• Home
• About
• Participant Requirements
• Conferences
• Links

Spring 2003 E29.2204 Syllabus

The Department of Teaching and Learning

E29.2204 Teaching Second Languages Across Content Areas

Spring 2003

Course Description

This course is an introduction to the teaching of English Language Learners (ELLs) in mainstream middle school classrooms. Course content includes second language acquisition, content based language teaching, and action research. Participants will explore this content through an experiential learning approach.

Course Objectives

At the outset of the course, the instructor will pose the following questions:

Who are ELLs?

What are their instructional needs?

What techniques have been found to be successful for teaching ELLs?

How can these techniques be applied to teaching content areas such as math, social studies, etc?

Throughout the course, participants will add their own questions to this list and seek answers through reading, assignments, field activities and class discussions.

Course Activities

1. Class attendance and participation: Students are expected to finish weekly readings before class and to be prepared for discussions.
2. School leadership teams: Each student will attend one school leadership team meeting at his/her school as an observer.
3. Action research: Each student will explore action research methodology by completing a case study.
4. Minilesson: Each student will present one minilesson in class, demonstrating how s/he can teach some aspect of language along with content.
5. Lesson: Each student will develop a whole lesson in which s/he teaches his/her subject using techniques developed for ELLs.
6. Student work: Periodically, students will bring sample student work to each class meeting and analyze it in light of the readings and discussions of the week.
7. Study groups: Students will meet in study groups with their ESL coach teachers to discuss the course content further.
   
8. Intervisitation: Students will be observed by their ESL coach teacher and the course instructor twice (once at the beginning and once at the end of the semester); likewise, they will observe their ESL coach teacher or other teachers twice each semester.
   

Texts

Johnson, A. (2002) A Short Guide to Action Research. Allyn and Bacon: Boston, MA.

You will also have assignments from a course packet which is available at Advanced Copy Center, 552 LaGuardia Place. Here are the contents of the reader:

Baker, C. (1996). Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters. Ch. 6 and Ch. 9.

Brown, H. D. (1994). Teaching by Principles. New York: Prentice Hall Regents. Ch. 2, 5 and 14.

Peitzman, F. and Gadda, G. (1994). With Different Eyes. New York: Addison-Wesley. Ch.1 and Ch. 4.

Carrasquillo, A. and Rodriguez, V. (1996). Language Minority Students in the Mainstream Classroom. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters. Ch. 2.

Bates, L., Lane, J., and Lange, E. (1993). Writing Clearly. Boston, MA: Heinle and Heinle. Ch. 1, 2 and 3.

Gunning, T. (2003). Creating Literacy Instruction for All Children. New York: Allen and Bacon. Ch.4.

O'Malley, M. (1996). Authentic Assessment for English Language Learners. New York: Addison-Wesley. Ch. 3 and Ch. 7.

Course Outline

Course Grading