Although US-based, this article points out the same issues that teacher-training programs in Europe present – a lack of training, either complete or adequate, for supporting the needs of language learners in mainstream classrooms. It’s such a wide-spread problem, and so little, institutionally speaking, is being done to address it in a consistent manner.
Our “Beyond EAL” research project in the UK which just finished the pilot phase is attempting to bridge the growing gap between numbers of language learners in schools, and numbers of teachers qualified to support them effectively throughout the curriculum. In my next post I’ll talk more about the pilot project and our preliminary results, and some early-buy-exciting outcomes. Watch this space!
on raising bilingual children 