EDU 321) course. To fulfill this objective, students read and explore various journal articles related to Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theories and have a discussion based on the following questions: How does the environment (internal and external) impact the process of SLA in very young children? What strategies can teachers/caregivers incorporate to support SLA among young children? To enhance the learning experience, a guest instructor is invited to share strategies used in the Dual-language approach.

Effective instruction about supporting multilingual learners is demonstrated in course activities and assignments. Elementary, Secondary, and Special Education licensure program candidates course activities in EDU 435/635 include demonstrating teaching strategies, developing lesson modifications, and evaluating textbooks, other learning materials, and resources available in the field. Early Childhood teacher candidates in EDU 321 prepare a picture book for very young children using L1 and L2. Course instructors use a rubric built and accessed in Taskstream to score the assignments to demonstrate candidate mastery of knowledge and also capture more detailed data to support program improvement.

Starting in the fall of 2022, all teacher candidates also complete a questionnaire in TaskStream just before starting student teaching and at the completion of student teaching about the effectiveness of instruction they received related to this component and all other components of Standard 2. Wherever and whenever either candidates’ scores or questionnaire responses point to the need for improvement to ensure instructional effectiveness, these data are used to re-examine course curriculum, assessments and instructional methods to ensure effectiveness.