Differentiation for English language learners means attending to so much more than language. Six years of experience instructionally coaching mainstream teachers has led us to a three-tiered approach to differentiation for mainstream teachers of English language learners. For our session, we used a video case study of a middle school English language learner to provide the rationale for our coaching protocol. Interview footage from the student, his teachers, and his mother over time demonstrated the inadequacy of focusing on student behavior, individual cognitive ability, or language alone to explain student development. The video data demonstrated how important it is to attend to all aspects of student development: the cognitive, linguistic, social/affective, physical, and even sociopolitical aspects of becoming a self-directed learner capable of making decisions and choices related to learning and life.

To improve learning outcomes for English language learners, teachers should first be encouraged to move away from whole-class instruction and individual student work. Teachers who use a variety of small-group configurations promote meaningful language use, higher order thinking, and interaction. Second, teachers should be encouraged to focus on assisting students to learn rather than merely monitoring behavior or task completion. Teachers assist learning when they design activities that require collaboration, extended language use, feedback, building on students’ experiences, authentic dialogue, and civic engagement (Teemant, Leland, & Berghoff, 2012; Tharp, Estrada, Dalton, & Yamauchi, 2000). Use of these six principles of learning and small group activities comprise the Six Standards Instructional Model. Teemant and Hausman (2012) have connected teacher use of the Six Standards Instructional Model to increased student achievement and English proficiency.

Third, teachers should be encouraged to recognize or acknowledge their students, as Rodriguez (2012) suggested, through respectful relationships, a multicultural curriculum, an inclusive pedagogy, use of context, and the application of school learning to students’ real lives inside and outside the classroom to transform inequities. Using Rodriguez’s (2012) Praxis of Recognition as an overarching mindset for differentiation, teachers can see multiple ways to acknowledge who students are cognitively, linguistically, socially, physically, and sociopolitically. Concretely, we move teachers toward more inclusive practices by coaching toward evidence-based differentiation. At the highest level of differentiation teachers and students collaboratively select content/texts, processes, products, or environments for accomplishing learning goals, and students receive assistance and feedback (i.e., peer or teacher) that improves their performance (i.e., revise or expand) in ways that affirm identity.

In our session we used video clips to show examples of actionable steps teachers can take to affirm identity, promote agency, and mediate power inequities in the classroom by using this three-tiered approach. The instructional coaching process itself relies on critical dialogue, classroom observation, and reflection to improve teacher attention to differentiation. In our experience, we have seen more dramatic change in teachers’ perceptions and practices for serving English language learners when we focus on promoting learning rather than narrowly focusing on language issues.

REFERENCES

Rodriguez, L. F. (2012). “Everybody grieves, but still nobody sees”: Toward a praxis of recognition for Latina/o students in U.S. schools. Teachers College Record, 114, 010302. Retrieved from http://www.tcrecord.org.

Teemant, A., & Hausman, C. S. (in press). The relationship of teacher use of critical sociocultural practices with student achievement. Critical Education.

Teemant, A., Leland, C., & Berghoff, B. (2012). Development and validation of a measure of Critical Stance for instructional coaching. Manuscript submitted for publication.

Tharp, R. G., Estrada, P., Dalton, S. S., & Yamauchi, L. (2000). Teaching transformed: Achieving excellence, fairness, inclusion, and harmony. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Dr. Teemant has spent 15 years focused on preparing mainstream teachers to serve English language learners in the regular classroom. Her latest research validates a new ESL instructional coaching model for mainstream teachers and connects teacher pedagogy to student achievement.

Dr. Reveles is a certified coaching expert, with experience as a bilingual teacher, principal, and administrator in a state office of education. She currently consults with IUPUI and WIDA on coaching initiatives.