Multilingual learners (MLs) students spend most of their school time with their teachers, who often feel professionally unprepared to meet their linguistically diverse students' needs. As such, preparing teachers for increasing numbers of multilingual learners (MLs) has become a critical factor in promoting equity and success for all students in our global society. This book explores and highlights the reflective narratives of teacher educators, in-service, and preservice teachers. It shows how these narratives are grounded in their personal lives, professional training, and daily teaching, and how they can unfold the complexities in their various experiences and the rich implications for MLs teaching and teacher preparation. The book presents papers that utilize teachers' reflective narratives to prepare and train teachers who are or will be working with MLs. It discusses the challenges and implications of teaching groups of MLs made up of diverse learners, including immigrants, refugees, and learners with disabilities. 'This book seeks to change the narrative of some of our most vulnerable student populations by giving voice to the experiences, challenges, success, and best practices encountered in the international education landscape. The power contained within each chapter is the systematic and intentional reflections that bring the marginalized stories to the center of the discussion. Anyone seeking an understanding of how reflective narrative can build equity and social justice for multilingual learners will appreciate the breadth of experience described. This understanding is critical for culturally and linguistically diverse teaching and learning.' Jordan González, Ph.D., St. John's University, NY

This collection examines a diverse range of approaches to multilingualism in teacher education programmes across Europe and North America. The authors investigate how pre-service teachers are being prepared to work in multilingual contexts and discuss the key features of current pre-service teacher education initiatives that address the increasing linguistic and cultural diversity evident in classrooms in their respective countries. The focus is not only on migrant-background learners but includes students from Indigenous, autochthonous and heritage language backgrounds, and speakers of minoritised regional varieties. The chapters contextualise, both historically and ideologically, the specific initiatives and measures taken in the participating countries. They also reveal the complexity of each educational context and the role that history, language policies and institutional and programmatic priorities play in the development and implementation of a multilingual focus in teacher education. In exploring how pre-service teachers are being prepared to work in multilingual contexts, the authors take a critical view of how multilingualism itself is conceptualised within and across contexts. The book highlights the valuable impact that explicit instruction on theories of multilingualism, pedagogies in multilingual classrooms and lived realities of multilingual children can have on the beliefs and practices of pre-service teachers.

This volume identifies resources, models, and specific practices for improving teacher preparation for work with second language learners. It shows how faculty positioned themselves to learn from resources, experts, preservice teachers, their own practice, and each other. The teacher education professionals leverage their experience to offer theoretical and practical insights regarding how other faculty could develop their own knowledge, improve their courses, and understand their influence on the preservice teachers they serve. The book addresses challenges others are likely to experience while improving teacher preparation, including preservice teacher resistance, the challenge of adding to already-packed courses, the difficulty of recruiting and retaining busy faculty members, and the question of how to best frame the larger issues. The authors also address options for integrating the work of improving teacher preparation for linguistic diversity into a variety of different teacher education program designs. Finally, the book demonstrates a data-driven approach that makes this work consistent with many institutions’ mandate to produce research and to collect evidence supporting accreditation.

This Element provides an overview of research focusing on language teaching practices for young multilingual learners in primary classrooms in English-speaking contexts. The term 'young multilingual learner' refers to primary school children, with ages ranging from approximately 5 to 12 years old at various English language proficiency levels. Pedagogy-informed research studies conducted in K-5 classrooms are used to develop research-informed pedagogies for young multilingual learners in primary classrooms. The authors use the notion of culturally sustaining teaching practices to provide examples from pedagogy-informed research studies. The focus on early (K-3) and intermediate (4-5) grades provides a range of illustrations of such practices. The Element concludes with implications for teacher education and the preparation of teachers of young multilingual learners.

This book brings together research from six different countries across three continents where teacher educators and policy makers are addressing the under-preparation of content teachers to work effectively with multilingual learners. By highlighting this relatively young field of research at an international level, the book advances the research-based knowledge of the field and promotes international research relationships and partnerships to better support the education of multilingual learners and their teachers. The chapters represent high-quality empirical qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods studies about pre-service and in-service teachers. Comprising four sections, each represents a critical aspect of the equitable teaching of multilingual learners. All the research was conducted in countries that belong to OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) and the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) enabling the reader to compare contexts and outcomes. This book will be of particular interest to academics, researchers, and post-graduate students in the fields of language education, teacher education, and education for multilingual learners. It will be of great value to anyone concerned with equity and social justice for multilingual learners whose languages, cultural practices, and resources are often overlooked and/or marginalized in the schools they attend.

The growing number of bilingual students in public schools coupled with a critical shortage of teachers specially prepared to serve this population calls for a critical examination of policies and practices in bilingual and ESL teacher preparation. This volume focuses on understanding the structural, substantive, and contextual elements of preparation programs, and provides transformative guidelines for creating Educar signature programs. Designed to improve the practice of teacher preparation by promoting dialogic conversations and applications of praxis in the preparation of bilingual/ESL teacher candidates, it emphasizes that exemplary teacher preparation requires transformative teacher educators. Simultaneously organizing the scholarship in the field and advancing new understandings, this book is must-have resource for current and future teacher educators. Contributors include Maria Brisk, Sylvia Celédon-Pattichis, Lourdes Diaz-Soto, Eugene García, Virginia Gonzáles, Guillermo Solano-Flores, Maria Torres-Guzman, Carmen Mercado, Bertha Pérez, Mari Riojas-Cortez, Francisco Rios, Concepción Valadez, and Angela Valenzuela.

Offers a fresh perspective on how to implement childrens literature across the curriculum in ways that are both effective and purposeful. It invites multiple ways of engaging with literature that extend beyond the genre and elements approach and also addresses potential problems or issues that teachers may confront.