Meeting the Challenge of Diversity: Professional Development for Teacher Educators.

According to recent demographic data, over 1.5 million English learners (EL) attend public and private schools in California. This number is expected to exceed two million by 2015 (California Department of Education, 2002), thus greatly increasing the number of students in need of language and literacy development in English. The situation is similar in many other states where changing immigration patterns have brought native speakers of other languages to schools in growing numbers. In fact, half of all teachers nationally may expect to have a culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) student in their classroom at some point in their career (Menken & Antunez, 2001). Consequently, the provision of English language and subject matter instruction to English learners is one of the most critical challenges confronting teachers and teacher educators today. While the number of English learners enrolled in K-12 schools continues to grow dramatically, only a fraction of those students are in bilingual or ESL classrooms. Thus, the majority of English learners receive most, if not all, of their instruction from regular classroom teachers. Tragically, most teachers in these classrooms have little or no training in the learning needs of CLD students (AACTE, 2002). In response to this disparity, some educators have advocated for increased preparation for mainstream teachers to work with culturally and linguistically diverse student populations (Darling-Hammond, 1999; Fillmore & Snow, 2000; Gandara & Maxwell-Jolly, 2002; Garcia, 1996; Haberman, 1996; Vavrus, 2002; Zeichner, 1996). In addition, research studies have investigated the ways in which teacher preparation programs attempt to address this issue (Gandara & Maxwell-Jolly, 2002; Haberman, 1996; Vavrus, 2002; Zeichner, 1996). One recurrent suggestion from recent studies is the necessity to provide all teacher candidates with specific content and pedagogical knowledge related to working with CLD populations (Clair & Adger, 1999; Gandara & Maxwell-Jolly, 2002; Fillmore & Snow, 2000; Gonzalez and & Darling-Hammond, 1997; Olmedo, 1997; Zeichner, 1996) as well as with multiple opportunities to apply this knowledge to classroom practice (Gandara & Maxwell-Jolly, 2002; Zeichner, 1996). Research results also indicate that successful teacher preparation programs integrate issues of cultural and linguistic diversity into all courses and field experiences (Olmedo, 1997; Rueda, 1998; Zeichner & Melnick, 1996), and that methods faculty, university supervisors and cooperating teachers all need to participate meaningfully in this integration process (Gandara & Maxwell-Jolly, 2002; Zeichner, 1996). In an article titled, "What Teachers Need to Know about Language," Fillmore and Snow (2000) assert that teachers need an understanding of how language impacts teaching and learning. They suggest the following course components for teachers to learn content knowledge about language: language and linguistics, language and cultural diversity, sociolinguistics for educators in a linguistically diverse society, language development, second language teaching and learning, the language of academic discourse, and text analysis in educational settings. A national study of teacher education preparation for diverse student populations was conducted in 2002 and published by the Center for Research on Education, Diversity and Excellence (CREDE). The authors of this study (Walton, Baca, & Escamilla, 2002) made the following recommendations for teacher preparation programs, which are consistent with those of Fillmore, Snow and others: All teachers should be prepared to address the social, cultural, linguistic and economic backgrounds of the entire spectrum of American students. All teacher preparation programs should include in their curricula study of the nature of language development and first and second language acquisition and dialect. …