“Listening to Teachers of English Language Learners,” is available from The Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning.
More than 40 percent of teachers of English-language learners in California public schools have had little or no professional development in the past five years to help them teach those students, concludes a study by researchers at the University of California, Davis.
About 43 percent of teachers whose classrooms were composed 50 percent or more of students learning English had taken no more than one in-service training session about instruction of such students in that time span, according to the study. It based its findings on a 2004 survey of 4,500 classroom teachers in 22 school districts. The report also found that half of new teachers who were required as part of their induction to take some in-service training focused on English-language learners had done so.