K-12 cross-disciplinary collaboration: An ESL in-service model

Abstract

ESL students are taught by content and language teachers who share a school building, but may not share their frustrations, concerns, or expertise for working with ESL students across academic disciplines. Often, teaching schedules, the physical layout of a school, or the socio-political milieu make cooperation among faculty difficult. Although many school districts provide content-area teachers with formal ESL in-service development, ESL practitioners often remain the lone expert on ESL issues within individual schools. ESL students, however, need academic support from all their teachers. Given the circumstances, ESL practitioners are in a position to initiate cross-disciplinary collaboration, and to create both formal and informal in-service opportunities within their schools. At the National Center for Science Teaching and Learning, language educators had the opportunity to cross academic boundaries to listen to science teachers in Florida (N=9) and Ohio (N=4) discuss teaching second language learners. Analyses of the focus group (i.e., discussion and written feed) and surveys completed by pre-service science teachers (N=48) provide insight into successfully pursuing cross-disciplinary collaboration. This article describes a model for creating effective ESL in-service opportunities in K-12 settings.