Siler City Elementary is part of federal professional development grant

Posted Wednesday, July 25, 2007

 E-mail this page    Printer-friendly page

Siler City, NC - A five-year $1.4 million grant for the U.S. Department of Education will provide professional development for UNCG faculty, undergraduate, and graduate students in the Curriculum and Instruction (CUI) Department, as well as teachers in Chatham County and Asheboro City Schools about effective methods for teaching the growing number of English Language Learners (ELLs) in North Carolina's schools. This funded project, called TESOL for ALL: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages = Academic Achievement for Language Learners, is designed to address the language and achievement gap between limited English-speaking (LEP) students and non-LEP students by providing comprehensive professional development to teacher educators, teachers, and teacher candidates to help them work more effectively with English language learners.

TESOL for ALL is a coordinated effort among faculty in the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) elementary teacher education program, Chatham County Schools, Asheboro City Schools, the Center for New North Carolinians, which is also housed at UNCG, and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. This consortium of partners will work together to accelerate ELL students' acquisition of academic language skills, literacy development, and content knowledge by increasing the number of English as a Second Language (ESL) certified teachers in North Carolina, and preparing teacher candidates at both the undergraduate and graduate level to work with LEP students in K-12 settings. Dr. Barbara Levin, Dr. Kathryn Prater, Dr. He Ye, and Dr. Ann Harrington, all of the CUI Department, are the co-PIs on this grant, which will distribute $228,000 dollars from this project during the 2007-2008 school year alone.

Currently the CUI Department at UNCG offers two options for licensed and experienced teachers to become ESL certified - a M.Ed. in ESL called the Teacher Leadership Track program, and an ESL add-on licensure program. The TESOL for ALL grant will supplement these ESL programs by adding a new M.Ed. program called the Classroom Practice Track program that will lead to initial licensure for teaching K-12 ESL students. This new M.Ed. in ESL program is expected to attract second degree, career changing adults into ESL teaching at the graduate level. In addition TESOL for ALL funds will provide professional development so that faculty will be able to revise the elementary teacher education curriculum to incorporate state standards required for ESL licensure. UNCG faculty, local teachers, and UNCG teacher candidates involved in this grant will be prepared to successfully pass the ESL PRAXIS II exam and become highly qualified to teach both elementary students and ESL student in K-12. It is estimated that the TESOL for ALL program provide professional development to a total of 40-50 elementary teacher education faculty and as many as 200 UNCG teacher candidates annually.

In addition to incorporating the NC standards for ESL teachers into its elementary teacher education program, UNCG will work with ESL teachers in Chatham County and Asheboro City to develop and provide on-going professional development for participating teachers in these districts so that they can also become ESL certified. The leaders of TESOL for ALL estimate being able to provide comprehensive professional development experiences to improve the academic language acquisition, literacy, content knowledge of local ESL students, plus skills for mentoring UNCG's teacher candidates, for up to 30-45 inservice teachers annually - ultimately serving over 1300 LEP students as a result of TESOL for ALL at the end of the 5-year grant.