View Content #1245
| Contentid | 1245 |
|---|---|
| Content Type | 1 |
| Title | The Education Alliance's Work |
| Body | From: OELA Newsline The work of The Education Alliance is featured in the January, 2004, issue of "Perspectives," a publication of the Massachusetts Association for Supervision and Curriculum Developers. Maria Wilson-Portuondo, Jane Yedlin, and Stephanie Feger, all staff members of the Alliance, contributed to the theme-based issue of "Immersion or Submersion" focusing on how schools are responding to changes in bilingual education policy in Massachusetts through strategies to improve instruction for English language learners. Maria Wilson-Portuondo focused on the need to understand the learning needs of ELLs and address the challenge of distinguishing language difficulties from a disability. New legislation is placing ELLs in the mainstream faster than in the past. Many mainstream teachers have received little or no preparation in working with this population and as a result schools may experience an increase in inappropriate referrals to special education. Jane Yedlin's article drew on her study of classroom discourse and children's writing development in a first grade English as a second language classroom. The article focuses on the verbal strategies used by a skillful first grade teacher to scaffold English language learners' language and literacy development. The article concludes that although literacy is at center stage these days, we must be aware that literacy begins with language and that children who have not been helped to understand and participate in high quality classroom talk are foreclosed from high achievement in reading and writing. Finally, Stephanie Feger teamed up with Ana Vasconcelos from Lowell Public Schools to present how the district has taken a proactive stance to new policies by embarking on a plan that emphasizes professional development and building teacher knowledge of classroom practices that include both language and content objectives for instruction. To learn more about this issue, go to the publications section of the MASCD web site: http://www.mec.edu/mascd/pubs.htm |
| Source | Perspectives |
| Inputdate | 2004-02-19 20:23:00 |
| Lastmodifieddate | 2004-02-19 20:23:00 |
| Expdate | Not set |
| Publishdate | Not set |
| Displaydate | Not set |
| Active | 1 |
| Emailed | 1 |
| Isarchived | 1 |
