Term

Fall 2019

Capstone

Capstone Project

Degree Name

MAT

Facilitator(s)

Laura Halldin

Content Expert

Christine Miche

Abstract

The purpose of this capstone project is to address the question, how can teachers increase opportunities for quality academic talk for English Learners in the general education classroom? This was answered by researching data pertaining to the population of English learners in United States public schools, as well as, how historical context, issues of social justice, and sociolinguistic factors all affect English learners. Included in the research is also theories, definitions, and the importance of academic talk for productive learning. Several methods for increasing academic talk in the general education classroom are discussed, specifically Accountable Talk with Talk Moves ( Michaels & O’Connor, 2015; Resnick, L. B., Asterhan, C. S. C., & Clarke, S. N., 2018). Theories of adult learning are applied in the creation of a three session professional development series (Knowles, 2005; Mezirow, 1997). The intended audience of these professional development sessions would be elementary general education classroom teachers and administrators whose student population has a high percentage or concentration of English learners. This method was chosen, because classroom teachers have unique opportunities to present English learners with authentic, content-based opportunities for academic talk that are capable of producing higher order thinking and cognitive development, as opposed to teachers of English learners whose expertise and instruction is based on second language acquisition and development ( Ernst-Slavit & Wenger, 2016; Hamann & Reeves, 2013; Resnick, Asterhan, & Clarke, 2018; Zwiers, O’Hara, & Pritchard, 2014; Zwiers & Crawford, 2011)

Project Type

Professional Development

Keywords

ESL/ ELLs, Social Justice, Staff Development

dc_type

text

dc_publisher

DigitalCommons@Hamline

dc_format

application/pdf

dc_source

School of Education Student Capstone Projects

Included in

Education Commons

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