By Dr. Suzanne Irujo, ELL Outlook™ Contributing Writer
This is the fourth in a series of articles that explore classroom implications of some of the findings of a study done by Gándara, Maxwell-Jolly, & Driscoll (2005). These researchers interviewed teachers of English Language Learners (ELLs) in California and identified challenges they face.
In previous articles in this series, we have seen that teachers of ELLs don’t have:
- enough time to teach all of the required subject matter to ELLs;
- enough materials to appropriately teach and assess ELLs;
- enough professional development to help them teach ELLs.
On top of all this, the 2005 Gándara et al. study found that “teachers expressed frustration with the wide range of English language and academic levels often found in their classrooms” (p. 8).
So if you’re a teacher of ELLs, you have no time, no materials, and no professional development. Now you find that you also have students at various levels of language proficiency and academic achievement in your classes. At this point, you must surely be wondering what ever made you want to be a teacher.