Educating Teachers About Language

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of bilingual/ESL teacher educators caught between an ideal conceptualiza- ..... new kind of master's degree in the area of bilingual education and ESL that.
Chapter Three

Educating Teachers About Language Leonard Baca Kathy Escamilla University of Colorado

We are in strong agreement with Fillmore and Snow's argument regarding the need for all teachers to gain a deeper understanding of language, linguistics, and sociolinguistin.The need is especially urgent for those who teach second lanpage learners. We commend Fillmore and Snow for expanding the dialogue about teaching second language learnen beyond the usual focus on beginning-level students. Much work need5 to be done to move intermedate second language learners toward full academic proficiency in Enghsh. Our response to the Fillmore and Snow chapter comes from the perspective of bilingual/ESL teacher educators caught between an ideal conceptualization of what teachers need to know about language to do their work well and the real world demands of \tate policies that are increasingly limiting the amount of course work that can be required in initial teacher certification progranls.These policies diminish the opportunity for teacher educators to lead teacher candidates in building the knowledge and skills they need to be effective in our schools. In this chapter, we polnt out several actionc that Fillmore and Snow call for that we believe to be essential, and we propose an addition to the course work that they outline. We then explore a way of addressing the limitations on teacher haining imposed by state policies.

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What Teacherr Need to Know About Language

Declining Knowledge About the English Language 'llmore and Sno~vpresent a very strung rationale for why teachers need to know more about language and how languages work. In their call for naining in the areas of linguistics and sociolinguistics, they refer to the country's shifting demographics, including the tremendous increase in the number of English language learners in the public schools.They also articulate important language-related roles that teachers play and the linguistic knowledge that teachers need for these roles. Beyond that. Fillmore and Snow place the study of language in historical perspective.They point out that today's teachers have not generally been required to study the English lan