Meeting the Needs of Diverse ESL Classrooms

Abstract

The focus of this chapter is threefold: 1) To report on the effectiveness of a professional development program offered to elementary school educators to work effectively with diverse ELs; 2) to present the results from a pre-professional development survey which helped identify specific aspects of working with diverse ELs in immediate need of professional development; and 3) to discuss the wider implications of our findings and recommendations for teacher preparation programs. The chapter reports on three main areas of a year-long professional development training provided to teams of in-service elementary school teachers, school administrators, and other specialists (N=60) in the Commonwealth of Virginia, USA. The results are based on a comparison between the participants' pre- and post-professional development surveys. The data were analyzed quantitatively and revealed significant gains along all aspects (N=44) of the educators' knowledge of working with ELs with diverse learning needs. We also identified specific areas in need of immediate professional development support.