PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCES AND PRACTICES: THE CASE OF A D UAL LANGUAGE BILINGUAL PROGRAM By Banhi Bhattacharya A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Curr iculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education Doctor of Philosophy 2015 ABSTRACT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCES AND PRACTICES: THE CASE O F A DUAL LANGUAGE BILINGUAL PROGRAM By Banhi Bhattacharya These can be the brightest of days or not - so - bright days for learners and educators as they deal with a rapidly changing education environment. Access, equity, quality, and accountability have become buzz words in debates on how to prepare a diverse generation within a climate of constant change. Language a s a medium of learning, through which exchange and transfer of ideas, skills, and knowledge take place, is central to these debates; and so are educators who use that language to facilitate learning. However, school educators tend to get the short end of t he stick when it comes to preparation and learning to meet the demands of diversity. Disparities exist in emphasis between student learning and teacher learning in the current education environment. The gaps in professional learning are especially signifi cant for bilingual education teachers who face challenges functioning within unique institutional conditions and a complex education system. Using a case study, I explore how teachers perceive available professional development opportunities in light of t heir identified instructional challenges in a how differences in individual backgrounds and pri or professional and personal approaches involved in dual language bilingual education. The study also raises questions about how the surrounding contextual complexities insti tutional goals, policy structures, and actor perceptions and relationships within an institutional structure affect the learning experiences of teachers in a dual language environment. These questions highlight the disparities around bilingual education at different levels of the learning system between school and district level goals and expectations about learning and instruction; need for professional support; and between envisioned and implemented roles of professional development providers. Despite wide variations in the forms and structure of existing dual language bilingual programs in the United States, the study confirms the universality of certain issues around bili teracy and biculturalism in the monolingual national education environment. A unique contribution of this study to the field is in helping understand how the relevance of teacher support in a dual language environment tends to get defined primarily by the issue of language, rather than the format or source of the support system. Additionally, the findings indicate the importance of alignment between program goals and program elements (such as the standards, curriculum, student and teacher assessments, and i nstructional support framework) in forming the basis of a coherent professional support system to enhance the possibilities of student achievement. iv In memory of my late father Baidyanath Bhattacharya, and for my mother, Dali Bhattacharya v ACKNOW LEDGEMENTS I strongly believe this dissertation could not have been completed without the support, encouragement, and help of some very special individuals . To begin with, I would like to thank my advisor and dissertation director, Lynn Paine , for guiding me through the dissertation process and helping me believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel. I have learnt and grown considerably from her constructive feedback and caring advice as I slowly inched forward with conceptualizing and concretizing my study . Most of all, her patience, openness, understanding, and flexibility offered me both the freedom and support that I needed to pursue my intellectual curiosities and my professional interests. I would also like to thank the members of my dissertat ion committee Peter Youngs, Guofang Li, and Paula Winke for their continuous support and feedback throughout the writing process. I am grateful to the administrators, teachers, and coaches of the school where the study took place , and to the district perso nnel. As I have promised not to divulge the identities of the district, school or the participants I would not name them. However, I would like to extend them my sincere thanks for agreeing to participate in this study and for sharing their professional in sights and experiences. Without the m this study would not exist, neither would the knowledge that was gleaned from it. Finally, I would like to express my immense gratitude to my family who provided me the strength to get to the finish line. I am grateful to m y nine year old vi daughter, Sreeja, who never stopped checking how I felt or what help I needed while I was at the final stretches of writing. She has alway s been patient and loving during my phase of being a doctoral student. My mother, sister and my la te father cheered my husband and best friend for life, Debargha, has been a robust support to lean on. He struggled, fought, laughed, and cried with me in every step of m y dissertation work. His critiques, his suggestions, and most of all his help with the graphics have helped shape this dissertation in so many ways. Thank you for never letting me let it go! vii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ...... x LIST OF FI GURES ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ .... xi KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS ................................ ................................ ................................ .................. xii CHAPTER ONE ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ .......... 1 Introduction: Problem Statement and Literature Review ................................ ...................... 1 Review of the Literature ................................ ................................ ................................ ............... 6 Trends in dual language bilingual education. ................................ ................................ 6 Instructional practices in dual language bilingual p rograms. .............................. 11 Significance of language input. ................................ ................................ .................. 13 Instructional challenges in dual language bilingual programs. ................................ .. 18 Issues in teacher preparation for bilingual education programs. ...................... 21 Place of Professional development in improving teaching and learning. ........ 23 Professional development as a way of building school capacity. ................ 27 Professional development for teachers of second language learners. ...... 28 Issues in professional development for teachers in bilingual education programs ................................ ................................ ................................ ............................ 31 Finding the root problem fo r teachers in bilingua l setting ..................... 3 2 Need for professional support ................................ ................................ ........... 34 Summarizing Findings from Existing Research in Dual Language PD ..................... 37 Filling the Gap ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ 39 Dissertation Overview ................................ ................................ ................................ ................ 40 CHAPTER TWO ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ..... 42 Situating the Study: Context, Methodology, and Theoretical Framework ..................... 42 Methodology and Research Design ................................ ................................ ........................ 43 Methodological perspective. ................................ ................................ ............................. 43 Data sources and data collection procedures. ................................ ............................ 45 Setting. ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ....... 51 Analysis. ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ .... 55 Theoretical Framework ................................ ................................ ................................ .............. 58 Looking through the lens of social constructive and transformative theories of learning. ................................ ................................ ................................ .............. 58 Complexity of context as a critical element of professional learning. ............... 61 Coherence and al ignment in program planning a critical factor in PD design and experience. ................................ ................................ ................................ ........ 63 Researcher Position and Credibility ................................ ................................ ...................... 67 CHAPTER THR EE ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ . 70 Goals and Curriculum: Looking at the Program in the Context of the District ............ 70 viii ................................ ................................ ......................... 70 Perceptions and life experiences how the originators saw them. .................. 70 How the implementers saw the miss ion, vision, and goals. ................................ ................................ ................................ .. 74 Concretizing the Mission and Vision Through Curriculum/Program Development: Influences of the Greater Context ................................ ............................. 78 ........................ 80 Influence of district - adopted standards on curriculum and instruction. ........ 85 Emergence of a New Instructional Model Bilingual Instruction to Meet New Standards ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ......... 94 The Context and Program Development ................................ ................................ ............. 98 CHAPTER FOUR ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ .. 101 Instructional Strategies, Needs and Challenges ................................ ................................ ..... 101 Response s to School and District Goals ... 102 ................................ .............................. 102 Perceived instructional challenges and accomm odations. ................................ .. 106 ................................ ... 106 n. ........................ 110 ........................ 115 Challenges in collaboration and partnership. ................................ ................... 119 Clarity in program goals. ................................ ................................ ........................... 121 Access to resources. ................................ ................................ ................................ ..... 123 Identified Instruct ional Strategies, Needs, and Challenges ................................ ........ 124 CHAPTER FIVE ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ .... 126 District Provided Professional Support ................................ ................................ .................... 126 Teacher Professional Support: Structure of the District and the Program Services ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ........... 127 District Offices: The Central Professional Development Office and the Office of Language Learning. ................................ ................................ ........................... 127 District professional development agents: The instructional coaches and District Teacher Evaluators. ................................ ................................ ............................ 128 Perceptions: Provisions and Relevance of the District PD Program ....................... 137 Position of the Central Professional Development Office. ................................ ... 137 The position of the instructional coaches. ................................ ................................ . 143 Challenges of coaching ................................ ................................ ............................... 145 age Learning. ................................ . 149 Discussion ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ...... 153 The district professional development programs as resource and impediment: The school - district dy namic. ................................ ................................ 153 CHAPTER SIX ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ....... 157 ........................ 157 Design ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ .............. 161 ix ............ 161 Specialized Support from Specialized Professionals ................................ .................... 166 ..................... 167 The Shifting Program Goals and the Evolving Professional Development ........... 168 perceptions. ................................ ................................ ................................ ........................... 171 workshops. ................................ ................................ ................................ ............................. 172 The contribution of the mathemat ics consultant. ................................ ................... 173 - - A - Instructional Needs ................................ ................................ ................................ .................... 175 Perceptions of t eachers on needs - based professional support. ........................ 176 Perceptions of the third grade Spanish teacher, Santia go Romero .......... 177 Perceptions o f the third grade English Teacher, Emily Miller .................... 179 Perceptions of the fifth grade Spanish Teacher, Sylvia Sanchez. ............... 181 Perception s of the fifth grade English Teacher, Edwin Wilson. ................. 184 Continuing the Quest for Better Professional Support Bridging the Gap .......... 187 CHAPTER SEVEN ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ 189 ................................ ................................ ................................ ........... 189 Review of Key Findings and Implications ................................ ................................ ......... 192 Influence of prior experiences and backgrounds on perceptions and program development: Its implications for the school and the district. ........ 192 Implications for the dist rict planners ................................ ................................ ... 194 Implications for planners at the school level. ................................ .................... 195 The complexity of the context of professional development des ign: Implications for developing teacher learning systems. ................................ ........ 196 Where the individual perceptions meet institutional reality: Implications for program coherence leading to effective professional learning. ........................ 201 Implications for coherence in program development. ................................ .. 204 Complementary school and district support programs: Lessons f or others in the field. ................................ ................................ ................................ .............................. 206 Limitations and Scope of the Study ................................ ................................ ..................... 209 Directions for Further Research ................................ ................................ ........................... 211 ENDNOTES ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ........... 213 APPENDIX ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ............. 218 REFERENCES ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ....... 222 x LIST OF TABLE S Table 1 : Research Participant Description ................................ ................................ ................ 49 Table 2: Data Cycle Meeting Outcomes Chart (SVDL), 2013 - 2014 ................................ ... 93 Table 3: Perceived PD gaps and instructional challenges ................................ .................. 159 Table 4: The Envisioned Roles ................................ ................................ ................................ ..... 163 Table 5: The Enacted Roles ................................ ................................ ................................ ............ 165 Table 6: Types of Educational Programs for Emergent Bilinguals ................................ . 219 xi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Mapping the context ................................ ................................ ................................ ........... 6 Figure 2: Framework of the PD services at the district and the program levels ....... 135 Fi gure 3: Interdependence of elements in a complex teacher learning system ........ 197 xii KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS AP: Assistant Principal BELA: Bilingual Educators Language Acquisition cohort CLC: Collaborative Learning Cycle DLES: Do ve Lane Elementary School ELL: English language learner EngageNY: Engage New York Math Curriculum ESL: English as a second language IC: Instructional Coach ILC: Individual Learning Cycle OLL : District Office of Language Learning MC: Math Consultant CPDO : D istrict Central PD Office PD: Professional Development PLD: Professional learning designer at the District Central PD Office P&M: Phonics and Morphology SLL: Spanish language learner SM: Singapore Math Curriculum SVES: S pring Valley Elementary School SVDL: Spring Valley Dove Lane Elementary School 1 CHAPTER ONE Introduction: Problem Statement and Literature Review The student demography in U.S. schools has changed significantly over the years demanding major transformation s in approaches to education across the nation, especially in relation to expectation s o n learning, instruction , and preparation of teachers. The unique competencies and backgrounds that students and teachers bring to schools affect the ways learning occur s in a classroom. Additionally , the institutional conditions, like cultural and systemic environments of the school that are shaped by its greater community at the district, state, national and global levels , also have a ripple effect on the practices at t he classroom level. For only affected the content, values and approaches in education, but have emphasized the need to include linguistic and cultural issues in educational dis course. However, research indicates that the impact of interventions in addressing such drastic shifts in the multi - cultural and multilingual aspects of education have been weak (August & Shanahan, 2006) . Due to a dramatic increase in the number of school - aged English language learners ( ELLs ) in the U.S. , teachers in m ore than 50% of U.S. public school s have at least one E nglish language learner in thei r class (Tellez & Waxman, 2006). Over time, states and districts across the nation have adopted various la nguage - based education models aiming to improve student outcomes among English language learners. Most of these models are founded on ideologies about the use of second language vis - à - vis English as a medium of instruction. Depending on their respective 2 st ances , some of the models promote English proficiency as a priority skill in achieving academic excellence, while others emphasize the significance of biculturalism and biliteracy in the context of an increasingly global world. For instance, t he priority o f the English as a second language (or ESL, also known as English immersion programs) and transitional bilingual programs is to enhanc e English proficiency for all students . Contrarily , the goal of the dual language (or two - way immersion or TWI) models is to promote bilingualism, biliteracy and multicultural competence among both native and non - native English - speaking students. Despite such measures undertaken diverse linguistic needs bilingual programs within the U.S. continue to exis t within a primarily monolingual atmosphere that greatly shapes how terms like ve instructional practices are defined. Many TWI programs have experienced setbacks due to statutory measures against bilingual education, such a s Crawford, 1997 ; McField, 2008 ) and high - stakes assessment/ accountability demands of NCLB ( Baker, 2006 ). Education policies and mandates within the United States continue to exert pressure on bilingual programs to conform to notions that emphasize monolingualism, in the form of English proficiency, as the key to academic success. Given such circumstances, preparing and providing for good instruction in dual language bilingual programs has become especially challenging because of their added goals of promoting bilingualism, biliteracy, and multicultural competence . 3 Exi sting research shows how factors originating at the meso (institutional) and macro (school system) contexts cumulatively influence the quality of student learning and instruction at the micro or the classroom level ( Bore & Wright, 2009; Bottery & Wright, 1996) . The complexity of context - based factors and agents adds to the difficulty of defining teacher learning generally because the nature of learning depends on t he uniqueness of the context and the person involved (Blackman et al, 2006; Bore & Wright, 2009; Briggs, 2007). In a study, Newmann, King and Youngs (2000) recognize d student learning ) are largely depende provide equitable support or sponsor relevant policies and programs in curriculum and assessment standards; teacher certification, hiring and retention; school size; school governance procedures; and profes sional development. They argued that teacher learning and professional development should be designed to fit the specific capacity needs of a school at a particular point of time. T eachers in bilingual schools are found to be largely unprepared due to a la ck of adequate professional support system (Lewis et al, 1999 ; August & Shanahan, 2006) . Despite increased interest in improving instructional quality and evaluating instructional effectiveness of teachers in bilingual education settings , research and pol icy initiatives in this area have been slow. In a comprehensive investigation of research in the field of professional development needs of teachers of ELLs , August what we know about effective prof essional development and (p. 255). Research in the field of bilingual instruction call for a paradigm shift in staff 4 development and preservice programs, which August and Hakuta (ibid) claim, are not well establ ished in practice. In a large - scale study of over 5,000 teachers in California, Gándara, Maxwell - Jolly, and Driscoll (2005) found that teachers had few professional development opportunities targeted to help them work effectively with ELLs. Many other rese archers (Migliacci & Verplaetse, 2008; Walqui, 2008) have also noted the unpreparedness of teachers when it comes to meeting the needs of second language learners (Li & Protacio, 2010). Moreover, despite t he fact that need for substan tial professional deve lopment for teachers is recogniz ed widely and valued ( OECD, 2004 ), studies have indicated that there are often considerable gaps between optimal conditions for professional learning indicated by research evidence and those that are actually provided ( Ingva rson, Meiers, & Beavis , 2005 ). R esearch on standards - based reform in the USA has also specified extended time as the crucial element in determining positive relationships between teacher learning and pedagogy ( Snow - Renner & Lauer, 2006 ) . Due to the gener al gaps in the conditions for professional learning, which are especially significant in the case of bilingual education teachers, the se teachers continue to face challenges while functioning within their unique programmatic conditions . While the TWI dual language programs promote bilingualism , biliteracy , and multiculturalism, they often function under the constraints of a largely monolingual educational culture . This dissertation attempts to address the need for research in this area. 5 Using the case study of a dual language education program, I explore how teachers perceive the professional development opportunities that are available to them in light of the instructional challenges they encounter and the program goals they strive to attain in a dual langu age environment . I also investigate how and a language bilingual program. The study takes place at an urban school that has adopted a 50/50 dual language (DL) education model. The school serves a culturally and linguistically diverse student population predominantly coming from low - socioeconomic family backgrounds. The diagram below conceptualizes the core issue at the heart of the study, where the question I ask is: how do teachers perceive the professional development opportunities that are available to t hem as a capacity - building tool ? 6 Figure 1 : Mapping the context I introduce this chapter with a brief overview of the problem I seek to address . The literature review that follows focuses on the trends in bilingual education in the U.S., instructional practices and challenges associated with dual language settings, and finally the state of teacher preparedness in dual language classrooms. Finally, I state how this study addresses a critical gap in the field of research on dual language education. Review of the Literature Trends in dual language bilingual education. The p opulation of school - aged English language learners (ELLs) in the U.S. has significantly increased over the years. Research estimates indicate that by the end of 2015, 30% of the school - age population will consist of language minority students due to increa sed immigration rates (Kindler, 2002) . Despite this shift in student demography, the discourse 7 practices in most educational learning environments today are representative of the mainstream society. Such trends often have negative impacts for nonmainstream students belonging to cultural and linguistic minority groups (Cazden, 1988; Gee, 1990). L anguage - minority students often do not prosper academically in such contexts because the discursive practices of their homes do not match that of the school environm ent (Garcia & Kleifgen, 2010) . The education of language - minority students is dependent on the degree to which the y have access to instruction that is challenging , yet comprehensible. They need an accepting school and social environment, which promotes ac ademic achievement and values cultural and language diversity ( Calderon & Carreon, 2000) . In the U.S., t he Lau v. Nichols decision of 1974 affirmed a student's right to educational opportunity via appropriate instructional services. To this day the search for the most effective means of accomplishing this goal for language - minority students continues. On the one hand, earlier studies by Hakuta (1990), Cummins (1981), Krashen (1982), Ramirez (1992), and Collier (1995) conclude that long - term prim ary language instruction comple mented with quality instruction in English is the most effective means for language - minority students to attain academic success. Later studies by August and Hakuta (1997), Calderon , Hertz - Lazarowitz and Slavin (1997), and Slavin and Mad den (1996) find that a comprehensive approach to school reform is necessary to implement quality bilingual or English - as - a - Second - Language programs for language - minority student s . 8 Within the U.S. public education system, there are different educational pro grams used in schools for working with English learner populations. These programs range from an English as a second language (ESL) submersion instructional model, ESL pull out model, ESL push - in model, structured immersion or sheltered English, content - b ased model, transitional or early - exit bilingual education model, developmental or late - exit bilingual model, two - way immersion or dual language model, and dynamic bi/plurilingual education model. Each model has unique ways of using language in instruction , different duration of instruction, and distinct instructional components and goals (Refer to the table from Garcia and the a ppendix for an outline of the different types of languag e - based educational programs designed for English learners ). Preliminary studies on the outcomes of two - way immersion (TWI) or dual - language (DL) programs (Christian & Whitcher, 1995; Collier, 1994) showed great promise. In dual language programs, students from language majority and language minority backgrounds are brought together with the common goals of attaining a high level of proficiency in both languages, meeting academic standards, and developing cross - cultural understanding ( Bikle, Hakuta, & Billi ngs, 2004 ). Students enrolled in these programs learn content through two languages, developing both language skills and academic competencies simultaneously. Since lessons are not translated and students are encouraged to use the language of instruction, students have the opportunity to serve both as language model s (during instruction in their native lang uage) and as language learners (during instruction in their second 9 language). Native English speakers are integrated with speakers of a minority language to draw on the combined linguistic resources of the two language groups (ibid). As a developing pedagogical approach to language and content area education, the definition of TWI/ DL education model continues to evolve. Initially, a range of programs that offered an enriched environment for language education were considered as two - way approaches. Later, the Center for Applied Linguistics or CAL ( 2001 ) proposed three criteria for officially designating programs as TWI: 1. Integration : where language - minority and language - majority students must be integrated for at least 50 percent of the day at all grade levels ; 2. Instruction : wherein content and literacy instruction in both languages is provided to all students; and 3. Population : within the program there has to be a balance of language - minority and language - majority students, with each group making up between one - third and two - thirds of the total student population. The TWI/ DL programs are often thought to serve students from poor Hispanic backgrounds and middle - class English - speaking students, although variations exist regarding such trends ( Bikle, Hakuta, & Billings, 2004 ). It has also been noted that a vast majority of these programs exist at the elementary school level , beginning in kindergarten or first grad e and ending through fifth grade. However, recently there has been a growth in the number of such programs offered at the middle and high school levels ( Christian, 1994 ). 10 There are several program models within the TWI/DL framework that differ in the time allocated for the use of the two minority and majority languages in instruction. conducted in the minority l anguage indicate the percentage of instructional time in English. As students progress through the grade ( Lindholm, 1997 ). Other programs are between the two languages throughout the program (CAL, 2001). The choice of iefs about language education (L indholm - Leary, 2000). Those who choose 90/10 or 80/20 may believe that more Spanish instruction is necessary since students in an English - dominated socio - linguistic environment tend to have extensive exposure to English ; however, native English speakers do not have similar exposure to the use and application of Spanish language outside of school . Whereas, those choosing the 50/50 model may do so out of a desire to promote equity between the two languages throughout the program, fear of lower academ ic outcomes in English, or lack of staffing capacity for a 90/10 program ( Bikle, Hakuta, & Billings, 2004 ). Language of instruction can be allocated by time, content area, or person, or a combination of all three (Christian, 1994). If allocated by time, language of instruction is changed on a schedule that can alternate ( half - da y or roller - coaster plan; every - other - day/ whole day plan; and every - two - day plan ). In a half - day (roller - coaster) model, the instructional day is divided with morning in one 11 language and the afternoon in the other language. In the whole day plan, if Engli sh were the language of the day today, then tomorrow the partner language would be the language of the day. The every - two - day model is usually appropriate for upper grades, when students are more profi cient in the two languages. T his model separates the la nguages of instruction by alternating the language every two days (Thomas & Collier, 2012). If altered by content area, decisions are made as to the language of instruction in content areas such as science, math, and social studies. One consistent languag e is used for each specific area. Finally, if altered by person, students have two teachers, one of whom provides instruction in the minority language and the other in the majority language ( Bikle, Hakuta, & Billings, 2004 ). Instructional practices in dual language bilingual programs . Existing research in education indicate s a strong correlation between g ood instruction al practices and higher student outcomes, regardless of the type of educational model that is used (Levine & Lezotte, 1995; Marzano, 2003;We nglinsky, 2000). This association between quality instruction and student learning is also evident in studies with ELL or high - risk students (Berman et al, 1995; Doherty et al, 2003; Echevarria, Short & Powers, 2003; Goldenberg & Gallimore, 1991; Ramirez, 1992; Sloan, 2001). In fact, Wenglinsky (2000) found that the strongest effect on student achievement measured in terms of eighth grade math achievement , after taking into However, good inst ruction in dual language programs involves a complex process because of the additional goals of bilingualism, biliteracy, and multicultural competence, and the 12 constant need to integrate and balance the n eeds of the student groups ( Howard, Sugarman, Christ ian , Lindholm - Leary,& Rogers, 2007 ) . Hence , it is even more important for teachers to use a variety of techniques that respond to different learning styles (Berman et al, 1995; Doherty et al, 2003; Sloan, 2001) and language proficiency levels (Berman et al , 1995; Echevarria, Short & Powers, 2003; Montecel & Cortez, 2002). P ositive teacher - learner interactions are an important instructional objective (Levine & Lezotte, 1995) in effective dual language classrooms . Studies have shown u se of positive social and instructional interactions with both ELLs and proficient English speakers result in improved academic performance of both groups (California State Department of Education, 1982; Doherty, Hilberg, Pinal & Tharp, 2003). In addition, research suggests that a reciprocal interaction model of teaching is more beneficial to students than the traditional teacher - centered transmission model of teaching (Cummins, 2000; Doherty, Hilberg, Pinal & Tharp, 2003; Tikunoff, 1986). While t he basic p remise of the transmission model is for the teacher to impart knowledge or skills to students who do not yet have these abilities , the reciprocal interaction approach encourages participation in genuine dialogue with pupils . This model encourages the devel opment of higher - level cognitive skills (Berman et al, 1995; Cummins, 1986; Doherty, Hilberg, Pinal & Tharp, 2003; Wenglinsky, 2000) and is associated with higher student achievement in more effective schools (Levine & Lezotte, 1995). A number of strategie s under the rubric of cooperative learning have been developed that appear to optimize student interactions and shared work 13 experiences (e.g., Cohen, 1994). Studies suggest that when ethnically and linguistically diverse students work interdependently on s chool tasks with common objectives, students' expectations and attitudes toward each other become more positive, and their academic achievement improves (Berman et al, 1995; Cohen, 1994; Edwin son & Edwin son, 1990; Edwin son, Edwin son, & Holubec, 1986; Qin, Edwin son & Edwin son, 1995; Slavin, 1995). Besides, extensive interactions among native and nonnative speakers also result in language development (Long & Porter, 1985). Here, i t is important to point out that many years of research on cooperative learning show that for cooperative learning to produce positive outcomes, the grouping must be based on particular operating principles. Saunders ( 2006 ) reported that successful interactive activities require careful design of task considering language proficiency level of the ELL students and adequate training of the English proficient students in working with and promoting the language development of ELLs. R esearch also show s that successful schools emphasize on helping low achievers by accelerating instruction , rather than slowing it down . Finally, r esearchers advise educators to be cautio us about successful grouping , allowing students to work interdependently, with clearly conceived individual and group accountability for all group members, and social equity in the group and in the classroom (Cohen, 2002; Cohen & Lotan, 1995; Edwin son, Edwin son, & Holubec, 1986; Qin, Edwin son & Edwin son, 1995; Slavin, 1994). Significance of language i nput . Lindholm - Leary (2001) points out that optimal language input in the classr oom has four characteristics: it is adjusted to the 14 comprehension level of the learner, it is interesting and relevant, there is sufficient quantity, and it is challenging. Accomplishing this objective involves careful planning in the integration of langua ge instruction and subject matter presentation to ensure ELL students access to the core curriculum (Berman et al 1995). In the early stages of second language acquisition, input is made more comprehensible though the use of: 1. S lower, more expanded, simplif ied, and repetitive speech oriented to the (Krashen, 1981; Long, 1980), 2. H ighly contextualized language and gestures (Long, 1980; Saville - Troike, 1987), 3. C omprehension and confir mation checks (Long, 1980), and 4. C ommunication structured to provid e scaffolding for the negotiation of meaning by second language students by constraining possible interpretations of sequence, role, and intent (Saville - Troike, 1987). Echevarria and Short and their colleagues (e.g., Echevarria, Short & Powers, 2003; Short , 2002; Short & Echevarria, 1999) built on this base of research on sheltered instruction to develop the sheltered instruction observation protocol (SIOP), which provides a lesson planning and delivery approach. The SIOP model comprises 30 items that are g rouped into eight components for making content comprehensible for ELLs. These sheltering techniques occur in the context of a reciprocal interactive exchange and include various activities as alternatives to the traditional t ransmission approach. Sheltere d techniques include: 1. T he use of visual aids such as pictures, charts, graphs, and semantic mapping, 15 2. M odeling of instruction, allowing students to negotiate meaning and make connections between course content and prior knowledge, 3. A llowing students to act a s mediators and facilitators, 4. T he use of alternative assessments to check comprehension, such as portfolios, 5. U se of comprehensible input, scaffolding, and supplemental materials, and 6. A wide range of presentation strategies. Echevarria et al (2002) reporte d that students, who were provided with sheltered instruction, using the SIOP model, scored significantly higher and made greater gains on an English writing task compared to ELLs who had not been exposed to instruction via the SIOP model. While this model was developed for use by ESL teachers with ELL students, the concepts are clearly applicable to second language development for all students. Balanced with the need to make the second language more comprehensible is the necessity for providing stimulating language input (Kowal & Swain, 1997; Swain, 1987), particularly for the native speakers of each language (V ald és, 199 6 ). There are two main reasons why students need stimulating language input. First, it facilitates continued development of language struc tures and skills. Second, when students are instructed in their first language, the content of their lessons becomes more comprehensible when they are then presented with similar content in the second language. I mmersion students often have difficulty in p roducing native - like speech in the second language. Part of this difficulty stems from an absence of the opportunity to speak with fluent speakers in the language they are learning. 16 According to classroom research, immersion students get few opportunities to produce extended discourse in which they are forced to make their language coherent, accurate, and sociolinguistically appropriate (Lindholm - Leary, 2001; Swain, 1985, 1987). This is even true in dual language programs in which teachers do not require s tudents to use the language of instruction during group work. Thus, promoting highly proficient oral language skills necessitates providing both structured and unstructured opportunities for oral production (Saunders, in press). It also necessitates establ ishing and enforcing a strong language policy in the classroom that encourages students to use the instructional language and discourages students from speaking the non - instructional language (Lindholm - Leary & Molina, 2000; Panel of Experts). Considerable controversy exists about the importance of explicit second language instruction in the process of second language learning (Long, 1983; Swain, 1987). Because many immersion programs were grounded in the natural approach, which eschews formal skills instruc tion in the immersion language, two important but incorrect assumptions were made. The first assumption was that students would simply learn the language through subject matter instruction, and the second was that students would achieve more native - like pr oficiency if they received the kind of language exposure that is similar to first language learning (see Swain, 1987). As some immersion researchers have discovered (e.g., Harley, 1984, 1996; Lyster, 1987; Swain, 1985; Swain & Lapkin, 1986), the fluency a nd grammar ability of most immersion students is not native like and there is a need for formal 17 instruction in the second language. However, this does not mean traditional translation and memorization of grammar and phrases. It is important to utilize a la nguage arts curriculum that specifies which linguistic structures should be mastered (e.g., conditional verb forms) and how these linguistic structures should be incorporated into the academic content (e.g., including preterit e i and imperfect forms of verb s in history subject matter and conditional, future, and subjunctive tenses of verbs in mathematics and science content). Monolingual lesson delivery (i.e., different periods of time devoted to instruction in and through each of the two languages respectiv ely) seems to be superior to designs that rely on language mixing during a single lesson or time frame (Dulay & Burt, 1978; Legaretta, 1979,1981; Swain, 1983). This is not to say that language mixing itself is harmful; clearly, the sociolinguistic skill of language mixing or code switching is important in bilingual communities. Rather, it appears that sustained periods of monolingual instruction in each language help to promote adequate language development. Because teachers need to refrain from language sw itching, they must have high proficiency levels in the language for the content in which they are instructing. Teachers, instructional assistants and others who help in the classroom should not translate for children in the classroom. Some children in part ial immersion programs have developed the strategy of looking confused when they have to respond in the second language because they have been reinforced for their confusion with some well - Instructors who react in this manner discourage students from developing listening strategies in the second language. 18 Instructional challenges in dual language bilingual programs. Researchers have noted that in many key states (e.g., California, Arizona, Massachusetts) ac ross the nation restrictive language policies have left many bilingual teachers feeling ineffective, unable to provide their students with appropriate, high - quality language instruction (de Jong, Arias, & Sanchez, 2010). They further suggest that bilingual teachers have become demoralized as a result of English - only laws (cf. Proposition 227) and are now forced to offer a counterfeit education of language instruction, a condition that will naturally cause professional anxiety, burnout, and, in some cases, a retreat from teaching altogether. Katz (2004) pointed out these tensions, as well. Cahnmann and Varghese (2006 ), Cervantes - Soon and Valenzuela (2011), Dubetz and deJong (2011), and Varghese (2006 ), suggested that in the current US political climate, bili ngual teachers must enlarge their roles as community and school advocates. The volume edited by Brutt - Griffler and Varghese (2004) contains several works linking bilingual teacher identity to acts of resistance towards debilitating language policies. Worki ng in an English monolingual national education environment, many teachers express concern about the reduced instructional time for the minority language and the increased use of English in DL programs in order to perform better on standardized tests. Teac hers in a study conducted by Lindholm - Leary and Genesee (2010 English instruction at the expense of Spanish instructional time in TWI/DL programs had adverse results on biliteracy. The study in dicated that more English - 19 improve their test scores. On the contrary, it was found that higher level of native language proficiency enhances English language acquisition and facilitates learning in a second language ( Lindholm - Leary, 2001; and Thomas & Collier, 2002). In a study on teachers in a TWI/dual language program, Hernandez (2011 ) identified several instructional challenges that teachers in these programs deal with eve ry day. Teachers in this study identified lack of adequate time for instructional planning as a major impediment. They stated that well - developed lessons in a TWI program required time to find or develop the appropriate materials, translate resources and a need time to develop skills in their own professional practice on determining which lessons needed supplementary materials in order to ensure success. Teachers felt challenged by the amou nt of material they needed to cover within the limited period of time whereby they had to provide in - depth instruction for the entire curriculum in two languages. They lacked sufficient time to review and re - teach lessons which were compounded by constrain ts in adhering to their daily schedules, pacing guides, and benchmark assessment timelines. instruction due to complexity in the Spanish instructional materials in science and soc ial studies, especially in upper - grade levels. Readability levels and complexity in vocabulary seemed to be too demanding for students to be able to access information on their own. Teachers also indicated the lack of access to appropriate resources needed to effectively provide instruction to dual language students while using district - and state - recommended curriculum. Similar challenges are also 20 reported by Howard and colleagues (2003) where teachers perceived teaching in two languages to be particularly challenging since equitable materials may not be readily available to meet the demands of TWI programs. To address the goal of cross - cultural competency literature in the dual language education model recommends programs to consider high - quality materials for both languages that reflect a multicultural curriculum ( Cloud et al, 2000; Lindholm - Leary, 2001; Sugarman & Howard, 2001). ) study demonstrated how state - or district - readers, Guided Language Acquisition Design (GOLL) strategies, grammar journals, thinking maps, and graphic organizers. Generally speaking, teachers described challenges emphasis to expedite the acquisition of English Language Development (ELD) standards and enhance the performance of ELs on standardized tests. Such g, and development of lessons within the already complex instructional scenario of the TWI model. Teachers reported having to dedicate extra time for coordinating efforts to meet the needs of English Proficient students while focusing on levels of acquisit ion of students with limited English proficiency (LEP). The literature also demonstrates the struggle TWI teachers sometimes face in balancing linguistic and cultural appreciation during student engagement . Even in an integrated setting, De Jong (2006) fou nd that students self - selected identity 21 subordination faced by bilingual students in dual language classrooms as they were marginalized by language majority students in the clas study revealed how English - dominant students disrespected the academic spaces of ELs during oral discussions. Similarly, upper - grade teachers in ) study experienced challenges in maintaining social equity in the cla ssroom, particularly during engagement in small groups. Issues in teacher preparation for bilingual education programs. Studies have shown that teacher preparation and certification are the strongest correlates of student achievement in reading and mathema tics (Darling - Hammond, 1999). Studies on value - added assessment in Tennessee have shown that students who have high - quality teachers over a period of 3 years achieve, on average, 50 percentile points more on standardized tests than those who have low - quali ty teachers (Sanders & Rivers, 1996). Despite such findings, studies have shown that bilinguals are often excluded from meaningful educational programs and rigorous instruction and their teachers are often poorly prepared (Garcia & Kleifgen, 2010). There h along with professional development practices for teachers in second language programs. Many researchers have indicated the under - preparedness of the teaching force to meet the demands of a rapidly growing ELL population (Gonzalez, Yawkey, & Minaya - Rowe, 2006; Gutierrez, 2002; Migliacci & Verplaetse, 2008; Walqui, 2008). In a survey conducted in California on the needs of teachers of ELLs, Gandara, Maxwell - Jolly, and Driscoll (2005) fou nd that many teachers have had little or no 22 professional development to help them teach their ELL students. According to a national survey of K - 12 public school teachers conducted by the National Center for Education Information in 2005, 85% of the teachin g force consists of White, middle - class, monolingual teachers. Among them 87% have limited multicultural and multilingual competencies and experiences in an educational setting (NCELA, Newsline Bulletin, 2005 ). Quality of teachers and school administrators are considered to be the two most important factors in determining school effectiveness and, ultimately, student achievement ( Blasé & Blasé, 2001; Clewell & Campbell, 2004 ). But as indicated above, few school leaders and teachers are well - versed in issues surrounding bilingualism. Additionally, due to a high turnover rate among both administrators and teachers of language minority students, it becomes difficult to staff bilingual schools who are adequately trained ( Garcia & Kleifgen, 2010 ). Principals and teachers at schools with large number of English learners are more likely to be Latino or Asian ( De Cohen, Deterding, Clewell, 2005 ). These Latino and Asian teachers and principals are more likely to be bilingual and knowledgeable of the cultures of the s tudents they teach, which enables the support of the students languages and identities. But these professionals tend to be less experienced in the schools with high concen tration of English learners, including bilingual programs, have more difficulties filling teaching vacancies compared to other roles; they are more likely to hire unqualified teachers and rely on substitutes. The General Accounting Office (GAO) report of 2 006 reports that only 11% of teachers of English 23 learners are certified in bilingual education, whereas 18% are certified in ESL. And although being bilingual is an important asset for teachers in a bilingual setting, only 15% are fluent in a language othe r than English (LOTE) ( Crawford & Krashen, 2007 ). Beyond teacher certification in specialized areas, most teachers in the United States lack preparation in how to teach English learners or how to teach in a bilingual education environment (Garcia & Kleifge n, 2010). The GAO report (2009) indicates that nationwide, less than 20% of teacher education programs required at least one course focused on English learners and bilingualism, and less than a third exposed their students to any fieldwork experience in bi lingual environments. Thus, when candidates graduating from these programs are placed in dual language bilingual environments the quality and approach of their instruction often fail to meet the instructional expectations in these schools calling for furth er teacher learning in the form of job - embedded professional development. Place of Professional development in improving teaching and learning . Every modern educational reform proposal emphasizes professional development as a primary vehicle in bringing ab out necessary change (Guskey, 1995). Professional development for teachers is often recommended as a strategy for school improvement (Newmann, King, & Youngs, 2000). Traditionally, in - service professional development typically consisted of short, stand - alo ne workshops on topics selected by schools and districts (often without consulting teachers), as well as college and university courses ( Ball & Cohen, 1999; Collinson & Ono, 2001; Feiman - Nemser, 2001; Fullan & Hargreaves, 1996; Schwille & Dembélé, 2007; 24 Vi llegas - Reimers, 2003) . These efforts have been criticized by many researchers as being brief, fragmented, incoherent encounters that are decontextualized and isolated from real classroom situations (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Collinson & Ono, 2001; Feiman - Nemser, 2001; Fullan & Hargreaves, 1996; OECD, 2005; Villegas - Reimers, 2003). Later research on professional development identifies the importance of high - intensity, job - embedded, collaborative learning environments (Hirsh, 2009) as high - quali ty PD programs ( Darling - Hammond et al, 2009 ; Desimone et al, 2002; Hawli & Valli, 2001). Research has indicated that the kind of teacher learning that improves teaching focuses on instruction and student outcomes considering the specific school contexts; provides opportunities for collegial inquiry, help, and feedback; and and creativity through sustained and continuous support ( Newmann et al, 2000 ) . The 2013 report of the Center for Public Education supports p rior research regarding the characteristics of effective professional development in arguing that it includes: 1. The duration of professional development must be significant and ongoing to allow time for teachers to learn a new strategy and grapple with the implementation problem. 2. There must be support for a teacher during the implementation stage that addresses the specific challenges of changing classroom practice. 25 3. should engage teac hers through varied approaches so they can participate actively in making sense of a new practice. 4. Modeling has been found to be a highly effective way to introduce a new concept and help teachers understand a new practice. 5. The content presented to teacher teachers) or grade - level (for elementary school teachers). Although most schools, districts and states use professional development as an important strategy for improving teaching, the quality and impact of professional development great vary ( Sun et al, 2013 ) . A majority of teachers who report to having participated in district provided professional development often consider that they lack relevance (Darling - Hammond et al., 2009). An analysis of 1,300 studies on the professional development landscape indicated that PD programs that were lengthy and intensive impacted student achievement in positive ways (Yoon et al., 2007). It revealed that workshop - style PD that were shorter than 14 hours failed to change teaching practices, and consequently, failed to improve student learning. The Center for American Progress 2013 report highlighted what research indicates as the most commonly cited drawbacks of pr ofessional development. For instance: 1. It is usually disconnected from the everyday practice of teaching 2. It is too generic and unrelated to the curriculum or to the specific instructional problems teachers face. 26 3. It is infrequent and implemented as a one - sho t event or led by an outside consultant who drops in to conduct a workshop and never returns to the school or district. [Hill, 2009; Darling - Hammond et al., 2009] Every school has a unique mix of teachers and students whose competencies, attitudes, and so cial, cultural and political value sets vary to a great extent, which in turn affects the nature of student - teacher interactions in the building ( Newmann et al., 2000) Thus, researchers have argued in support of situating the content of professional learni ng in the practice of teaching and focusing professional development on student learning (Borko, Jacobs, Koellner, 2010) instead of designing generic and fragmented professional learning opportunities. To understand learning in school settings, researchers analyze d the conditions under which successful participation in one type of situation facilitates successful participation in other settings, and they explore the processes of recontextualizing resources and discourses in new situations (Adler and Reed 20 02; Ensor 2001). With respect to teacher learning, it is particularly relevant to consider how practices learned in a professional development setting can be recontextualized in elementary and secondary school classrooms. A situative perspective of studyin g professional development programs supports the growing consensus regarding the value of creating opportunities for teachers to work together on improving their practice, and of locating these learning opportunities in their everyday classroom activities (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Putnam & Borko, 1997; Wilson & Berne, 1999). 27 Professional development as a way of building school capacity. Since student achievement is affected most directly by the quality of instruction, it is important to consider the factors that affect the quality of instruction. These factors and actors who are involved with policy or program development in various areas such as curriculum, assessment stan dards, teacher certification, hiring and promotion, school size, school governance and professional development (Newman et al, 2000). Literature on school reform and organizational change has identified different interpretations of school capacity. Some vi ew school capacity in terms of curriculum appropriate for their particular students, for whom they hold high learning expectations ( Darling - Hammond, 1998; Cohen and Hill, 1998; K ennedy, 1998). Some (Louis et al. 1996; Lee and Smith 1996; Louis and Marks 1998) have argued about the importance of social resources in the school identified as schoolwide professional community and consisting of: (a) the staff sharing clear goals for st udent learning, (b) collaboration and collective responsibility among staff to achieve the goals, (c) professional in quiry by the staff to address the c hallenges they face, and (d) op portunities for staff to influence t he school's activities and poli cies. the extent to which the school's programs for student and staff learning are coordinated, focused on clear learning goals, and sustained o ver a period of time. More recent research ( DeMonte, 2013) 28 that improves organizational capacity emphasizing the importance of the following: 1. Professional development alig ned with school goals, state and district standards and assessments, and other professional - learning activities 2. Professional development focused on core content and modeling of teaching strategies for the content 3. Professional development including opportun ities for active learning of new teaching strategie s 4. Professional development providing the chance for teachers to collaborate 5. Professional development include follow - up and continuous feedback Professional development for teachers of second language lea rners. Although researchers have explored various ways in which specialized training for teachers could be best conducted to improve student outcomes, professional p. 3) wit hout consideration for what teacher learn or need to learn. The unpreparedness of teachers who to teach culturally and linguistically diverse students has resulted from a lack of guidance and research in effective ways of helping content - area teachers meet the academic needs of ELLs (Short & Fitzsimmons, 2007). Working with culturally and linguistically diverse students requires a different set of knowledge, skills, tools, dispositions, and abilities. These include sound knowledge bases in first - and second - language acquisition theory, ESL and sheltered instructional methodologies, content - area language an discourse, linguistic and cross cultural contexts, curriculum development, and assessment (Li 29 and Protacio, 2010). As de Jong & Harper (2005) point out, a lthough good teaching practices for native English speakers are often relevant for ELLs, they are insufficient to meet their specific linguistic and cultural needs. Therefore professional development for teachers of ELLs must attend to the specific knowled ge and skills needed to teach ELLs, in addition to the general principles of effective practices for all teachers in mainstream classrooms (Li & Protacio, 2007). Tinajero and Spencer (2002) note that professional development for teachers of ELLs should inc lude an understanding of the basics of language (its nature and how it operates), language acquisition and how language works in written form to communicate (Krashen & Biber, 1988; Snow & Tabors, 1993). Moreover, what a student brings to the classroom in t erms of previous learning is a crucial staring point for the teacher to build a meaningful learning context (Robson, 1995). This means that before presenting any curriculum task to students a teacher needs to consider: 1. The cognitive demands inherent in the requires; 2. The degree of context embeddedness or context reduction (use of visual aids; demonstrations; modeling; technological support; oral and written instructions; and teacher assistance); 3. iencies; 4. individual learning style and learning strategies; expectations and attitudes, 30 5. What is acceptable as evidence of successful learning; what constitutes In a study to identify common criteria for effective professional development Guskey (200 3) examined 13 different lists of characteristics drawn from several professional development, the characteristics most frequently cited in the lists were: 1. Enhancement of teach in mathematics and science) 2. Sufficient time and resources 3. Promotion of collegiality and collaborative exchange 4. Inclusion of evaluation procedures to gather data to guide improvement efforts 5. Alignment of PD activities with other reform initiatives and high - quality instruction models 6. Carefully organized collaboration between school - or site - based educators and district - level personnel 7. Professional development activities guided by student learning data 8. PD ba sed on the best available research evidence Findings from the study, however, indicated little agreement among PD professional development. Guskey concluded that such disa greements and 31 ambiguity about effectiveness represent the fact that most professional development efforts occur in real - world contexts comprised of a web of complex factors. The contextual nuances, he observed, are often difficult to recognize within the c onfines of a single (one - size - fits all) program; hence programs that appear quite similar may produce different results for subtle and unanticipated reasons. professional develo pment programs is significant in examining the nature and quality of professional development provided to teachers in bilingual programs. This is not only because of the differences between bilingual and mainstream English or ESL instructional models, but also due to inherent differences in program goals and structure among different models bilingual instruction. As discussed above, each bilingual instructional model is founded upon specific ideological premises and identified community needs. Despite the g eneral focus on improving student - learning outcomes, the issue of language as the medium of teaching and learning and language proficiency as a desired skill often present unique instructional challenges and hence, a need for unique professional support. I ssues in professional development for teachers in bilingual education programs. As mentioned above, teachers working with English learners in U.S. schools continue to struggle with establishing communication with students and their families, insufficient t ime to teach the required content, difficulty associated with the varying academic levels of students in the classrooms, and lack of tools, resources and support available for teachers to use in classrooms with bilingual students. Gandara, Maxwell - Jolly, a nd Driscoll (2005) claim that these challenges 32 largely originated from the quality of professional development opportunities teachers of ELs receive, often comprising of poorly planned and executed programs offered by uninformed presenters that eventually needs of the students they serve. Finding the root problem for teachers in bilingual setting. Twenty years ago, Alma Flor Ada (1995) criticized the practices of preparing bilingual teachers and their professional treatment . After listening to the experiences of several bilingual teachers, she argued that bilingual teachers need to understand the societal forces that have influenced their cultural and linguistic identity so that they can stop passively accepting their circum stances and become not only agents of their own transformation but also leaders in the world around them. Teacher professional organizations in the United States have largely ignored the education of language learners and preparation of teachers in bilingu al programs despite advocat ing for the rights of multicultural learners and the need to prepare their teachers for decades ( Téllez & Waxman, 2006 ) , thus revealing the general neglect of language issues. Certain instructional conditions and practices requir e certain pedagogical approaches to generate high student achievement. Leighton ( 1995) observes that in resources and student abilities that are taken for granted in mainstream E nglish - only classrooms. In other cases, competing values tend to dictate different choices among otherwise equally defensible educational goals. Instructional models that have proven to be productive for students with limited English proficiency (LEP) 33 may share some qualities that are productive for all students; however, bilingual instructional models are often distinguished by additional features that address Leighton (ibid) i dentified as directly influencing success among students with LEP are: 1. The quality of lesson content; 2. 3. Accessibility of the curriculum (the degree to which students are able to relate to what is being taught); 4. The whole - school environment (hospitable social environment) (Nelson - LeGall, 1990) Research indicates that teachers who are successful in two - way immersion bilingual programs often possess a sound knowledge base in language, literacy, and learning that goes beyond that of traditional mainstream teachers (de Jong & Evans, 2008). Besides, they also have a passionate belief in the importance of bilingualism for all students both English learners and native Engli sh speakers (ibid.). Their knowledge base includes strategies for native language and literacy teaching, second language and literacy teachings, teaching for bilingualism, integrating language and content, and differentiated instruction. An understanding o f the fundamental nature of bilingualism and biliteracy as distinct from monolingualism and literacy development in two separate languages is essential. This sociocultural nature of two groups of learners co - constructing knowledge of two languages, 34 literac experiences in a mainstream English - based classroom (Dworin, 2003). Franco - Fuenmayor ( 2013 ) conducted a study knowledge of research on bilingual programs, in structional issues for ELLs, general instructional strategies, and second language development . The results of the study indicated significant differences among teachers in the ir knowledge and perceptions of second language learners and of various language - based instructional programs. Such differences among teachers can become a major impediment in preparing teachers to deliver transformative/ intercultural and collaborative pedagogies that are considered crucial in building ethnolinguistic identities of l anguage minority students ( Garcia & Kleifgen, 2010 ). Such findings emphasize the need for districts and program administrators to design support systems that can assist teachers placed in various bilingual programs to develop their knowledge and expand the ir instructional practices aligned to their specific program needs and goals ( de Jong & Evans , 2008). Need for professional support. The literature on professional development for general teachers highlights what is known as the best practices in teacher k nowledge and growth. Research in this field universally suggest s the importance of knowledge and skills. For example, Darling - Hammond and McLaughlin (1995) suggested that strong p rofessional development programs (a) engage teachers in concrete tasks of teaching, assessment, observation, and reflection that illuminates le arning and development; (b) use inquiry, reflection, and experimentation tha t are 35 participant - driven; (c) are col laborative, involving a sharing of knowledge among i ndividual teachers; (d) connect work with their students; (e) are sustained, ongoing, intensive, and supported by modeling, coaching, and the collective solving of problems of practice; and (f) connect to other aspects of school change. While r eflecting on these general principles Tellez and Verghese (2013 ) add that the work on professional development f or bilingual teachers must also emphasi ze promoting collective growth and knowledge. In a study reporting the results from a national survey of 100 bilingual teachers regarding their specific professional concerns , C ald erón (2002 ) noted that (a) teachers n ot trained on second language learning tend to have misconceptions about bilingual program s ; (b) bilingual teachers are often given second preferences in relation professional support ; and that r resources between bilingual and mainstream teachers . Studies have also found that the professional development specificall y aimed at bilingual learners i s often not highly rega rded by most bilingual teachers, who tend to report that the conferences they attended and the PD o ffered by the school district are often redundant and fail to provide a forum for their genuine professional concerns (Calderon, 2002; Varghese, 2006). Calderon suggests bilingual teachers need two kinds of collective sp aces: one for themselves and one with their non - bilingual counterparts. Similarly, Dalton and Moir (1996 ) shared the design of a project providing professional development experiences for 36 novice bilingual teachers and suggested that PD for bilingual teache rs must be interactive, contextualized, and co - constructed. The emphasis on collective PD might invite a comparison to recent nationwide efforts in the United States. In their study, Tellez and Verghese (2013 argue that many of the contemporary PD efforts offered by for - profit companies ( such as Solution Tree ) serve as a counterexample to the type of professional development that is envision ed for bilingual teachers. Although these programs claim to be based on teacher empowerment and research - based practic es, Tellez and Verghese (ibid) believe that they often focus narrowly on standards - driven instruction and provide generalized trainings to groups or teams of teachers . Criticizing the corporate approach, other researchers ( Talbert, 2009 ) have argued that s uch approaches tend to perpetuate disempower ment of bilingual teachers in the absence of differentiating their unique instructional challenges and needs. Despite such findings, PD offered by for - profit companies continues to be the dominant mode of teacher learning in the United States . Additionally , Cahnmann and Varghese (2006 ) recognize the significance of developing support networks bilingual environments where collegial support and collaboration play a v ital role in helping teachers advocate for the rights of socially and economically marginalized populations. In order for bilingual education to exist and for bilingual educators to thrive the researchers emphasize the need for wider school, community and national support for teachers in bilingual schools irrespective of their experience and training in the field . Such support systems can help teachers fight ideological 37 and political antagonism both outside and within their own school environment and potent ially slow the burn - out rate. Support programs in the U.S. that facilitate the formation of bilingual teacher networks, such as the BUENO center at the University of Colorado (Baca, Bransford, Nelson, & Ortiz, 1994) and TELL (Teachers for Language Learners ) at the University of Georgia ( Cahnmann, Rymes, & Souto Manning, 2005 ), have been key to the development and retention of bilingual teacher leadership in education. In a different approach Ball antyne, Sanderman, & Levy (2008) highlighted the role of profe ssional learning communities in improving the quality of professional development of teachers of English learner through the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data. In order that teachers can engage fully with these data, the researchers believe that teachers need to be trained on sorting and proficiency levels and understand the ways of using assessments to inform and improve instruction. Summarizing Findings from E xisting R esearch in Dual Language PD The complex set of instructional attributes associated with linguistic, academic and cultural needs of English language learners, when added to the characteristics of effective schools in general, is related to a higher level of achievement for English learners (Gold, 2006). Consequently, the success of dual language programs is also dependent on educators and staff having these additional skills and knowledge (Cloud et al, 2000; Day & Shapson, 1996; Met & Lorenz, 1997; Montecel & Cortez, 2002). This has serious implications in planning for teacher 38 recruitment and professional development . Despite a lot of attention drawn towards address e ffective professional development practices to help teachers meet the varied and challenging academic, cultural, and linguistic needs of ELLs (Short & Fitzsimmons, 2007). These teachers need preparation in differentiating instruction for all students in cl assrooms. The literature above suggests that the identified instructional challenges in dual language programs can affect the overall implementation of these programs. Teachers in dual language programs commonly face the challenges arising from the consta nt need to integrate and balance the needs of student groups using two languages (Howard et al, 2007). In these programs, teachers are expected to teach and validate both English and a minority language as legitimate media for content instruction and for c ommunication among peers and with adults inside and outside of school (Cummings, 2009). In a study on challenges faced by teachers in two - way bilingual instructional programs, Howard and colleagues ( 2003 ) reported that teachers perceived teaching in a dua l language setting as highly demanding in the absence of adequate resources; as a highly complex linguistic endeavor; as fraught with tensions among teachers coming from various backgrounds with varying degrees of knowledge in bilingual education; and as l acking in adequate training on the use of appropriate instructional strategies and materials. The lack of preparedness of teachers for culturally and linguistically diverse students suggests that there is an urgent need to prepare teachers of second langua ge learners both in mainstream and bilingual education settings, especially in 39 low - income and urban areas. Such research findings emphasizes the need for further research investigating the needs of (second) language learners, relevant professional developm ent programs for their teachers, and increased support through state, district and school - implemented programs in developing instructional resources for teachers (Education Week Research Center, 2014). s and satisfaction in Lind holm - Leary, 2001 ; Newmann et al, 2000). Therefore, there is a need for inquiry - based research that would document narratives around instructional needs and challenges educators encounter in dual language programs and approaches in professional development that are in place to address such needs. Filling the Gap The review of literature in the field of dual language education indicates the richness of scholarship in this field of study. Researchers have extensively looked at the different models of dual la nguage education, and also at instructional practices, professional development in dual language settings. Despite the existence of such well - developed knowledge in this area, teac hers in dual language classrooms continue to struggle with challenges stemming from the mixed educational and professional, linguistic and cultural experiences often determines the lens through 40 which they perceive dual language education the value of bilingualism, biliteracy and multiculturalism; the challenges associated with learning and instruction; the relevance of strategies they adopt or abandon; and the support networks th ey form and value. However, existing literature in professional development of teachers in dual language programs indicate a gap in the professional development design professio nal support. In this study, I examine the perceptions of actors involved in the process of professional development as designers, implementers or recipients at both the school and district levels to understand how teachers situate their professional learni ng within the PD continuum. Due to the small scale of the study, its findings are not expected to be use in generalizing professional development experiences, trends and practices. However, the value of the study rests in its ability to start an analytical conversation about the agency of dual language teachers as distinct individuals and their unique professional needs, expectations and perceptions about bilingual education that have significant implications for the Dissertation Overview This dissertation is organized into seven chapters. The first (present) chapter tries to locate the problem that the study seeks to address within the context of a rich review of literature in the field of dua l language bilingual education and teacher professional development. Chapter 2 provides information on the methods adopted to conduct the study and also sets up the theoretical foundation for the work. The chapters that follow makes way for understanding t he greater context within which 41 dual language instruction and learning occurs in the particular program that is being studied. Chapter 3 highlights the institutional mission, vision and goals, on one level; and at another level, it introduces us to the cur ricular and instructional approaches adopted by the school within the educational policy framework of the district. Chapter 4 digs into the instructional goals, strategies and challenges teachers at the school perceive as part of dual language instruction, which leads us towards the next two chapters that investigate how the professional support systems seek to development framework that is available for the teachers in this pr ogram, Chapter 6 the final chapter, Chapter 7, I summarize my findings and explore the implications of the study for professional development design and practices in a du al language bilingual educational setting. 42 CHAPTER TWO Situating the Study: Context, M et hodology, and Theoretical Frame work This study looks into the case of a program that has a 50/50 dual language immersion model operating within the context o f an urban school district in the United States. It examines the perceptions of actors involved as designers, implementers or recipients of the process of professional development. This includes administrators, professional developers and teachers. It part icularly focuses on the PD experiences of the Spanish and English partner teachers two mission of promoting bilingualism and biliteracy within the English - focused, skills - based conditions of the district policies. These perceptions are then analyzed with respect to the envisioned and implemented frameworks of professional support offered at the district and the program levels. I ask the research question s: (1) How do teach ers in a dual language program perceive their instructional challenges and professional development opportunities available to them? And, (2) How do the school and the district approach capacity building needs of teachers in a dual language program? My e xploration of t he lay ers of experience s and perceptions of the actors associated with the process of professional development will be based on t he following guiding questions: - What are vision and program goals ? How do they drive program development? 43 - How do teachers perceive their professional development experiences in light of the challenges they encounter and the program goals they strive to attain ? - How does the school facilitate professional su pport to its teachers to attain the goals ? How does the complement that of the district ? In this chapter I present the methodology and research design for the study, which includes the data sources that informs the study and data collection procedures that have been adopted to gain in - depth understanding of the context and the problems. The chapter also includes a detailed description of the setting and the analytical approach for the study. The methodological proce dures are based on an understanding of the theoretical frameworks used in this study, which are also in respect to the study. Methodology and Research Design Methodologica l perspective. Since dual language bilingual education is conceived and provided through various models, it is not always possible to compare findings from studies that look at the practices and experiences in these programs. Studies may approach issues in dual language education in the context of one of its many forms (transitional, developmental, two - way immersion/ dual language, dynamic); extent of their native and English language use (90/10, 80/20, 50/50); or instructional allocation by time, content a rea or person (roller - coaster, every - other - day model, strand, or whole school models). Additionally, contextual 44 differences between dual language programs (due to student demography, teacher uage bilingual model, among other things) can lead to findings that may not be applicable in a different setting. Hence, I adopted a case study approach for conducting my research. For the last 20 years this methodology has been widely used by researchers studying dual language programs owing to an appreciation for the depth of understanding offered in rich, detailed accounts (CAL, 2012). It has been used in studying the value of professional development in improving bilingual programs (Gandara et al, 2005) and in examining the nature of effective PD for bilingual programs ( Gandara, 1997; Molle, 2013). Creswell (2007) outlined five methodological approaches to qualitative inquiry: narrative research, phenomenological research, grounded theory research, ethn ographic research, and case study r esearch . Eisenhardt (1989) views case study approa ch as a useful strategy in the development of theory. In general, case studies the investiga tor has little control over events, and when the focus is on a contemporary phenomenon within some real - life context ( Silverman and Marvasti , 2008; Yin, 2009 ). T he exploratory nature of the questions asked in this study with an , d t o this methodology . The case study approach is appropriate when questions deal with operational links that need to be traced over time, rather than frequencies or incidence (Yin, 2009). Since this study seeks to explore the contextual nature of the teacher language program, I chose a case study design . 45 Case study research can be positivist, interpretive, or critical, depending upon the philosophical assumptions of the researcher (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2000). An interp retive case study is used to understand the meaning of a process or experience, whereby the researcher(s) start out with the assumption that access to reality (given or socially constructed) is only through social constructions such as language, consciousn ess and shared meanings. For this case study I have adopted an interpretive paradigm. It is a qualitative approach in which the investigator explores a bounded system through detailed, in depth data collection involving multiple sources of information, and reports a case description and case based themes (Creswell, 2007 ; Merriam, 2001 ). This is a type of qualitative research design , that is often descriptive in nature, has been deemed highly suitable for studies whereby the researcher aims at investigating specific issues in depth and detail ( Patton, 2002 ). This approach to research design allows the researcher to observe development, to help understand processes of events, projects and programs to discover context characteristics that will shed light on an issue or object (Merriam, 2001). Data sources and data collection procedures. I collected interview and document - based data during the 2013 - 2014 school year (IRB Approval# IRB# x13 - 1187e ) and analyzed it retrospectively . This was the (1) first year when t he school piloted the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) ii (every - other - day plan); (3) the first year when the school implemented a revised literacy and mathematics curriculum to align with the new district standards; and 46 professional developme nt requirement based on student performance levels. Although I did not choose the timing of the study to deliberately coincide with these changes, the program shifts taking place at the school and district levels at that time proved relevant in exploring t My choice of data sources is based on the research questions I seek to of the nature of vision, mission and goals context website, grant applications and interviews with the administrators. The analysis programmatic directions, in determining the values associated with bilingual education, and shifts in professional development design. Next, to get an interviews of school personnel that includes: the Principal, the Assistant Principal of Literacy (who previously served as the of partner teachers from English and Spanish classrooms) at the third and fifth grade levels, the in - house instructional coach in literacy and in mathematics (both of whom are district - appointed officials) and professional development consultant in literacy. I also examine the literacy and 47 literacy, Fundations/ Wilson Foundations, and Dictado) and curriculum materials and texts shared by instructional coaches and teachers. For the instructional goals I mostly relied on the interviews of the school personnel mentioned above. F inally, to address the questions related to internal and district - provided professional development experiences, I relied heavily on the interviews with teachers and administrators, follow - up e - mail communications, and professional development workshop sch edules and plans. For additional input on district - provided professional support I referred to interviews with a professional learning Office of Language Learning . Ins ights provided by one of the district teacher one I am studying, were also considered. I also analyzed documents on PD workshops, and PD planning and designs for the dist The exclusive focus on interviews and documents, with marginal use of observation as sources of data was a result of feasibility issue. Although I was able to observe some of the learning cycle sessions of the instructional co aches, and one of the literacy workshops conducted by the consultant, observation of the math workshops was not feasible. The analysis takes into consideration the agency of each of the actors I interviewed based on their involvement in or contribution to the process of conceptualizing, planning, facilitating or receiving the professional development program(s) in one way or another. 48 Individual interviews were conducted with four teachers a pair of Spanish and English partner teachers from the third grad e and a similar pair from the fifth grade level who agreed to participate in the study. I spoke with Santiago Romero iii , the Spanish classroom teacher at third grade and his English classroom partner teacher, Emily Miller . The other pair of teachers was Sylv ia Sanchez , the fifth grade Spanish classroom teacher and her English classroom partner, Edwin Wilson . Teachers at other (K, 1, 2, 4) grade levels who were contacted for the study were either reluctant, or non - responsive to the call, or could not convince their language partners to participate. For the purpose of my study it was important to get the views of both partner teachers at a particular grade level for an understanding of how (1) the language of instruction affected their perceptions about instruct ional strategies, challenges, and need for professional support; (2) how their pre - service preparation, certification requirements, or in - service support affected their approach to second language instruction in a bilingual setting; (3) how being a Spanish or an English classroom teacher affected their access to resources and support. team who were involved in the process of professional development design. These included the Princip al (Dr. Alba Moreno), the Assistant Principal (Alyson Garcia), the literacy instructional coach (Sonia Diaz), and the mathematics instructional coach (Salma Abadi). The external consultant (Freda Vasquez) who provided professional development to teachers o n literacy instruction was also interviewed. 49 At the district level, I interviewed the officials who were responsible for designing and facilitating professional development training to teachers in the particularly to teachers at the school that I study here iv teacher evaluation using district rubrics at du al language schools, was also interviewed. The reason for interviewing the teacher evaluator here was to PD design. Written observations of coaching sessions and workshops t hat I attended, documents that I gathered from the school and district personnel, and recorded interviews that I transcribed myself are used in exploring the relation of teachers in the dual language program. The following chart shows the distribution of the participants I interviewed at the school and district level. Research Participant Description Table 1 Research Participant Description [Pseudo names are used for all participants. For ease of identifying Spanish and English teachers, the names of Spanish teachers start with Institution Level Research Participant Participant Selection Criteria Identifiers/ Pseudonym School Principal 1. Headed school leadership team Alba Moreno Assistant Principal 1. School leadership team 2. School program (PD) designer Alyson Garcia 50 Table 1 Institution Level Research Participant Participant Selection Criteria Identifiers/ Pseudonym Literacy Coach 1. School leadership team 2. School program (PD) designer 3. Provider of in - house professional support Sonia Diaz Mathematics Coach 1. School leadership team 2. School program (PD) designer 3. Provider o f in - hous e professional support Salma Abadi Literacy Consultant 1. Advisor to leadership team 2. PD facilitator Freda Vasquez Teacher - 3 rd Gr Spanish Recipient of PD Santiago Romero Teacher - 3 rd Gr English Recipient of PD Emily Miller Teacher - 5th Gr Spanis h Recipient of PD Sylvia Sanchez Teacher - 5 rd Gr English Recipient of PD Edwin Wilson District Professional learning designer at the Central PD Office Designs, develops, and supports initial and continuing professional learning activities for instructio nal staff, school administrators, coaches, related - service providers, and Central Office based on expressed needs and outcomes of program evaluations. Andrea Knapp Dual Language Planner at Office of Language Learning Provides technical support, guidance, and training to dual language administrators and educators in the district Olivia Nunez Teacher evaluator Serves as an impartial evaluator & conducts observations of all district teachers. Following each observation, teacher evaluators conduct a one - on - one conference with each teacher to dialogue about specific areas of development. They also provide targeted, content - specific feedback and resources to help improve effectiveness of classroom instruction. Xavier Avila 51 This interpretive case study is int ended to provide a rich, narrative description of individual perceptions of the professional development structures of the district and of the dual language program using multiple sources of information. I conducted an inductive analysis to interpret the p erceptions of actors involved in the process of professional development as designers, implementers or recipients at both the school and district levels to understand how teachers situate their professional learning within the PD continuum using the data c ollected from multiple sources. Setting. This study was conducted in the 2013 - 2014 school year in a Pre K - 5 th grade dual language bilingual school in an urban school district in the United States, with a student size between 30,000 and 50,000 students at tending more than 100 schools. The school and the district demographic information comes from the year of the study (2013 - 2014). The dual language school, which I am calling Spring Valley Dove Lane (SVDL) Elementary, exists as a result of the merger of t wo schools in the district, namely the Spring Valley Elementary and the Dove Lane Elementary. The dual language program that exists at SVDL today is a legacy of the dual language program that was established at Spring Valley Elementary during the 2003 - 2004 school year in response to a changing demographic of the school population. The goal was to provide the same benefits of bilingual education to both native and non - native English speaking students in the school. It was first introduced at the Pre - Kinderga rten level in 2003 and a grade was added each year. At the time of the 52 - 2008 the program had been implemented from the Headstart through the fourth grade. The Spring Valley Elementary School (SVES) building was closed down by the s chool district after the 2007 - 2008 school year, citing the need for repair and reconstruction. At that time, SVES had a strand bilingual program within a mainstream English - only setting. It was relocated to the Dove Lane Elementary School (DLES) building d uring the 2008 - 2009 school year as a temporary measure. At that time DLES was also at the verge of closing due to low student performance and was housing very few students and teachers. As noted on a 2014 grant l shared during this study, the significantly higher than the DLES students, who were mostly African - American students previously learning in an English - only context. At the s tart of the 2008 - 2009 school year, the two school populations were merged into one school and became Spring Valley Dove Lane (SVDL) Elementary , referred to as SVDL in this study. As a result of the merger, the school leaders of the newly merged school in interviews reported facing major challenges in unifying the school communit ies and increasing the achievement levels of students who had vastly different educational experiences. The administrators continued with the bilingual strand program that they had - students from the Dove Lane Elementary. After the last cohort of the English - only 53 students from Dove Lane had graduated later, in 2009 - 2010, a whole - school bilingual program replac ed the strand programs. Teachers at Spring Valley received professional development from Teaching for Change (TFC), a non - profit organization that provides school personnel and community members with professional development and resources focused on socia l justice. After the school relocated and merged to form SVDL, Teaching for Change which followed a different approach to curriculum and instruction considering the heterogeneous group of students of the new school. During this time of change, the Principal entrusted the math coach and the literacy coach (who is presently serving as the Assistant Principal of Literacy at the school) with decision - making powers curricular and instructional frameworks. Additionally, committee identified the need to secure the demand before the district to fund a school - based professional development program. As a result of that effort, Spring Valley Dove Lane was able to secure funds who could provide support in implementing that program. The same literacy eracy instruction support. An external consultant was also brought in to provide support 54 with the implementation of Singapore Math. However, unlike the literacy consultant, the math consultants have changed over time. At the time of the study, the school had 465 students among which 23% were African - American, 75% Hispanic/ Latino, and 1% White. 99% of these students were from low - income family as determined by the percentage of students qualified for free and reduced - price lunch. 66% of the students were i dentified as English language learners; 40% of students scored at or above proficiency level on the 2012 - 2013 district reading proficiency test and 56% scored at or above proficiency level on the 2012 - 2013 district math test. It was recognized as a - 2013 academic performance. According to ESEA Classifications v , a Reward School is one with outstanding student achievement or growth over the past three years. Among the two types of Reward Schools (highest performing a nd highest progress), the school I am studying was identified as among those showing top 5% growth and thus qualified under the second category. According to the 2012 - attendance rate and a 0% mobility rat e . The principal, Dr. Alba Moreno, has been leading the dual language program since it was introduced as a strand at Spring - 2009. Just like Dr. Moreno, the assistant principal, Alyson Garcia, h ad been the literacy coach at Spring Valley Elementary School before 2008 - 2009 and had just undertaken her administrative role. 55 Analysis. Qualitative analysis is an iterative process that involves revisiting, repositioning and questioning the data that h as been gathered. While analyzing data, a researcher engages in a process of systematically combing out information gathered from interview transcripts, field notes, reflective journals and institutional documents to arrange them under categories and theme s. The purpose of the endeavor is to improve the understanding of data ( Bogdan & Biklen, 1992 ). Transcripts provided chance for preliminary analysis. In my case, the process of data analysis began following each interview I conducted with participants at t he school and the district levels. I took notes of the observations I made during the conversations and wrote reflective pieces on the ideas shared during each interview session. My notes helped me keep track of my thought processes while I heard the inter viewees speak thoughts about possible triggers that might have prompted the interviewee to make a certain observation or comment, which in turn helped me come up with follow - up questions for clarifications. Sometimes, while writing the reflective pieces on a particular interview, I would come up with a series of questions. Clarifications were sought via e - mails, phone - calls (which, with participant permission, were recorded and transcribed as well) or follow - up meetings. Sometimes interviewees would share c ertain documents with me that would address many of the questions I posed, which saved time and offered concrete and well - documented evidence on school or district policies and/or data. I transcribed each taped interview within two or three days of conduct ing them. The process helped me internalize the information very well as it required multiple re - runs, which gave me an opportunity to go through the data several 56 times. Sometimes, I would stop in the middle of transcribing and try to look up a piece of in formation or clarification on a particular issue on the Internet. I would viewpoints. I gathered all the supplemental information together and included them as addendums or footno tes on the transcript. They helped me organize the data systematically for easy reference, later on. These transcriptions were then uploaded on Dedoose a software tool that I used to sort the data to find codes and themes. The purpose of doing an immediate analysis after each interview was to make the themes and categories from preceding interviews available for comment and critique in subsequent interviews. I used the themes and categories to frame questions for other participants as I sought further clari fications. For instance, if a teacher perceived lack of support with Spanish resources, I would identify that as a theme under instructional challenges and bring up the question while speaking with the school or district PD planner, administrator, or PD co nsultant, asking for clarifications ( Guba & Lincoln, 1989). However, in all such instances, I made sure that the confidential ity of the participants was protected by not identifying anyone who could have brought up a particular issue or concern for which I was seeking clarifications. and Corbin, 1998), which is a technique where transcript snippets are identified by placing code words, ideas, or marks in the margin of the transcri pt itself. Each subsequent reading of the transcript would follow a similar procedure. In most cases, Dedoose generated different color markers, which made it easier to chart the 57 progression of codes and emerging categories from reading to reading. As the transcripts increased in number, prior transcripts were reread and more codes were added. After multiple thorough readings, each transcript was revisited according to its import for the emerging themes of the study. The same open coding procedure was used for the analysis of data in the field log: field notes, observer comments, and analytic memos were read and reread, coded and recoded. Due to the large number of codes, they were clustered to identify broader themes on common issues. As a result, major cat egories emerged, which included: assessment, curriculum, dual language needs, dual language program approach, program goals, teacher certification, teacher background, dual language challenges, dual language instructional strategies, perceptions on bilingu al teaching and learning, teacher concerns, teacher motivation, perception on PD. Dedoose was used to match the coded snippets corresponding to each category. This resulted in lengthy text (Strauss and Corbin, 1998) helped to group individual pieces of data under larger categories, which in turn highlighted the breadth, depth, and weight of each category. This (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1994), allowed the themes and their supporting evidence to merge together from the disparate pieces of collected data. The analysis was further refined by careful and detailed readings of each of these newly crea ted category - based documents. Through a process that Straus and recoded into subcategories, rearranged according to the new codes, and developed 58 into coherent documents that were internally consistent and externally distinct from each other, and that contributed essential information toward addressing the research questions. The data gathered in the interviews were triangulated by corroborating them with related documents, observat ion notes, and by further literature reviews. Theoretical Framework The purpose of this study is to provide a rich description of the teacher learning processes, experiences, and perceptions involved in the professional development programs they are offere d. For that, I draw on three major theories. I draw on the social constructive learning ( Baran et al., 2011 ; Green & Gredler, 2002 ; Rovai, 2004 ; Savery & Duffy, 1995 ; Woo & Reeves, 2007 ) and transformative learning ( Gilbert, 2003 ; Kabacki, Odabasi, & Kili cer, 2010 ; Mezirow 1996 ; Taylor, 2008 ) theories to understand how teachers learn from professional development programs and what influences their perceptions of the learning process in the context in which they teach . The Complexity theory ( Clarke & Collin s, 2007; Collins & Clarke, 2008; Curtis & Stollar, 2002; Davis & Sumara, 2006; Hoban, 2002; Marion, 1999; Opfer & Pedder, 2011 ; Stollar, Poth, Curtis, & Cohen, 2006 ; Weaver, 1948 ) helps to conceptualize the contextual element critical in professional learn ing. Finally, I have drawn on the theories of program coherence and alignment (Finley, 2000; Newmann , Smith, Allensworth, and Bryk, 2001 ) to conceptualize the development of institutional program plans as part of program reform initiatives. Looking throug h the lens of social constructive and transformative theories of learning. In order to examine the perceptions and experiences related 59 to PD needs, challenges and strategies in the context of a dual language education program I consider the constructive, s ocial constructive, and transformative approaches to learning theory, where professional development is seen as a learning context for teachers. Constructivists perceive that the knowledge is constructed as learners make meaning of themselves through exper ience, maturation, and interaction with the environment (Rovai, 2004). Social - constructed According to s ocial constru ctivists the role of social interaction is important because they view the act of learning or knowledge construction as a process occurring through social negotiation (Savery & Duffy, 1995; Woo & Reeves, 2007). Woo and Reeves (2007) emphasized that providi ng learners with meaningful social interaction is important Baran et al. (2011) emphasized result of their experience s, which in turn leads to instructional changes. They pointed out that some instructors renovate their instruction by acting, doing, and reflecting upon their practice when they meet unexpected situations. Transformative learnin g theory seeks to explain how adults construct and perspectives on instructor learning because it c an explain how they actively question and transform their practices and beliefs. Mezirow (1996) defined learning 60 162). Mezirow has developed and revised the concept of transformative learning since he first coined it (Kitchenham, 2008). The researchers (Mezirow, 1996 & Kitchenham, 2008) claimed that the transformative perspective helps researcher s understand how instructors challenge their previous ideas, values, and meanings critically. Transformative learning theory has been used in teacher education fields, models (Ka in which adults change their views and habits - which they have gained as a result of In to understand how teachers learn from professional development programs and what influences their perceptions of the learning process in the context in which they teach, historical development (Palincsar, 1998). I n my study the social constructive and transformative theories to learning underlie my analysis of perceptions about learning needs and the approaches to address those n eeds. Prior background of the individual teachers and the administrators influence their views of the professional learning experiences as they occur in a dual language context. The theories help emphasize the subjective element that goes into developing a program plan, its implementation, and effect. 61 Complexity of context as a critical element of professional learning. Li terature in teacher learning has conceptualized professional development as a complex system where various dynamics of social behavior a re at work resulting in multiple consequences for apparently simple decisions that are being made (Clarke & Collins, 2007; Collins & Clarke, 2008; Curtis & Stollar, 2002; Davis & Sumara, 2006; Hoban, 2002; Marion, 1999; Weaver, 1948 ). An important characte ristic of the complexity of teacher learning is that it evolves as a nested system involvin g systems within systems ( Stollar, Poth, Curtis, & Cohen, 2006). Teacher learning tends to be constituted simultaneously in the activity of autonomous entities (teac hers), collectives (such as grade level and subject groups), and subsystems within grander unities (schools within school systems within sociopolitical educational contexts) (Davis & Sumara, 2006). These systems and subsystems associated with teacher learn ing are interdependent and reciprocally influential. Hence, it is important to consider the influence of local knowledge, problems, routines, and aspirations that shape and are shaped by individual practices and beliefs in order to explain teach er professi onal learning (Opfer & Pedder, 2011). Since all nested levels of complex systems are learning systems, where the system adopts new information and processes and in so doing transforms itself as it experiences the world (Davis & Sumara, 2005, p. 312). As S tollar et al. (2006, p. 183) argue, the complexity of schools and other educational agencies emerges through the reciprocal influences within and between systems so that learning and change in any particular part of the system can result in change in other parts (Curtis & Stollar, 2002). In this way, teacher learning is viewed as intimately connected to 62 learning at other levels of the system. For instance, studies have indicated that the coherence of the learning activity incorporated in professional develo pment with teachers engage in result in effective teacher learning (Birman, Desimone, Porter, & Garet, 2000; Desimone, Porter, Garet, Yoon, & Birman, 2002; Garet, Porter, Desi mone, Birman, & Yoon, 2001; Wayne, Yoon, Zhu, Cronen, & Garet, 2008). Teachers learn most effectively when activities require them to engage with materials of practice (Borko & Putnam, 1997; Greeno, 1991; Hawley & Valli, 1998; Putnam & Borko, 2000), when a ctivity is school based and integrated into the daily work of teachers (Greeno, 1994; Hawley & Valli, 1999; Leinhardt, 1988; Wideen, Mayer - Smith, & Moon, 1998), and when the pedagogy of professional development is active and requires teachers to learn in w ays that reflect how they should teach pupils (Borko & Putnam, 1997; Darling - Hammond & McLaughlin, 1999). Although a substantial literature exists about the ability of specific features of professional development to improve teacher practice and student le arning, some researchers have begun to question this as causal knowledge. A recent review of this research by Lawless and Pellegrino (2007) concluded that although professional development opportunities have increased for teachers, our understanding of the features and content of quality professional development has not increased proportionately. The work of D. Clarke and Hollingsworth (2002), D. J. Clarke and Peter (1993), and D. J. Clarke (1988) illustrates the cyclic nature of the learning and change pro cess. For teacher learning or growth to occur, change must occur in multiple areas of influence (D. Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002). Learning in one 63 system must affect and be enacted and supported in another system. As a result, requires multiple and cyclic movements between the & Pedder , 2011). Thus Opfer & Pedder (2011) conclude that in order to explain and predict effective teacher learning and teacher pedagogical change, we must first expand our assumptions about the features of professional development by recognizing that features may collectively work together in different ways under different circumstances in different contexts. Second, we must recognize the important role of v ariation in intensity of the features. Then, we must expand our assumptions beyond the features of the learning process or activity to consider the reciprocal relationships that exist between the system of activities in which teachers engage and the system s of influences that mediate and moderate these activities, teacher professional learning and their perceptions about the professional development as a learning process, the r eciprocal relationships among the various institutional elements at play is of crucial importance. In this case, the prior belief and experiences of practitioners, the institutional mission and goals, existing perceptions about the nature and effectiveness of bilingual education, district and s tate policies all culminate in distinct experiences when seen through a - cultural lens. Coherence and alignment in program planning a critical factor in PD design and experience. In my study, the principles of alignment and coherence ( Finley, 2000; Newmann et al., 2001) associated with professional development are 64 used as a basis for understanding the process involved in the design, implementation and experiences related to professional develop ment. Existing research identify alignment of program elements as key to developing an effective professional support system (Corallo & McDonald, 2002; Elmore, 2000). Research also indicates that when curriculum, instructional materials, and assessments ar e focused on the same goals, that is, when the policy systems framing education are coherent, prospects of educational improvement are enhanced ( Koppich and Knapp, 1998 ). Systemic reform is a policy approach to school improvement that emphasizes high stan dards, aligned assessments, an accountability system, and site - based management ( Fuhrman, 1993 ). This approach recognizes the importance of complex ideas such as constructivism and teaching for understanding; but, as Knapp (1997 ) claimed, there has been re latively little investment in building and sustaining support systems for long - term teacher learning. Finley (2000) argues the collaboration, instruction, agency, and authori ty in promoting instructional coherence and improved student learning. She recognizes the need for state level policy work to stimulate local educators toward attaining clearly defined and desirable goals, and identifies the lack of attention to profession al development as a barrier in implementing changes in practice advocated by the major reform documents. This is because, Finley notes, despite the focus of the changing policies on new curricular materials and the demand on teachers to possess a new set o f knowledge, skills and beliefs needed to understand the policy or program, reform 65 initiatives have often ignored preparation of classroom teachers. The role of teachers as a key connection between policy and practice calls for opportunities to learn what the policies imply for instruction. Such opportunities may be facilitated when concrete classroom learning and experiences are used to ground the conversation about practice; when inquiry and reflection are components of the learning; when people from diff erent parts of the system communicate clearly with each other; and when the entire process is seen as a learning continuum. This results in a broader view of professional development as teacher learning. Newmann s (2001) frame work of instructional program coherence helps conceptualize how alignment may be attained at the school level. The framework identifies three major school conditions: (1) a common instructional framework guiding the curriculum, teaching, assessment, and le arning climate that combines specific expectations for student learning, with specific strategies and materials t o guide teaching and assessment; (2) staff working conditions that support implementation of the framework; and (3) allocation of resources such as funding, materials, time, and staff assignments to advance the school's common instructional framework and avoiding diffuse, scattered improvement efforts in order to promote stability of curriculum and student assessments, on one hand, a assignments on the other. Prior research has documented the importance of organizational factors, such as unity of purpose, a clear focus, and shared values for student learning (Bryk, Lee, & Holland, 1993; Coleman, H offer, & Kilgore, 1982; Hill & Celio, 1998; 66 Sergiovanni, 1994) in attaining program alignment for school improvement . S tudies on the broader educational system tend to discuss coherence with respect to alignment of a school's instructional program w ith ext ernal poli cies and standards (Consortium for Policy Re - search in Education, 2000; Furhman, 1993; Smith & O'Day, 1991). Such studi es point out how cluttered a nd c ontradictory st ate a nd d istrict policy en vironments can fragment school development efforts (Co hen, 1995; O'Day, Goertz, & Floden, 1995). The literature on program coherence and alignment of program elements in institutional reform informs the present case study. A focus on alignment and nstructional support fraework in relation to the school and district goals, curriculum, instruction, assessments, and teaching - (2001) proposed concept of program coherence , I try to understand the gen eral agreement or interrelationship among the three broadly identified aspects of n instructional framework input, design and implementation adopted at the district as well as the school levels represented in the following elements : - School mission and pr - needs for teaching in dual language program s - Extent of incorporating inputs in designing and implementing professional development programs; 67 Researcher Position an d Credibility Since naturalistic inquiry in research investigates feelings and perceptions of individuals in respect to their real life experiences, it requires the demonstration of the credibility of both the researcher and the methods employed. Hence, it befits the researcher to engage in persistent observation, triangulation of data, dependability and trust between participants and researcher, ensure authenticity and fairness in the research process, and the closeness with which the findings represent th e experiences of the participants (Ely, et al., 1991). According to Lincoln and Guba (1985), prolonged engagement in the field helps establish credibility in that it allows the researcher to understand the phenomena being observed over time within the con text in which it is embedded. The design of this study allowed me adequate amount of time (four observations of coaching sessions; 1 - 2 interview sessions with each participant at the school; 2 - 3 school visits to observe classes while instruction was going on) to be spent in the school across the 2013 - 2014 school year and even during part of the 2014 - 2015 year, to collect the required data for answering the research questions and to allow possible distortions in the data to be accounted for (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Prolonged engagement resulted in increased familiarity of the researcher participants behaving according to their perceptions of the study or of what the resea rcher is interested in. Lincoln & Guba (1985) note that trust building is a developmental process that must be engaged in daily. P articipants were ensured that their identities, along with that of the institution and the district, would not be 68 revealed whe n the findings are published or in the ways conversations with them are documented. They were also ensured that their confidences would not be used them would be held in th e strictest of confidence. Persistent observation focusing in detail on the characteristics and elements in the situation that are most relevant to the problem or issue being studied is another means of establishing credibility. If the purpose of prolong ed engagement is to render the inquirer open to the multiple influences - the mutual shapers and contextual factors - that impinge upon the phenomenon being studied, the purpose of persistent observation is to identify those characteristics and elements in the situation that are most relevant to the problem or issue being pursued and focusing on them in detail. (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 304). The technique of persistent observation ensures depth of experience and breadth of understanding, which can be acqu ired only through prolonged engagement with participants and the field of study. Exploration of the details of the phenomena under investigation enables the researcher to separate the significant from the irrelevant, so that the focus is on the more releva nt aspects ultimately leading to increased credibility of the findings. Additionally, in order to allow for subtle and nuanced analysis of data that can ultimately strengthen a theory, the researcher needs to be welcoming about contradictions in the data t hat can give rise to unexpected findings. This is known as - examination of essary to demonstrate the thoroughness of the analytic 69 process. Qualitative researchers actively look for negative cases to support their arguments. In this case study, negative case analysis inconsistencies and possible contradictions were taken into acco unt in the refinement of the emerging categories increase the trustworthiness of both the find ings of the study as well as the research process itself. Also, in order to verify my findings, I engaged in triangulating the data by referring to multiple sources. For instance, to verify a claim made by a participant that seemed crucial to understand th e relevance or lack of relevance of the professional support teachers received, I used cross - references on the same issue from multiple interviewees engaged in developing the instructional support framework in various capacities. Additionally, I also refer red to professional development workshop documents and institutional policy documents that could shed light on the issue. Finally, the process of peer debriefing was also used during the course of gathering and analyzing my data. I wrote reflective memos following the interviews to identify possible gaps in my questions and the information derived from them, and identify my possible biases as a second language speaker of English. 70 CHAPTER THREE Goals and Curriculum: Looking at the Program in the Conte xt of the D istrict This is the first of the four chapters where I examine the data from the interviews and documents related to the dual language bilingual program at Spring Valley Dove Lane (SVDL) Elementary school. This chapter documents my understanding instructional approaches since the ince ption of the program. M ission, V ision and G oals This section focuses on the process that led to the adoption of the program existing organizational documents to understand how the as the institution went through years of change and experimentation. It is important to note the significance of individual experiences in the process of organization building and organizational change. Perceptions and l ife e xperiences h ow the originators saw them. W long - design is driven by a deliberately intended purpose to achieve specific effects in i s students ; and its mission , as stated, is to pr epare them as global thinkers and 71 citizens. biliteracy and global citizenship as the ultimate long - term outcome for its program. During interviews, the school administrators, coach es and teachers described their But the perceptions of each participant differed in their emphases on certain aspects of bilingual education around biliteracy, multicultura lism, and global citizenship. As in the form of a strand vi concept at Spring Valley Elementary School (SVES) before it merged with Dove Lane (DLES) to form Spring Valley D ove Lane (SVDL) Elementary in the 2008 - 2009. According to the literacy instructional coach and the Assistant Principal at glish language learners into dual previously the Principal at SVES) had launched the strand bilingual program as an innovative initiative at her old school. She strongly believ ed that every student, opportunity to have access to the advantages of bilingual education as key to building their social capital. She argues that sense of self - este my cultu re is being taken into 72 She maintained that as a first generati on immigrant to the United States, she the lives of other immigrants. Such personal experiences prompted her to perceive bilingual education as an instrument to attain c ultural sensitivity, self - esteem and academic success to which every student should have equal access. The merging of the two schools brought together two distinctly different communities. The dual language strand program brought in from Spring Valley Ele - only program . This resulted in a diverse student population with different linguistic needs and cultural Hispanic student population started learning alongside D - Hispanic, African - American, English - only population. Desp ite the differences of the two populations, the administrators Principal, Dr. Moreno & Assistant Principal, Ms. Garcia) among these learners. As Ms. Ga rcia claim s, there were issues of equity program , she claims, grew from Dr. Moreno providi ng - bilingual. But at the same time, we also really feel that our program is the best model to serve kids w exposure to English. Most of the other dual language schools in the district have been conceived as coach. She also notes t hat over time growing parental and community interests in 73 the district towards bilingual education have shifted the notion of deficiency (weakness) associated with bilingual education to an additive (strength) stance, where bilingual education is viewed as a way of attaining academic and future social and economic success. Many immigrant families are now showing interest in developing and/or maintaining heritage language, while English - dominant families perceive the benefits of multilingual education and la nguage exposure, beginning at affluent areas of the district in this study opted for bilingual programs to serve their ove Lane it has been a matter of educational equity growing out of the vision of the school leadership. the Spanish language learners, who are mostly native English speakers, and the English language learners, who are native to emphasize that bilingual schooling should be available to the linguistically dominant (i n this context, native English speakers) social groups as well. The language (L1) while they l earn a second language (L2). This is an integrated model where two language groups study the curriculum through two languages which helps expand their cross - cultural ways of thinking. It enriches both majority and d to result in high academic achievement of all students (Thomas & Collier, 2012). It is assumed that the enrichment aspect 74 would remove the deficiency element associated with remedial, compensatory models of bilingual schooling where second language learn ing is interchangeably beliefs reflect the importance of establishing high expectations for all students performances. This philosophy permeates the observations of Dr. Moreno as well as Ms. Garcia, potential for success upon equal access to bilingual education. This belief is also Garcia emphasized the need for teachers to make a deliberate effort to hold high expectations not only of the English language learners in the school, but also of the Spanish language learners. How the implementers saw the mission, vision, and goals. the curricular material, shaping and interpreting the central ideas and framing their instructional approa ches for students ( Ball and Cohen, 1996 ). The interviews with the two sets of Spanish and English teachers at Spring Valley Dove Lane reveal how they approach the concept of bilingual education, based on their personal and professional experiences. This se ts the stage for understanding their instructional strategies and challenges within the dual language set up of the school. 75 While the administrators at Spring Valley Dove Lane highlighted the equity n approach, some of the teachers emphasized the global aspect of acquiring bilingual skills . For instance, the third grade Spanish teacher Santiago Romero notes, By the time students reach f ifth grade and then leaving the school, the vision is that they a re bilingual global citizens. That means, they can manage both languages Spanish and English and they also have the social tenets to be great citizens taking responsibilities for their action, caring for other s only helping them develop academically , but also socially. This perspective highlights the sociological aspects associated with bilingualism an appreciation and respect for cultural differences and global understanding that enables a child to view the global community as part of his/her greater social existence. Existing research shows the advantages of bilingualism in promoting open - mindedness, tolerance, and wider cultural horizon among bilinguals (Fishman, 1976; Sorban, 2011). Mr. Romero is a native speaker of Spanish but was born and raised i n the United States and attended an early transition program with a large Hispanic population. His English fluency is native - like. Besides he has travelled internationally and sees the value in developing the ability to communicate in more than one languag e. The fifth grade English teacher, Edwin Wilson, who is a native English speaker, underscores the value of developing an open mind and becoming tolerant and accepting of other cultures, beliefs and ideologies as a benefit and goal of bilingual education. to educate children with a bilingual curriculum and to instill in students 76 udents more aware not only of their community but then also of the wider world. Mr. Wilson attributed his belief about the value of bilingual education and his drive to work in a dual language program to his personal experiences. After college he worked as an ESL teacher for adults in Argentina and thereafter, at an after - school program for students and youth in a predominantly Hispanic immigrant community in the U.S. His experiences developed in him the urgency for greater involvement with families and stu dents whose daily struggles prevented them from having a positive work and educational experiences. As part of an increasingly culturally and aware not only of their community but e comes from a Spanish - the community level and among students in the school. She claims that the African - American student population who forms the majority of the Spanish language learners is so metimes resistant against the Hispanic immigrant students or the teaching two language s, but also in developing among all students a sense of cultural 77 tolerance and respect for diversity. She claims that not everybody in the school think the school is trying constructive (Green and Collier, 2002) lens, learning as socially shared cognition that is co - constructed within a community, cannot occur within such a culture - resistant environment. It indicates the nee d for effective intervention or management of social behaviors involved in learning and teaching within a complex dual language environment. partner teacher in the third grade English c lassroom during the 2013 - 2014 school year, has a background that is quite different from the others. She came from a background in philanthropy and international education and development. A sudden interest that she developed towards teaching prompted her to pursue an expedited certification in Elementary education. For her, collaboration is the big takeaway from a bilingual environment and she claims that collaborative approach inherent in the instructional model of Spring Valley Dove Lane interested her i n feels that the importance of collaboration a foundational aspect of bilingual learning and instruction has never been clearly communicated by the administration. Here, it is important to note how ideas about bilingualism and bilingual 78 their values and beliefs ove r time. The complexity of the cumulative experiences of each of the professionals interviewed may be associated with the identified mission, vision and goals in one way or another. A 2014 grant document that the Assistant Principal, Ms. Garcia shared state as continuous refinement In the same document, - (p.15). ment may be seen as a complex process that reflects the agency of individuals associated with it. The following section extends the discussion on program building by focusing on the ways institutional policies and goals often affect decisions regarding cur riculum development and instructional approaches. C oncretizing the Mission and V ision Through C urriculum /Program D evelopment: Influences of the Greater C ontext needs and/or demands and the ideologies of its leadership, every school is situated within the greater contexts of its district, state and national education policies and trends. Research shows that the complex levels of a learning system like that of a school and/or other ed ucational agencies emerge through reciprocal influences within and between systems, whereby learning and change in one part of the system may result in change in other parts as well (Curtis & Stollar, 2002). This may be 79 claimed as true in the case of Sprin g Valley Done Lane as well. Despite its program mi ssion and vision vii ( Bilingual program provider, Olivia anguage Learning or OLL ) , within which the school operate d at the time of the study (2013 - 2014), seems to have affected the . below. At that time of the study the district did not have a clearly established policy towards bilingual education (although there have been some notable changes in the area of bilingual education policies during the months following my interview with dis trict personnel). Most specialized services offered to English/ second language learners in the district schools emphasized English language proficiency and were occasional gui Evaluator noted during his interview that school leaders adopting bilingual programs for their in stitutions also responding to their student population. Hence, each school had established different models of bilingual programs in order to suit their respective mission and vis ion. That, to some extent, influenced selection of curricular, instructional and professional development models. In the 80 following section I use the case of SVDL to examine how the curriculum development. Influence of on the school goals. Spring cus when it comes to instructional and professional development goals. As Alyson Garcia, the Assistant Principal notes, - wise, on choices were Small Group Literacy Instruction, Close Reading, and Phonics & Morphology. The district implemented a 120 - minute literacy block instruction approach during the 2013 - (K - 5) ( district website). This block of time is intended to provide a common way to helping students transition between grade levels and schools. A typical literacy block would consist of a 20 - minute instruction module on phonics and morphology viii ; a 60 minutes module of independent and guided reading, and literacy workstation; and a 40 - minute module of writing practice followed by sharing and reflection. Every school in the district that has English language learners we re recommended to adopt one of the three approaches to literacy instruction Phonics and Morphology (P&M) , Small Group Instruction or Close Reading approach. Among the schools that opted for the Phonics and Morphology (P&M) approach to literacy instruction, Spring Valley Dove Lane wa s the on ly dual language program, while the others are primarily ESL programs . 81 reorganized at that time. K - 2 Phonics and Morphology Pre - service Professional Developme nt guidelines, the expectations for P&M focus schools have been to: - Establish a tiered phonic intervention system o Whole Group: Fundations (K - 3); Words Their Way/ Building Vocabulary From Word Roots (3 - 5) o Small Group: Double Dose/ Burst (K - 3); Just Words ( 4 - 5) o One - on - One: Wilson Reading System (K - 5) - Teach at least 4 - 6 tier two - vocabulary words each week that are connected to the unit theme and/or complex text being used during literacy instruction - Create meaningful and engaging workstations. P &M schools wil l implement independent reading, fluency, and word work stations As part of its literacy instruction cur riculum, the district recommended school s to use Wilson Fundations as one of the language training courses and reading intervention programs to support struggling readers and English language learners . This course is offered by the Wilson Language Training Corp ix as a phonics and spelling supplement or word study block to teach the foundational skills of the Common Core Standards. The district recommends t his program to schools for developing a consistent word study practice to facilitate vocabulary development among struggling readers (district website). 82 Due to the variation in the language proficiency objectives English - only versus biliteracy in English and Spanish these schools, including Spring Valley Dove Lane , identified different approaches to literacy instruction for themselves . As the Assistant Principal, Ms. Garcia observes, most of the schools in the district opting for the P honics and Morphology well - established English Phonics - Morphology programs, so they are all learning Spring Valley Dove Lane recommendations on literacy instruction in a different way, considering its own progra m goals. It adopt ed the Phonics and Morphology focus with the intent to establish a school - wide word study program. grade s and then we on we need something more uniform for the upper grade e felt really good about this sequence that we have for word study , but for Spanish it was cont e ots of different bit of a strategic move, I think, on my part . (Assistant Principal, Alyson Garcia) The to create a similar word - study program in Spanish for its grade levels K - 5 based on the English model of Fundations . T he relevance of Fundations as an umbrella approach for second language instruction is perceived critically by many of the interviewees at Spring Valley Dove Lane . Several school and district personnel viewed the vocabulary development as directed towards improv ing English proficiency, stated mission, vision and goals identified the urgency for developing bilingual skills that would involve vocabulary development in both 83 English and Spanish . For instance, Ms. Sanchez, the fifth grade Spanish teacher perceived Fundations to be more appropriate for the younger grades . She also noted that starting at the third grade level , teachers at her school do not use Fundations; instead they follow the Reader instruction . Two of the teachers interviewed at Spring Valley Dove Lane consi der that the selection of the literacy (RWW) and mathematics instruction curriculum (Singapore Mathematics) are based on the perceived learning needs of the students. Santiago Romero, the third grade Spanish classroom teacher noted that the Reader Wr has an in - built differentiation ap proach to literacy instruction; and according to Edwin Wilson, the fifth grade English teacher, t he Sing apore Math basic math ematical facts through a deep co nceptual understanding . This was attained through an instructional approach that moved from the concrete manipulative stage to the pictorial representation stage to the abstract concrete level (Edwin Wilson & Singapore Math curriculum website) . The 2014 g adopted as a key measure to narrow the gap/ disparity in reading and math achievements between Black Non - Hispanic and Hispanic students on the 2010 - 2011 district assessments . The curriculum plan seemed to serve as an instrument that would help the school strike a balance between its bilingual education goals and the own curriculum, based on the district framework, th e school on one hand remained 84 committed to its mission; however the ultimate program goal was directed to attain the district learning standards. The grant document specifies the various factors that influence the g - learning goals. It identifies the use of data from multiple sources like district and internal student assessments and teacher surveys; input from consulting professional developers; and district requirements. - Hispanic students scored proficient or advanced in math . That year, 54% of the Hispanic students scored proficient or advanced indicating a 31% performance gap between the two populations. The school analyzed the gap s in developed its strategic planning for 2011 - 2012 . The plan proposed the introduc tion of an interim assessment , ANet . The purpose of the interim assessment would be to generate da ta for developing a sound action plan for the years to come. The strategic plan also laid out the new annual goals, which envisioned the curriculum and the adoption of an instructional model that involves c ollaborative unit plannin g and intervention groupings. professional development efforts have undergone major changes. The data between 2011 and 2013 indicated major gains in both literacy and mathematics. Th e 2014 x its curricula in both math and literacy, and to introduce improved intervention programs to bring abo ut 85 growth in student achievement rates. The document indicates that the rate of Black Non - Hispanic students (mostly SLLs) scoring at the proficient or advanced levels in math grew from 23% in 2011, to 35% in 2012, and 52% in 2013. In 2013, 40% of 28% in 2011 and 2012 respectively. Despite this significant overall growth rate, the school administration recognized that the reading scores remained below the district average and pe - 2014 the school adopted the following school - wide goals: (1) of building deep understanding of the grade - level content and by that speci fically we mean the Common Core Standards, and then (2) using data to drive instruction and (3) establishing a system of social skills o an increased rigor in grade - level content knowledge as specified by the CCSS. The following section discusses in and instructional models. Influence of district - adopted stan dards on curriculum and instruction. At Spring Valley Dove Lane, the initial approach to facilitate professional learning instructional strategies. However, due to continuing gaps in st udent learning identified in the 2010 - the Common Core State Standards in 2011, the school introduced significant changes in its approaches to curriculum, instructional and teacher professional 86 development . Thus the systemic reform policies at the district level prompted the school to train the teachers on the new knowledge and skills sets that the standards expected students to acquire. of the curriculum by taking the teachers as a team through a process of analyzing (Assistant Principal, Ms. Garcia). All four teachers interviewed at the third and fifth grade levels consistently em phasized on English and Spanish classrooms. Mr. Romero, the third grade Spanish teacher referred to assessments ( The Partnership for the Assessme nt of Rea diness for College and Careers or PARCC xi ) used to evaluate recognized the need to ensure his s meet the rigor of the which in turn resulted in the modificat ion of the literacy and mathematics curricula. As the Assistant Principal observes, our kids and the needs of our we really have to use what we know about our students, what we know about our end goal just to reach the standard and then we use the strategies through the Singapore Math and the Workshop. Perceiving the ina dequacy of the existing math and literacy curriculum frameworks adopted the following curricular changes : 87 - A Balanced Literacy Approach aligned with the P honics and Morphology focus in literacy development - The Singapore Math curriculum complemented with Engage N ew Y ork to ensure alignment with the Common Core State Standards - Increased focus on high quality science and social studies texts to support math and reading to prepare students [Grant Application, SVDL, 2014] In order to align with the Common Core State Standards, the school revisited s to identify reading skills connected to the grade level standards and then crafted teaching points for instruction. As the 2014 grant document indicates, this approach helped the school select and use the texts at the appropriate level of complexity, and to identify and close gaps in the existing literacy curriculum units. The process involved vertical articulation of the standards to better understand the progression of the standards across grade levels. The newly adopted approach in literacy instructio n also emphasized on been to establish connections between the reading and writing skills, wh ich the coach believes, are narratives or writing narratives. But we have to be more intentional in asking, how do we use one to support the other. 88 n of the reading and writing skills required clear multiple data sources and systematic planning and execution of lessons and units. In addition to understanding the sta also called for deeper understanding of the content knowledge by all students in both the languages English and Spanish. This added an additional layer of program planning that required the ability among teachers to provide differentiated instruction related to content acquisition needs, on one hand, and language acquisition needs, on the other. Consequently, Spring Valley Dove Lane adopted an a lternative literacy instruction model to supplement Fundations, which was the Ms. Garcia notes, , to balance a program mission around b iliteracy and to improve student achievement in district assessments, the school pilo ted its own word study program, Dictado xii , during the 2013 - 2014 school year Fundations , exce pt that we have it going o n in two Alyson Garcia ). Besides serving the mission of biliteracy, Dictado was also introduced as an approach to attain the vertical articulation of the Common Core Standards in literacy across grade levels. The objective was to enable teacher s to understand the progression of the priority standards and associated language skills at each grade level and those intersecting various g rade levels. As a measure to attain the objective, the school administration assigned the literacy coach, Sonia Dia z, with the 89 responsibility to develop Dictado and train the teachers on its strategies. This initiative entail ed piloting Dictado instruction in both English and Spanish and extending it across all grade levels (first through fifth). In the words of Sonia, the literacy coach, K like you do Dictado one week in one language and one week in the ot her language then really start. adoption of a biliteracy program, Literacy Squared xiii a framework designed by Escamilla to accelerate the development of biliteracy through literacy instruc tion conducted in both Spanish and English. The framework suggested the need to improve the quality of instruction through direct and explicit attention to cross - linguistic connections; purposeful and intentional planning to create trajectories towards bil iteracy; use of authentic instructional approaches in Spanish and English that respect and focus on the internal structures of each language; and use of collaborative instructional approaches. Dictado is one of the unique strategies Literacy Squared has cr eated to accelerate biliteracy development. Sonia Diaz has been supporting the teacher learning process in the adoption of these literacy instruction strategies. While Dictado has been widely accepted by the school administrators and some teachers at Spri ng Valley Done Lane, the fifth grade Spanish teacher Sylvia Sanchez expressed her concerns about its adoption across all grades as the Spanish word - study instructional approach . Sanchez considers Dictado better suited for 90 Spanish language instruction at th e second and third grade levels when learners are trying to grasp the basic language skills a nd grammar . She does not agree about the relevance of adopting Dictado for her fifth grade advanced Spanish learners who need to develop more complex language skil ls for a deeper understanding of the context . She thinks Interestingly, other school personnel that I interviewed, including Sonia Diaz, the literacy coach, who has a background in dual language education, do not share perceive the difficulty of adopting Dictado across grade levels, when Kathy ogram (see Chapter 4) expressly recommends the use of Asi se Dice for intermediate grades. This gives rise to questions about the of literacy skills across all grade levels , which is one of the core expectations of the Common Core standards. support in establishing a robust Spanish curriculum that is at par with the district recommended curriculu m in English. Adopting Dictado for the lower grades and Asi bilingualism and biliteracy would demand additional support. Here, the question to ask would be: Does the school have t he ability to sustain multiple bilingual instructional programs such as Dictado and Asi - se - Dice for developmentally 91 proficiency among all students, does the district support goal s of dual language proficiency development in programs like that of Spring Valley Dove Lane to address the new standards and attain the learning goals set for improving student achievement? If so, how? als o undergone significant revisions in order to align with the Common Core math standards . Despite the using the Singapore Math curriculum , d in Assistant Principal, Ms. Garcia, noted how the school had initiated a revision of the curriculum, against the singular use of Singapore Math. Although t he older curric ulum is still used to train teachers on math instructional strategies , the new learning needs and goals of the students prompted the administration to combine it with the instructional principles of Engage N curriculum . Ms . Garcia argues that because tot ally aligned to the Common Core the administration had to adopt the curricular changes mentioned above . Garcia explained that Singapore Math mostly consisted of studying the curriculum boo ks and looking at the sequence of the mathematical problems; whereas, the new approach prompts teachers to consider scaffolding strategies that would help students apply their knowledge in multiple scenarios: the problem and then breaking it down Thus, with the new district standards, the school had to meet student achievement goals using a new set of guidelines, and a 92 new curricular and instructional framework. This in turn affected the teacher support system to reorganize the process o f instructional planning. T he school developed the Data Cycle Meeting Outcomes Chart provided below as an attempt to new program plan aimed at attaining a school - wide goal of training teachers on the vertical alignment of standards across grade levels so that students may be prepared on the relevant skills. 93 Table 2 : Data Cycle Meeting Outcomes Chart (SVDL), 2013 - 2014 94 The chart provides guidelines on how the instructional coaches at Spring Valley Dove Lane would support teachers in understanding Common Core standards by breaking down the elements of the PARCC assessment system. During the cycle meetings teachers use the standards to understand the text contents in respect to the learning goals, apply that understanding to develop unit plans, and apply multiple sources of student performance data to realign their lessons with the priority standards during follow - up instruction. The data cycle chart is e vidence of the influence of the greater district and changes in teacher professional learning to improve instructional effectiveness and student achievement. Emergence of a N ew Instructional M odel Bilingual Instruction to Meet New Standards Dual language p rograms often have to go through a trial and error process to identify the best way to plan timing for alternating instruction in two languages. With new district - recommen ded curriculum in literacy instruction and the need to align to new district standards and accountability measures, schools are now opting for structured programs such as the alternating day , half day , or the roller coaster model xiv (Chen and Mora - Flores, 20 06). first with the Roller Coaster , then with the Every - other - day dual language instructional model demonstrates such a trend. Under r oller c oaster arrangement, Spanish and English classroom teachers engaged in in dependent planning of their lessons and units. For instance, i f a 95 Spanish classroom teacher at a particular grade level planned one content area in Spanish, his or her counterpart in the English classroom would plan another content area in English. That is , if the English teacher plan ned a two - hour literacy block in reading, the Spanish teacher would plan and instruct on writing and mathematics. As a result, students would not receive instruction i n the content area simul taneously in both the languages as t eachers taught different content areas in English for half the day, and in Spanish during the other half. Due to the absence of a need for teacher to collaborate, it was often perceived as a convenient process by teachers, administrators and coaches in dev eloping lessons, implementing lessons, and providing support with lesson and unit planning. However, as the Ms. Garcia noted, the arrangement did not have the desired impact on student learning. Due to lack of opportunities to plan collaboratively, teacher s were often unable to identify overall understanding in various content areas, which in turn, negatively influenced their achievement rates on the district examinations. The instructional shift to the every - other - day model was introduced in 2013 subject areas. Und er this new model , the English and Spanish partner teachers would plan collaboratively and provide instructi on on the same content simultaneously in two languages . This approach represented a shift from a teacher - centric to a student - centric model of instr uction. According to Freda Vasquez, t he consultant, the every - other - day approach to balanced literacy 96 heterogeneous student population because e center of education and it lends itself in differentiating the instruction for all children. So, children read at a reading level in whatever language they are reading; children write and s a writer. And because balanced literacy is flexible to differentiate instruction, it was a good model for (SVDL) being a heterogeneously grouped dual language school. According to , Ms. Garcia, this instructional model was adopted to address the unique ch allenge of incorporating two languages into the daily learning practices and access to content area instruction simultaneously in both languages. Conceptual knowledge gai conceptual connections through the use of explicit bridging activities, and through the collaboration and alignment of Spanish and English teachers specifically addr essing the shortcomings of t he roller c oaster model. The math instructional coach identified this model to be particularly valuable for math instruction because of opportunities for teachers to collaborate. She observes that the collaborative aspect can help teachers who often feel that they lack support from colleagues and the administration in making good instructional decisions in Spanish. For many math teachers who did not feel as confident in math, spending six weeks on a certain math content where kids were not real ly The literacy coach perceived that the new approach would facilitate opportunities for the Spanish and English partner teachers to plan a unit together, 97 go through the details of the daily lesson plans , brainstorm strategies and share student learning issues on a regular basis. She hopes that the continuation of the done previously to what t instructional element of the Every - other - day approach. The concept of bridging is built on the theoretical underpinning of bilingual education representing the ability of students to transfer knowledge and skills between languages (Beeman & Urow, 2013). Such cross - linguistic transfer is difficult to attain when instruction in English and Spanish occur independently of each other and in the absence of appropriate collaboration among language partner teachers to carry out instructional planning and executio n. Whereas, strategic use of the two languages through planned literacy instruction in Spanish and English, every day, facilitates bridging (ibid) not only in reading and writing but also in other content areas. The coaches provide a sound example of bridg ing concepts across languages. For instance, in math and science, students need to work around the technical terminologies and vocabulary associated with learning scientific and mathematical concepts. It is crucial that students are able to link their voca bulary acquired during literacy instruction in both languages with those specialized terms. This indicates that teachers have to collaborate on intentional vocabulary development related to content, even when they are planning for literacy lessons, using b ridging techniques. 98 Another crucial aspect of successful instruction under the new model is key to make the collaborative planning process successful. Teachers shoul d be able information may be incorporated while planning for the successive lessons on a unit with their partner teachers. As the new data cycle meeting plan shows, diagnosis o f student learning and gaps therein, are major aspects of successful instructional planning and implementation in attaining the rigorous goals set by the new Standards. As the external professional developer of literacy notes, teachers need to be able to d appropriate teaching strategies. Teachers are expected to look at a piece of student work as part of various formal and informal assessments, identify gaps in understanding, and predict the a ppropriate teaching modalities. The Context and Program D evelopment The examination of data in this chapter begins by illustrating the influence of individual perceptions and life experiences on the ways in which institutional missions get defined and int erpreted. This reveals the aspect of teacher perception with the surrounding community. - planning process serve as a neg otiating platform, where the institutional mission and vision get molded as the school functions within a greater, more complex learning system. Such modification - inducing interactions may be identified as a social negotiation (Woo & 99 Reeves, 2007) process, where systemic reform policies are directed at school improvement through alignment of assessments and site - based management to high standards (Fuhrman, 1993). changed over time as a result of an effort to align with the changing policies and requirements of the greater context of the district. The ultimate goal of the district has been continuous improvement of student learning and academic excellence; however, its approach to d efining and measuring the successful attainment of those goals have changed in keeping with the national trends in educational assessment and accountability. These changes have had a ripple effect on both the content and processes of student learning, on s regarding instructional approaches. The visible effects of these changes at the district level are reflected in their transformed policies and standards; and at the school level, these changes are evident in curr icular and instructional approaches and student assessment patterns. In the case of Spring Valley Dove Lane, although rict standards required a negotiation process and balancing act at the school level. To get an in depth understanding of the success/ effectiveness of the new perceptions of the p rogram goals, their instructional practices and the needs and challenges associated with the newly adopted approaches. In t he following chapter I will examine the pedagogical practices of four classroom teachers at Spring Valley 100 Dove Lane adopted in respec t to the program goals. The chapter will also provide insight into the challenges these teachers face while planning, designing and 101 CHAPTER FOUR Instructional Strategi es, Needs and Challenges Teachers working with students learning a second language often struggle with creating equal learning opportunities (Kirshner - Morris, 1995) because the special needs of this population call for special pedagogical approaches. Haley (2000) suggests that teachers of culturally and linguistically diverse learners need to refocus the lens if they are to help their students be successful. Adding an Bergquist, 2002 ) to lessons can enable teachers focus on more than just the content or living skills elements required in Individual Education Plans (IEP) targeted at learning objectives by adding the intentional language component helps second language learners acquire multiple learning standards related to both content and language proficiencies. In this chapter I examine the instructional approaches of four teacher s at bilingual mission and attain the district - mandated goals, while functioning within set frameworks . The analyses of the perceptions abou t instructional strategies, needs and challenges generate findings and raise questions that contribute to a critical understanding of the issues related to capacity for programs and teachers. 102 Responses to School and D is t rict Goals In this section I analyze the perceptions and everyday classroom teaching experiences of four teachers I interviewed two pairs of partner teachers in English co mments on their individual as well as collaborative instructional approaches in strategies teachers sta ndards. (every - other - cu rricular and instructional policies. In most cases, the teachers recognized the as directed towards attaining the Common Core Standards. Their conversations helped uncover and execute lessons and units according to grade - specific priority standards to address student - learning needs identified from assessment data. trategies in literacy instruction . A crucial element of second language learning is vocabulary instruction. This is often facilitated through targeted instruction in specific content areas like mathematics, science and literacy. Teachers and administrators at Spring Valley Dove Lane recog nized the importance of vocabulary development among students using complex texts in various content areas to help students develop the standards - specified skills in reading and writing 103 y to facilitate al., 2002) to lesson objectives in the various content areas. Intentional language s in order to determine appropriate language development objectives that complement and Spanish teacher observes, can tle bit more of Spanish. Ms. Sanchez explains how she approaches science instruction in Spanish using cognates to explain concepts to both English language learners and Spanish language learners in her class. Her goal is to help students develop the scient ific vocabulary needed to comprehend and communicate a particular scientific you need is a very precise vocabulary and those higher level words to transfer c oncepts and language skills from English to Spanish and vice versa. Content acquisition as a result of intentional language instruction requires specific scaffolding and differentiating instructional techniques (TESOL Standards, 1997), which would vary acc language proficiency. According to Santiago Romero, the third grade Spanish teacher, the scaffolding strategies would differ from one student to another based ual language environment: 104 going to need different scaffolds. If the content is not accessible to a student at a grade - to be part of an interventio towards attaining the standards - specified grade - level skills. Santiago thinks that teachers at his school need to use a myriad of strategies because they are trying to their varying language levels using necessary scaffolds in vocabulary instruction, For example, making sure that all your vocabulary words have an illustration to go with it so that the students can access the vocabulary and then giving them the sentence s together in pairs with students that are competent in the language that can help them understand. Besides planning for intentional language instruction while teaching content, Edwin Wilson, the fifth grade English classroom teacher emphasizes the use of together students of mixed content and linguistic abilities to promote interdependence and also encourage students to help one another with difficult words through translation or modeling He also emphasizes the importance of differentiation strategies like curriculum where: a book on their particular level that they've been tested in the beginning of the year and in the middle of the year. So during independent reading, not every student is reading the same book; the students are all reading different books and practicing pa - aloud. 105 Mr. Wilson believes that the use of these literacy instruction strategies enable students to focus on the grade - level skills they need to acquire in order to meet the district standards. For in stance, in order to help students identify the characters and the significance of their actions in a reading piece, teachers use scaffolding techniques during read - alouds, independent reading, as well as flexible groupings to feelings and actions and their effect on the plot of the story. Although the priority skills are same for all students at a particular grade level, teachers are required to use the data derived from student assessments to identify the resources or texts t hat would match the language proficiency level of each student. Hence, it is important that teachers have an understanding of the standards specified priority skills according to grade - levels, the ability to make d abilities in language and content area learning needs using student assessment data, and use that diagnosis to match consultant at Spring Valley Dove Lane confirms this when she observes that t eachers are expected to look at a piece of student work as part of various formal and informal assessments, identify gaps in understanding, and predict the appropriate teaching modalities. These are some of the ways in which the teachers I interviewed engaged in Beckett et al., 2002) to help second language learners acquire multiple learning standards content as well as language by ontent and linguistic skills. Use of these strategies indicate how the teachers strategized their 106 instruction using the curricular framework the school has adopted to meet the new Successful implementation of the Readers and Writers Workshop demands a specific skill - set among teachers in order to facilitate effective language learning among students. According to the Assistant Principal, Ms. Garcia, the bility to successfully write mini lessons, plan read - alouds, and construct independent rea ding and conferring, and facilitate guided reading . Hence, t he teacher s at Spring Valley Dove Lane are required to work with the students to address their needs in de veloping skills like phonemic awareness, work attack skills, fluency, or reading comprehension. And Ms. Garcia believes t b Perceived instructional challenges and accommodations. T eachers not only commented on the strategies they use for literacy instruction, they also curriculum (literacy and mathematics) and instructional models. racy curriculum on instruction. Besides adopting program, teachers at Spring Valley Dove Lane are also required to implement Dictado to meet the bilingual literacy goals. A s discussed in Chapter 3, Dictado is a Spanish word study program that the school had piloted to identify and align the Spanish language learning and instruction across grade levels. A section of the especially Ms. Garcia the Assis tant Principal, Ms. Diaz the literacy coach, and Mr. Romero the third grade Spanish teacher, who was also the 107 teacher representative on the leadership team at the time of study emphasized the relevance of Dictado in attaining literacy learning goals for bo th English language learners and Spanish language learners. Mr. Romero described how teachers could use Dictado to achieve oral language development and to build metalinguistic awareness among students as a making them aware of the language connec tions, like what transfers and a paragraph of text for students to write. Through their wr iting, students demonstrate their understanding and use of discrete skills such as spelling, punctuation, syntax and semantics. Researchers claim that Dictado strategies may be used as an effective instructional tool in bilingual education and that they ma y be applied both for instruction and evaluation (Beeman & Urow, 2013). To prepare teachers on the use of Dictado strategies, Ms. Diaz emphasized the need for teachers to review samples of student writing to identify sentences reflecting spelling patterns and elements of writing mechanics that the teacher aims to teach. vocabulary instruction and oral language development across grade levels, the perceptions of the two Spanish teachers I interviewed Ms. Sanchez of fifth grade and Mr. Romero of 3 rd grade greatly varied. While Mr. Romero perceives the advantages and relevance of Dictado strategies as a third grade teacher, to develop the metalinguistic awareness of students across language s, Ms. Sanchez views these strategies as lacking relevance for advanced language learners in her fifth grade 108 classroom. According to her, Dictado is geared towards teaching language rules at the early stages of language learning, for instance in grade leve ls K - 2; hence, she says, what we need for 5 th graders is probably Asi se dice . Because the students have been in the program since Pre - Asi se Dice goes more to deepen the sense of th e language. Why you say something this way or that way in Spanish. Similar to Dictado, Asi se Dice is another cross - linguistic strategy offered by Kathy subscribes. Ms. Sanch fifth grade students are based on her understanding of what advanced language learning involves for her students. She believes that her students need to engage in a language learning process that requires a more complex and sophisticated scrutiny of language than Dictado offers. Asi se Dice is recommended for students in the intermediate grade levels because of its emphasis on the subtleties and nuances of communication cross cultures and lang uages (Literacy Squared). Although Ms. Sanchez recognizes the value of piloting Dictado as a Spanish word study program to complement the district - recommended Fundations program, ss all grade levels as an extreme measure. She believes that teachers at different grade levels should have access to and information of different strategies that suit their fifth grade students. 109 classroom, Mr. Wilson, did not provide any insights either about Dictado or Asi se dice. His comments are more around the need to adopt differentiation techniq ues in literacy and mathematics instruction: just brilliant But then there are students who sti ll can't count by twos. And m . S o it's more of how all those students and where do you meet them. Knowing to use different strategies to meet the needs of students at different language proficiency levels is a common issue cited by all the four teachers that I nature and applicable for teachers not only in bilingual settings but in English - only classrooms as well. His con cern is more about the content of literacy instruction, not the language development aspect of it. The difference in approach to literacy instruction in the same dual language setting at the same grade level could be an outcome of the language - based instr uctional training and backgrounds each teacher has. Moreover, the different languages they use in providing literacy instruction brings in different issues related to the use of English as opposed to the use of Spanish in a primarily English - oriented educa tional framework. The framework not only determines the position of one language in respect to the other in the hierarchy of the learning scenario, it also - service preparation, backgrounds, and abilities. Moreover, differences in the grade - specific language proficiency levels expected of students would also influence how a Spanish teacher 110 in the third grade would perceive the relevance of a particular strategy, in comparison to a teacher at a mor e advanced grade. These differences bring to the a particular curriculum framework may not be adequate in meet ing both the content - based and the language - based learning needs of students in a dual language address the demands placed by a new curricular and/or instructional framework, especially when they bring with them different skill - sets in bilin gual/ dual language instruction. As discussed in shifted the focus of district schools, including that of Spring Va lley Dove Lane towards increased rigor in curriculum and student learning. This, in turn, has and the associated skills in both literacy and math. As the third grade Spanish teacher, Mr. Romero explains: rigorous, supposed to replace the (old district assessment). So, we have to go in and have to modify some of those work sheets, some of the lessons that of the PARCC assessment. Ms. Garcia, the Assistant Principal confirms the need to adjust previous instructional practices according to the new standards using a revised curricu lum. She viewed the necessity for teachers to adjust 111 Engage New York (Engage N ew Y ork ) because when we look at our kids and Foll owing the curricular revisions, the teachers are expected to be able to combine the two approaches to help students attain the depth of knowledge and breadth of skills benchmarked for a particular grade level that each program offers so that students can b enefit from the resulting changes. The Engage New York program technique in teaching only those mathematical concepts that are prioritized at a particular grade level by the C ommon Core standards. Its stated goal is to enable students reach strong foundational knowledge and deep conceptual understanding and be able to transfer mathematical skills and understanding across concepts and grades ( EngageNY ). The new standards also require teachers to understand the connected nature of the grade - level mathematical skills and to perceive learning of concepts as a continuous act occ urring across grade levels. Conforming to that approach, Engage New York promotes scaffolding and differentiating strategies that are primarily application - oriented . This, according to Mr. Wilson, the fifth grade English teacher is - based approac h that teachers have to adopt. the new math curriculum and that of Ms. Garcia, the Assistant Principal. According to Ms. Emily Miller, the third grade English classroom teacher , adopting Engage New York for her students has been particularly challenging for teachers, despite its usefulness in meeting the new standards. Although Ms. Garcia claims that the 112 curriculum had been adopted keeping in mind the particular needs of the lan guage learners in the school, Ms. Miller believes otherwise. She observes that Engage New - While she admits that the program matches the rigor of the new standards, she points out that planning lessons b ased on the new curriculum requires time - consuming modifications in order to make mathematical concepts accessible to students who are at varying proficiency levels. According to her, the Singapore Math strategies helped second language learners visualize abstract mathematical concepts through concrete and pictorial mediu m facilitating effective learning. learning continuum, starting with the concrete and using the picto rial to attain an understanding of the abstract mathematical concepts. This, according to him, helps both ELLs and kly , while Although such differences in learning abilities are common in most classrooms, it becomes especially challenging when a a s econd language, through the same lesson. Research in bilingual education indicates that the language a child uses in the classroom needs to be sufficiently well developed to be able to process the cognitive 113 challenges involved in learning (Cummins, 1984). Without such opportunities in second language development, the quality and quantity of what children learn from complex materials and produce in oral and written form may be relatively weak. Moreover, research in Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol or the SIOP model emphasizes the need to make content comprehensible for second language learners while promoting their second language acquisition (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 2004; Howard & Christian, 2002). This has been found to facilitate mastery of ac ademic content among second language learners. approach highlight one of the challenges teachers at S pring V alley D ove L ane seem to encounter as they help seco nd language learners m aster math ematical content. She believes that the mismatch between the language used in the curriculum and gap in the comprehensible input impeding the process of learning of the concept . Her prima ry concerns are related to the challenges teachers in this school possibly enc ounter as they try to scaffold down Engage N ew Y ork , all language learners. Interestingly, w hen asked why the school selecte d the curriculum despite such difficulties inherent in its language use, Ms. Miller indicated that there is a pressure to conform to the district about the choice of curriculum, which has influenced many district schools, including hers, to adopt Engage New 114 From the point of v iew of Ms. Garcia, teachers in her school have encountered difficulties in adopting the transition from Singapore Math to Engage New York . She believes that the difficulties emerged mainly from the lack of adequate professional support teachers received du ring the initial phase of implementing the new curriculum. She thinks that as a result, teachers have continued with the assumption that lessons from Engage New York could be structured and used the same way as Singapore Math: challenging that would be when you provide it the materials and adapt them so that the kids can access them. administration ctations of to perceive and modify their lessons based on the learning needs of students teachers were unable to perceive the effectiveness of the new math curriculum f or teaching second language learners due to their lack of understanding of it and due to lack of professional support. curriculum is considered, there seems to be a clear lack of tea cher agency in curriculum development. Existing research shows the critical importance of bring together the ideas of power and action to impact student learning (Finley, Marbl e, Copeland, & Ferguson, 2000). It is a key aspect of school improvement that might support teachers as they rethink their roles in creating a coherent 115 ue reaffirms the absence of a support system that would provide timely help to teachers in understanding the new unique teaching - learning needs and challenges. It also indicate s a gap in communication between the administrator (who designed and directed the school professional development) and the teachers (who are the recipients of the school initiated professional support). Unclear communication has been a consistent matter of concern among all the four teachers that I interviewed. Although neither of the Spanish teachers pointed out similar challenges related to the implementation of the Engage New York curriculum, they shared concerns about their struggles in understanding th eir instructional goals and professional commitments. The result, according to them, has been uneven and sometimes ineffective instructional practices among teachers across the building. Teach ers Every - other day instructional model on their instruction due to the new professional demands it placed on them. All four teachers recognized the importance of collabor ation, communication and partnership among the grade level teams as key elements for the successful implementation of this instructional approach. However, their individual positions on addressing the new demands while others viewed the same feature as a major logistical challenge. For instance, Emily Miller, the third grade English teacher, admitted that this collaborative aspect 116 partnership in matching instructional structures, procedures and content that each teacher strives to deliver in a separate language, because a little easier. The rationale is that if partner teachers in the English and the Spanish classrooms present a vocabulary or a concept in different ways, it becomes difficult for students to develop their metalinguistic awareness that is, the ability to perceive the connection between the two languages and transfer skills from one language to another. Hence, use of similar formats while presenting new information and using sim ilar sentence frames and structures improves the quality of input making it easier for students to comprehend. The concept of collaboration as a key instructional strategy for successful teaching in bilingual settings has already been established by prior research in the field (DeMonte, 2013). Franco - 2013 ) study indicates how differences knowledge and perceptions about bilingual instructional practices can become a major impediment in delivering transformative pedagogies that are considered crucial in building ethnolinguistic identities of language minority students ( Garcia & Kleifgen, 2010; Gay, 2002; OLL son - Billings, 1994, 1995; V ald es, 1996; Villegas & Lucas, 2002 cited by Garcia & Kleifgen) . Teacher collaboration has been ident ified as a way to bridge that gap in understanding (Franco - 2013 ). 117 Speaking about the importance of collaboration in a dual language setting, Sylvia Sanchez, the fifth grade Spanish classroom teacher indicates a gap in understanding that often exists among English classroom teachers at SVDL: Spanish to the English - only kids. Due to the fact that English classroom teachers in dual language programs are not always trained in second language instruction, Ms. Sanchez believes that partner teachers need to share their knowledge, insight and strategies about the same. She thinks that instruction based on share d or collaborative planning is especially important in dual language settings where teachers in both English and Spanish classrooms are serving second language learners whether English language learners or Spanish language learners irrespective of their la nguage of instruction. When you have the same requirements in both languages that makes sense for the students. r advantage of collaborative instruction planning. He believes that the requirement for teachers to collaborate under the every - other - eves that in the absence of collaboration, where partner teachers do not teach the same content or the same lesson as if they are almost parallel lessons, they can almost one teacher is teaching introduction to fractions in English, the partner teacher 118 would also teach introduction to fractions. Thus, if the students receive instruction on the introduction to fraction in English one day, they would have the next lesson in that progression in that unit, in Spanish the next day. For Mr. Wilson, this seems to be more effective because if students don't have proficiency in one language they're able to build that rtable with. So that the next day they can transfer the knowledge. He believes that the opportunity to plan collaboratively allows teachers in a dual language program to discuss any conceptual misunderstanding or learning gaps among students. Santiago Rom ero of third grade also notes the importance of collaboration in challenges associated wi As noted earlier in this chapter and also in Chapter 3, the every - other - day model of instruction was a big transition for the teachers at Spring Valley Dove Lane as it involved intensive planning and extensive time commitment on their part. Successful instruction within this model called for collaborative planning among English and Span ish partner teachers to ensure that the content of their unit and lesson plans are aligned and complementary. Such collaborations would demand more time for updating and revising instructional strategies, as well as, equal access to high quality resources in both languages. And most importantly, they would need 119 expectations. In response to the deliberate questions I asked each teacher regarding their daily pedagogical experien instructional arrangement, they identified the following challenges: Challenges in c ollaboration and partnership. All the four teachers agreed on the challenges involved in undertaking collaborative planning the k ey aspect of the successful implementation of bilingual instruction, particularly that of the every - other - day model. Under this model, each grade level team plans the lesson together in order ensure that the unit and lesson plans in both English and Spanis h classrooms are aligned and that all students understand the lessons. Such efforts in collaborative planning called for daily brain - storming and communication among English and Spanish partner teachers followed up by small - group instruction. One of the m any challenges the teachers noted was the lack of adequate opportunities to exchange ideas with their colleagues and learn from their experiences and understanding of the new approach. All four teachers talked about structure and protocol that did not provide ample opportunities for teachers to come together as a group and form a learning community where they can share ideas on effective teaching practices and concerns . Learning gaps resulting in one classroom need to be identified, communicate d, and addressed increasingly large achievement gap over time. The importance of planning around the linguistic differences in English and Spanish and the need to include bridging 120 strategies to transfer learning from one language to another, highlights the value of k nowledge and skills between languages is an important element of the every - other - day model of instruction. Teachers at Spring Valley Dove Lane recognized the facilitate such cro ss - linguistic transfer practices that have already proved effective for their partners or peers in other classrooms in the same building. However, according to Edwin Wilson such an atmosphere of genuine collaboration has been identified as missing in thi s school. He believes that all teachers in the school should be made aware of the value and more importantly, the the administrators should clearly mandate the need to collaborate. However, in absence of a clearl y stated set of instructional expectations, teacher often tend to overlook the importance of collaboration, which leads to challenges and constraints in realizing the instructional goals. Some teachers pointed at difficulties in collaboration emerging fro m - area expertise and language use biliteracy and bilingualism among all its students, third grade teacher Santiago Ro mero indicated that some teachers in the school continue to have different understandings and commitments towards the dual language instructional goals: doing. For example, you have 121 at this and you want your kids to be successful in a dual language setting, like the one we have He believes that different teachers approach their work with different levels of commi tment. For some teachers their family or other commitments prevent them from devoting the extra time needed for collaborative planning. That often results in time commitme Many of the professional - learning designs that show improvements in teaching and learning include some kind of regular collaboration among teachers in a school or across grade levels sometimes with an instr uctional leader to work on better strategies and practices for teaching . This is especially true in a dual language instructional set - up like that of Spring Valley Dove Lane, where ineffective instruction or incomplete learning, if left addressed, can have great detrimental effects on overall student achievement. Clarity in program goals. Research in systemic reform policy for school improvement indicates the importance of clearly articulated program goals aligned with standards and facilitated by well - prep ared school personnel as key to a Thus, developing program goals aligned with standards adopted for institutional improvement is not sufficient. School leadership has the res ponsibility to clearly articulate the goals and train educators and other school professionals on the knowledge, skills and attitudes that the new program goals might demand. However, interviews with the four teachers and instructional coaches at Spring Va lley Dove Lane consistently indicated a lack of such clarity in the communication 122 between the administrators and the educators. Teachers perceived this as a major setting long - term goals of improvement. They perceived the need to be aware of the program expectations regarding teacher roles and responsibilities in order to strive towards instructional excellence effectively. For instance, Santiago Romero of third grade, laments t hat many teachers at his school lack a clear understanding of what is expected of them in terms of their professional responsibilities not in terms of the curriculum, but in terms of the instructional approaches, mind - set, and strategies that are essential for instructional success. You know, develop expectation s and provide support so that teachers can meet those expectations . On a similar note, Edwin Wilson of fifth grade observed how the school lacked a c lear communication system originating at the top administrative level. He then went on to describe how collaboration should look like in order to be effective: it needs to come from the top; and there needs to be a structure in place, and vision articulat ed for how it's going to be. there's not a clear communication about what exactly we should be teaching and so it's open to interpretation. understanding of the goals and roles of the instructional staff, a ny program development process would get disrupted, despite its good intentions. Hence he recommends establishing a system where teachers are able to share information and discuss the challenges they are facing professionally. This is b ecause , he believes, in the absence of clear expectations, it is often up to the grade level teams 123 to figure out their approaches and strategies in addressing an issue. Such directionless pursuits are prone to failure and tend to rob off the motivation to collaborate. Acces s to resources. For the teachers working in a dual language setting, collaboration is not the only challenge they face involving instruction and planning. Equal access to quality and relevant resources in both Spanish and English emerged as a major concer n among all the teachers I interviewed. As Edwin Wilson noted, T he biggest thing is just to have access to resources that are great. Especially like making sure that there're matching texts in both English and Spanish so that the students can support their understanding of both languages . lack of funding and additional support from the district in addressing these issues. Hence, in many cases teachers have to buy their own texts. As Sylvia Sanchez , I go to Mexico and I spend like, $1000 to buy books All of these are paper books that I have to print out and make copies of and put together b lessons that we plan are done in English because not everyone is bilingual in the teams. These observations provide a general indication that teachers not only lack instructional materials in Spa nish, but also lack the required support to improve instruction in Spanish classrooms. Hence, Spanish teachers often end up writing a lesson in English and then translating it into Spanish. For instance, the newly adopted math curriculum Engage New York is in English. So, teachers need to translate and use it without any support in relation to instructional resources. These 124 gaps in alignment of teacher support with the curriculum and instructional changes as part of program development raise concerns about instructional program learning expectations with corresponding teacher support, allocating resources to working conditions to support the change in framework, call for the need to address the existing programmatic gaps that were revealed during the study. Identified Instructional Strategies, Needs, and Challenges The discussion above indicates major obstac les that teachers at Spring Valley Dove Lane face on a daily basis as they strive to balance the program goals, on one hand, and the district - mandated assessment policies, on the other. These challenges are often associated with the curriculum and instruct ion al models that the school has adopted the ways in which new learning goals have created new instructional expectations and changes in instructional patterns, while teachers continue to receive inadequate support with instructional resources and their le arning systems. S ome of these challenges education environment, within which the school is nested. My interviews with the school professionals (teachers, administrators, and professional development consultant and instructional coaches) point at the importance of clearer communication, collaboration and partnership among teachers; between teachers and administrators; and also among teachers, administrators and professional development consultants, as 125 The examination also reveals how differences in teacher backgrounds result in differences in their instructional approach es and perceived challenges in the dual language environment, calling for the need to examine the relevance of the professional support teachers receive in this context. In the following chapters I will address the unique challenges of the teachers at Sp ring Valley Dove Lane through their respective professional development designs. 126 CHAPTER FIVE District Provided P rofessional S upport In the previous chapters I have examined the circumstances in which teachers at Spring Valley Dove Lane Elementary schoo l function. Findings have reform through a new set of standards, assessments and an accountability system cumulatively shaped expectations about excellence in student learni ng and evolving program goals, resulting in the adoption of new curricular and instructional models. Due to the central role of teachers as agents of implementing refor m, it became imperative for the district and the school leadership to attend to professional development framework for elementary school teachers in second language instruction al environments. The goals is to understand how the professional learning needs of teachers in dual language instructional settings like that of Spring Valley Dove Lane, gets addressed at the district level. The examination is based on interviews with dist rict and school personnel; documents shared by personnel at both levels; and public information available on the institutional websites. professional development and teacher supp professional development offices and divisions are analyzed, in respect to their 127 with a discussion of the findings related to the perceived relev teacher support system and the school - district dynamic in facilitating teacher learning. Teacher Professional Support: Structure of the District and the Program Services Interviewees at the school and the district levels provided uni que perspectives about the nature of the district - facilitated support teachers receive. In professional development requirements across district schools; and in some cases they high lighted the ways in which Spring Valley Dove Lane sought autonomy from the district - mandated professional development program. The policies laid out in publicly available documents, such as the New Teacher Handbook ( 2014 - 2015 ) and the Professional Developm ent Guidebook ( 2010 - 2011 approach to school education and job - embedded teacher preparation at elementary and secondary levels in all programs. I first describe the various offices involved and then their agents engaged in des igning professional development programs. District O ffices: The Central Professional Development Office and the Office of Language Learning . The 2010 - 2011 Professional Development Central Professional Development Office (also referred to as the Central Office) and the Office of Language Learning (OLL) as prominent actors in providing professional support to elementary level teachers in 128 and scale effective programs to increase student achievement and prepare all a nd implements professional development programs and facilitates year - round workshops and training modules for schools across the district. The office has several focus areas around instruction and professional development in literacy and mathematics. The O ffice of Language Learning , on the other hand, is a division under specialized instructional resources to teachers of English language learners. District professional dev elopment agents: The instructional coaches and District Teacher Evaluator s. - 2015 New Teacher Handbook identifies the importance of providing professional support to all school educators in order to facilitate high student achievement ac ross all district schools. According to the Handbook, the District Teacher Evaluators or DTEs (from the who undertake the responsibility of providing professional support to teachers. The District Teacher Evaluators are identified as third - party evaluator s of teachers who use a district - adopted, numerically based standardized instrument to rate the instruct ional quality based on classroom observations and student test scores. They are responsible for conducting approximately a hundred 30 - minute observations during each observation cycle (two observation cycles per academic year) . They also maintain detailed observational records by thoroughly documenting and rating evidence from each classroom observation. Based on the evidence, they write 129 detailed reports to accompany each observation, which would include explanations suggestions for growth. According to Olivia Nunez, the dual language planner at the Office of language Learning, these reports are meant to provide direction to district professional development initiatives. The Teacher Evaluator - observat ion confe rences with teachers are expected to allow opportunity to discuss specific areas of instructional improvement. Additionally, the evaluator s also have the opportunity to provide one - on - one coaching to develop and build upon instructional skills , which inclu des instructional planning, content delivery, maximizing instructional time, and building a positive classroom community. They also have the scope t o lead workshops for teacher learning with a focus on content and pedagogy, collaborate with school - based in structional coaches, and connect teachers with professional development resources. Unlike the Teacher Evaluators, the Instructional Coaches work more closely with teachers on a daily basis in a supportive role. The district assigns the coaches in schools t o support and enhance teacher practice through differentiated, job - embedded professional development (District website). As described in the 2014 - 2015 Handbook , most district schools have at least one assigned coach who is a member of the ip Team ( LT). Due to their placements within a particular school, coaches function as an integral part of the and the s improvement process. They provide year - round, school - based, intensive instructional support through five Le arning Cycles that are e ach six weeks long. Throu ghout the Learning Cycle, the coach works with eight - to - ten teachers . 130 There are two different types of Learning Cycles: Collaborative Learning Cycle (CLC) and Individual Learning Cycle (ILC) . Collaborative Learning Cycles are six - week cycles of intensive classroom instructional support facilitated by instructional coaches in small - group settings . The CLCs focus on improving academic achievement through job embedded support. Each instructional coach supports teachers in better understanding student data xv and identifying appropriate instructional and planning strategies [Refer to the Data Cycles Meeting Outcomes Chart on page 95] . Related to the CLCs are Individual Learning Cycles or ILCs that occur b etween a coach and an individual teacher. These take place over a six - week period, but are tailored to the specific needs of the focal teacher. The instructional coach works directly with the teacher to create a coaching plan to meet goals and aid him or her in implementing new instructional practices. administration as a member of the t Principal, Special Education Coordinator, Dean of Students, and the Lead Teacher, the literacy and math coaches are also a vital part of the Leadership Team at Spring Valley Dove Lane Elementary. Together they address school issues related to developing institutional vision and annual program goals requirement and as one of the requirements of ANet (an interim assessment that the school has adopted to generate data for guiding the unit planning process and 131 student interventions for improving student achievement). The responsibilities of the coaches may be summarized using the words of Sonia Diaz, the literacy coach at S pring Valley Dove Lane. She perceives her duty to be taking what the district has However, the responsibility of the literacy coach at this school seems to assigned duties is to support teachers in creating a scope and sequence for developing language skills that need to be taught in grades K - 5 as part of the program goals and the administration - assigned responsibiliti es, Ms. Diaz is often required to provide additional support. She notes that during the 2013 - 2014 school year she worked with the teachers to identify the priority standards that needed to district exams. According to her, for the first time we ended up with a scope and sequence for literacy skills. ecause of it Ms. Diaz claims that the school had hired her during the 2012 - 2013 school lead in professional dev elopment under the umbrella of Phonics and Morphology, 132 have the dual language background necessary to provide the kind of support gave us some flexibility in being able to staff. Possibly because she helped bridge the language gap in the Central Office - designed professional development program by wor king very closely with administrators and teachers, most of the school personnel indentified her as part of professional development program. The position of the math coach , Salma Abadi, has been different from that of founding. The school administrators seeme d to value her input in developing the program goals over the years and some of the teachers recognize her contribution in supporting them to meet math instructional goals. However, the four teachers that I interviewed viewed her inability to model instruc tion in both English and Spanish as , Abadi successfully met the district responsibility of providing support with school leadership and job - embedded PD for teachers in the content area of mathematics. She helped address the district goal of aligning school instruction and curriculum to dist rict math standards through program development and teacher learning. 133 Although teachers and administrators viewed the coaches as in - house support agents, th e District Teacher Evaluators were perceived as district agents conducting teacher evaluation; and their feedback was perceived as part of the the Assistant Principal, Ms. Garcia notes, acquisition t echniques, are you prompting students to speak in complete sentences, talk together, are you providing support for emergent learners, - party, un - biased evaluator contributed to the perception abou t the lack of relevance in the feedback and support teachers received from them. Although the school administrators used the same district observations, they were perceived as part of The teachers on the whole know (the Assistant principal) and she works so building for just half an hour to come and observe you and their whole existence has to do with evaluating you. versus the administrator and the teachers in terms of evalua tion and teacher feedback generated from the two sources using the same rubric. While the district teaching Santiago , 3 rd grade Spanish teacher), the A ssistant 134 P rincipal a keep(s) running a list of the things that teachers (need), and then how do we find ways making sure that they Although the school personnel perceived the district evaluators as passive considered helpful in providing directions to the dist and robust teacher professional support system for the district schools. This is well represented in the words of Olivia Nunez, the bilingual program provider interviewed at the Office of Language Learning: Such contributions made by the district evaluators using a district tool to assess instructional effectiveness can provide district offices important information about instructional gaps and challenges existing in a school building or in a particular classroom. This is also a viable way for the district to measure the validity and reliability this study, it would be important to examine the validity of the teacher evaluation rubric, which is used both in ESL and dual language instructional settings. This raises concerns about whether the tool can be an effective measure and provide equally relevant feedback to teachers in both ESL and dual language classroom s, especially when it is conceived on an ESL framework. Findings from such a study 135 could have significant implications about the relevance of the feedback teachers receive based on the elements specified on the rubric and the professional consequences of f indings yielded by such evaluations. frameworks for teacher learning. The purpose is to show how school personnel perceived the degree of relevance of each element in the co language program. Figure 2 : Framework of the PD services at the district and the program levels As Birman, Desimone, Porter and Garet (2000) claim, the relevance of professional development activities and experiences for teachers is often 136 determined by the opportunities for active engagement in a coherent set of learning experiences that encourage continued professional communication among peers and incorporate experiences that are consistent with instr uctional goals and aligned perceptions of the effectiveness of the programs did not get distinguished based on the source of their development the school and/or the district. Ra ther, it was work, materials and pedagogical process in the context of their specific dual sional support system, the Office of Language Learning and the in - house instructional coaches were seen as more relevant and effective than the program offered by the consultants. In the following section I discuss the perceived role and relevance of some of Language Learni ng, and the instructional coaches. I choose to focus on some actors, more than the others based on (a) the emphasis participants place on them as professional development providers during the interviews on the whole; and, (b) their direct influence on the District Teacher Evaluator and the Assistant Principal as a PD provider will be be touched upon in places where they are relevant. 137 Perceptions: Provisions and Relevance of the District PD Program Position of the Central Professional Development Office . While the school administrators and instructional coaches form a crucial part of the program planning and design team at the school level, the professional learning designers at the district level. As mentioned above, the office has the responsibility to serve as an instructional re source for teachers in relation to innovate classroom practice with a goal of increasing student achievement . All district decisions and actions regarding the professional support provided to teachers in schools are based on the guidelines laid out on the Effective Schools Framework . The Central Office personnel are expected to use the framework to develop evaluation and support tools to ensure coherence and set clear expectations in planning programs for all district schools. As documented on the district learning designers at the Central Office are responsible for developing and through programs that aim at aligning the teaching - l earning practices in schools with the district curriculum standards and expectations. For example, the interview with Andrea Knapp, the literacy professional learning designer revealed one of her specific needs with the student interaction in the classroom, and identifying instructional pl anning 138 - instructi on in English based on the Fundations xvi word study program. Most of the school personnel that I interviewed, who primarily included the school administrators and educators, seemed to view the contributions of the Central Office and that of the Office of Lan guage Learning in different ways. They facilitated by the former. Alyson Garcia, the Assistant Principal and Santiago Romero, the third grade Spanish classroom teacher at Sp ring Valley Dove Lane admitted to referring to the Central Office designed workshops when they spoke For instance, in one of the interviews, Alyson Garcia clarifies, eferring to the District rade English teacher says, C services that are targeted for teachers in all schools throughout the year. Here, it is important to understand that the distri ct - facilitated professional support, as a whole, is not monolithic and the Central office is only one of the actors. that they refer to it in relation to support provided in l iteracy instruction. This is especially evident in the descriptions of Alyson Garcia, the Assistant Principal and 139 the d istrict has had a focus, professional development - wise, on literacy, for sure. focus within the literacy. district professional development goals during the 2013 - 2014 school year saying: T his year they had schools select an area of literacy that they wanted to focus on. And then based upon what you chose, the professional development coi ncided with that. That year the district revised its literacy professional development and provided schools three instructional options, namely the Phonics & Morphology (P&M), close reading, and guided reading and workstation approaches. As discussed in Chapter 4, these approaches were modified to align with the Common Core Standards. The new focus has shifted from general guided reading xvii instruction to a 120 - minute lite racy block instruction model. Different departments within the Central Office designed and implemented the professional development provided to schools according to their chosen literacy focus. When schools in the district were provided the choice of adop ting a literacy focus area, Spring Valley Dove Lane opted for Phonics and Morphology. As Ms. - claims that the school opted for Phonics and Morphology with the intention to use its guideli nes to develop its own word - study program in Spanish. Besides, perceiving that the generic professional development workshops facilitated by the 140 Central Office were designed around the Phonics and Morphology guidelines and that they would not meet the bili Spring Valley Dove Lane opted to design its own PD. As the Assistant Principal notes, They pull the schools in a group. There are nine schools, so all of them except for us, they pull them in a group to p rovide this professional development . And we just got the permission at the beginning, because our needs were really different, to do our own professional development on site. f relevance of the Central Office - designed workshops. She believes that due to the - only focus, teachers did not receive any support in Spanish instruction at that time: o do, the professional development trainer or specialist that they have in the we were the only dual l anguage school in that cohort that selected Phonics and Morphology. So the PDs did not necessarily align with what we need in our building. The (literacy) learning goals and preference for professional support services in each school is often influenced by the student demography, their linguistic skills and background, and eventually their need for language learning support. Among the district schools that adopted the Phonics and Morphology literacy approach, only Spring Valley Dove Lane followed a dual lan guage instructional model. Hence, new program goal 141 - morphology PD and creating language instructional context wi th respect to other schools adopting Phonics and Morphology is reflected in other interviews as well. The Assistant principal o be providing was not going to be meeting our needs, because it was not going to be targeted to Spanish. Hence, she viewed decision to design its own system of teacher support - - support: everybody needs to do this, because we really have a sense of what the needs of our school are. So, we kind of push - back the things when we see that we have a different need than what (the district provides). Garcia thinks, t - back is a way of showing that her school has already attained many of the district - set goals for preparing teachers on vocabulary development through their internal unit - planning process. Hence, the administration could successfully rationalize the demand for district - recommended and facilitated professional development programs. Instead, - learning needs and challenges. The result, according to Garcia, was the pilot ing of a Spanish word study program , Dictado that was conceptually aligned to Fundations the district - recommended literacy concept focusing on developing English proficiency but created opportunities for providing support in Spanish literacy instruction as well. As Garcia puts it : 142 W e want to look at professional development program and take the pieces that are relevant and implement them, which requires us to have extra time on the professional development days. In many ways, the intervie w with the four teachers revealed similar concerns about the relevance of the Central Office - designed professional support, in respect opportunities as relevant and hen ce were reluctant about availing them are recurring themes across these interviews. For instance, Edwin, the fifth grade Additionally, Santiago, the third grade Spanish teacher claimed that the district Not only did Santiago point at the lack of relevance of the Central Office - professional learning designers in addressing the program - specific needs of teachers at Spring Valley Dove Lane: to what exactly is going on 143 Office often lacked understanding and knowledge about dual language instruction unique challenges. They argued that professional learning designers who lack clear understanding of the challenges associated with the various models of dual language instruction (such as the Roller - coaster or an Alternating day model) would find it dif ficult to conceive and design relevant opportunities for teacher learning. They emphasized the importance of the specialized expertise teachers in a dual language program need to acquire in order to improve instructional effectiveness and student learning. - when the student achievement rates started showing improvement in 2012 - 2013 district assessments , the administration at Spring Valley Dove Lane Elementary claimed its ability to address the needs of its learners both English and Spanish. its own teacher professional lea rning system with an additional focus on meeting the needs of Spanish language learners. Andrea Knapp, one of the professional learning designers at the Central office, noted district). They wanted to do it alone. And we . The p osition of the instructional coaches. As a district appointee 144 instructional go als towards the school. This is especially true in the case of a school like Spring Valley Dove Lane that has developed its autonomous curricular, instructional and teacher learning frameworks. Sonia Diaz, the literacy coach identifies it as one of her res Accordingly, she is required to attend teacher trainings conducted by the Central Office to develop an unde standards in order to transfer that understanding and knowledge to teachers during sessions known as the learning cycles. Ms. Diaz explains how the information related to district standards and expec tations are channeled during C ollaborative L earning C ycles: at the C ollaborative L earning C ycle sitting down and looking at student work and the standards and making decisions as to what we felt were the priority sta ndards for the year. During these cycles, both the literacy and math coaches help teachers look at the student data gathered from assessments and use that information to plan units according to the district adopted Common Core standards. The math coach, S alma Abadi, also cites instances when teachers reach out to how to respond to brief constructive responses and the questioning folded into it. learning cycles or ILCs. In these cases, Ms. Abadi observes, she would work with the instruction guide the Teaching & Learning Framework xviii . These individual guidance sessions provide opportunities for target ed instructional support based on 145 teacher - and/or classroom - specific needs, which is part of the istrict - mandated work that needs to happen Challenges of coaching : Ms. Diaz believes that the nature of providing i ndividual support often becomes a matter of contention for coaches based on the demands of the school. For instance, teachers might seek specific instructional support with preparing lesson plans during the week, these were additional demands that did not Hence, they are often excluded from the report the coaches send to the district. As Sonia Diaz points out, the school administration hired her professional development under th e umbrella of Phonics and Morphology, but for Spanish . This was because t he school did not have an established structure for common word - study practices across the two languages (Spanish and English). In that role, Diaz has been assigned the responsibilit - study Garcia ) curriculum for the school to - focused Fundations literacy program during the 2013 - 2014 school year . Accordingly, Dictado was adopted based on the research Diaz had conducted on the alternate Spanish literacy framework: (Sonia) delivery model and so they piloted it with a group of 2 nd , 3 rd , 4 th , 5 th grade Spanish teachers. ( Garcia ) As a result of the adoption o f the new framework, Diaz claims, teachers at Spring Valley Dove Lane received support in Spanish literacy instruction for the first time with a focus on 146 ... what is it that Spanish teachers feel they need in order to implement phonics & morphology or voca bulary (instruction) goals in the classroom. She perceives the opportunity as one of the first initiatives that the school has adopted to address the challenges involved in dual language instruction. Teachers received support from the literacy coach ooking at non - transferable skills or Diaz describes the general nature of - - driven in essence . The responsibility to establish a Spanish academic vocabulary that is vertically aligned and consistent across all grades and subject areas fell not on ly on the literacy coach, but on the math coach as well. Hence both coaches provided support in math and literacy on alternate days. As Diaz notes: one day with math , the math and literacy concepts in both English and Spanish. She also points at existing dichotomy suppo I n this school, coaches are considered to be part of the admin team, which is a double - need to feel like you are not part of the leaders hip. (Sonia Diaz) It indicates an underlying distrust among teachers, who often perceived the coaches as represent ing the school Despite such challenges associated with her role as an instructional coach, Diaz she claims to overcome them consistently recognizing their need for support. Both coaches use d the district Learning Framework as 147 well as the Common Core Standards to guide teachers instruction with an understan ding of who are our new teachers in the building, what is their capacity, what are they going to need to report on and then what are these cycles going to look like throughout the year ( Diaz ). Despite such extensive support provided by the coaches , te acher observations reveal ed mixed views about the usefulness of the coaching they receive in math and literacy. The concerns of the Spanish teachers include issues around insufficient coaching in Spanish classroom instruction, unequal coaching provided to strong versus struggling teachers, and lack of support with understanding and addressing the demands of the Every - other - day instruction model, among several others. Santiago, the third grade Spanish teacher (who wa s also the lead teacher on the school lead ership during 2013 - 2014), pointed at the difficulty some Spanish teachers face regarding the support they receive from the with translating math concepts from English to Spani sh. These are significant vertically aligning academic language in both Spanish and English across subject areas. Although, his overall concern ha s been nto the classrooms to bring in more uniformity in support and to set the priorities right. However, Santiago did recognize the relevance of the literacy coaching that the Spanish classroom t eachers received. 148 Despite the fact that Santiago has been the lead teacher on the leadership team , it is ironical that challenges faced by Spanish teachers d ue to inadequate support and modeling in Spanish from the math coach were not been reflected i n the - 2014 annual professional development plan. This raises serious questions about the lack of teacher agency their power and action to impact stu dent learning through decision - making power about curriculum development and their own professional learning. Sylvia Sanchez of fifth grade also recognizes similar challenges related to inadequate coaching for more experienced teachers in the school. She notes , When we started doing the D (Diaz) came, she observed, but she never shared with us. Then they choose one teacher to do the modeling and they never invite (sic) us to see it . The lack of opportunities to observe peer instruction and receive p eer - feedback, or receive immediate feedback from coaches, indicates a major gap in the opportunities for peer support as an instructional resource. Such an educational environment obstructs the process of building professional learning communities, which i s a key component of effective professional support ( Ball antyne, Sanderman, & Levy, 2008). Ms. Sanchez also indicates that the issue of unequal teacher support through coaching seems to be a common concern among teachers who were y the administration, and are eager to find support to further improve their capacities. It is important to note that perceptions about the relevance of the coaching support varied widely from one teacher to another, irrespective of the language they use d or the grade levels they taught. The only common concern has been related to 149 English classroom partner teacher Edwin Wilson perceived the coach - lead collaborative learning cyc les weekly as a helpful process . For him, these cycles provided an opportunity to collectively look at student data, or the standards for developing an upcoming unit, or pick books and read through them to discuss some of the key concepts. He further added that during these meetings teachers were able to communicate their concerns and needs to the leadership team so that they could be addressed through the annual professional development plan. The p osition of the . The above discussions indicate mixed perceptions about the effectiveness and relevance of the support teachers received from the instructional coaches, and mostly negative Offi ce. However, the school personnel viewed the Office of Language Learning mostly as a relevant and effective source of instructional support a bridge language - based needs fo r professional support. Personnel at the Central Office also recognized the key role the Office of Language Learning plays in addressing the challenges related to second language instruction in district schools. Andrea Knapp, one of the professional learni recognized the advisory role of the Office of Language Learning in recommending 150 Learning is a crucial support for indivi dualizing the Central Office - designed workshops in terms of the language - specific instructional needs of different district schools. All the school personnel including the Assistant Principal, instructional coaches and the teachers, recognize the value of the courses and workshops offered is in stark contrast to their perceptions of the programs developed by the district Central Office and indicates the perceived degree o f relevance of the services provided by the two offices. Olivia Nunez, bilingual program provider at the Office of Language Learning, believes that the programs facilitated by her office have a significant impact on teachers in bilingual schools. She expl ains how one of their language acquisition programs called the Bilingual Educators Language Acquisition cohort (or BELA) l language schools and is offered as language development courses at a local university. Nunez believes that the language development element of these courses can potentially open doors for the teachers to become dually certified in ESL instruction as well as in elementary or secondary education. Since dual certification is not required by the district or by the bilingual programs within the district, such qualifications and associated knowledge on second language is often found to be missing among teachers of second language 151 learners. Such lack of knowledge in second language pedagogy tend to impede effective instruction and learning especially in dual language environments. training in - these workshops to share their research and expertise around dual language instruction. The length of these sessions may vary from a day to a week and are generally held at one of the district schools. These workshops are distinctly different from those offered by the Central Office in that the latter are designed with an English perspective because they are designed for the whole district , claims Nunez. To address the language - related shortcoming of the Central Office - designed workshops, Office of Language Learning has promoted collaboration among the needs of schools with second language learners are ef fectively addressed. Accordingly, she says can bring that dual language perspective and answer questions that are related to that. (Nunez) This way of addressing issues related to second language instruction, according to Olivia Nunez claims to have used that kind of information to provide targeted 152 support through workshops where dual language experts from various resource centers addressed dual language specific instructional issues. Dove Lane sou program around a whole - school dual language model. As Assistant Principal, Ms. Garcia explains She met with us and went through t we reviewed the plan and talked about the goals of the plan. tions biliteracy. The four teachers I interviewed recognize the value of the instructional support facilitated by the Office of Language Learning and believe they need more such learning opportunities. However, as Santiago, the third grade Spanish teacher laments, T teacher of every building of the dual language schools get the attenti on they need. But th about. ind of after - the - fact they are not part of the creation of plans. 153 These observations indicate t hat the kind of professional support the school seeks more extensively from the district would be in line with the support the Office overarching goals of improving student ac hievement across all schools; and make schools. Discussion The district professional development programs as resource and impediment: The school - district dynamic. T he prec eding discussion on the professional development framework reveals two major findings first , the professional support s ervices designed for teachers at the district level consist of several layers and divided into various divisions and offices ; and more im portantly, on the bilingual content of the services. Figure 2 illustrate s professional development programs according to the school personnel I interviewed goals and the Central Office - facilitated professional support . However, the Spanish teachers at the third and fifth grades, and the Assistant Princ ipal perceived value in dual language program. The school personnel generally perceived the district Teacher Evaluators as external observers who lacked understanding of the 154 environment, expectations, and goals. Hence, the instructional feedback and support provided by these evaluators based on district - sional learning. Finally, the perceptions of the teachers and administrators varied widely Assistant Principal and Principal) recognized the importance of the coaches in de teachers, on the other hand, expressed concerns mainly on two major issues: (a) the degree of teachers) in modeling and providing useful feedback to all teachers, both veterans capabilities (mono lessons). Contrarily, the fifth grade English teacher recognized value in the coach - facilitated learning cycles as opportunities for teachers to communicate their instructional challenges, concer ns and needs. He also noted that the coaches needed to provide greater support in designing interventions for struggling students in the school. In a nutshell, as Figure 2 illustrates, the teachers and administrators viewed the support provided by the Off ice of Language Learning as most relevant in respect teachers in dual language programs like Spring Valley Dove Lane helped to build a 155 degree of trust among the Spanish teach ers I interviewed. It also influenced their perceptions of what they considered as valuable instructional resources ones that they could benefit from instruction. Thus, despite the traditional nature of t he workshops, their emphasis on bilingual instruction and the relevance of the content made them relevant to the teach to new standards, including complex thinking skills, it is essential that they have a sophisticated understanding of the content and of how students learn the Moreover, as Ms. Nunez of the Office of Language Learning observed, the courses and the workshops were designe d based on the feedback of teachers and administrators in the dual language programs about their needs for instructional effectiveness. They were also aligned to the district - adopted standards and expectations about the quality of student learning and inst ructional effectiveness. Hence, these programs were seen as coherent with the overall program mission, needs, and goals. As Cohen and Ball (1999) observed, coherence is a matter of teachers making sense of the instructional relationships in ways that impac t their educational practice. Understanding the basic principles of second language acquisition and strategies of bilingual instruction lie at the core of instructional effectiveness in dual language schools, which is facilitated through the programs of th e Office of Language Learning. The knowledge, experience and skills gathered and its program for teacher learning; they also support the district standards and 156 assessments. T his helps to bring in coherence in teacher learning opportunities that Although the teacher perception of the support provided by the inst ructional coaches varied, the literacy coach was viewed as more relevant, as Fig. 2 illustrates. Her background in bilingual education and knowledge of dual language instruction was perceived as a strength that teachers seemed to benefit from. Due to the l ack of a similar background and set of skills in the math coach and the professional 157 CHAPTER SIX rofessional Developme nt Program: In Pursuit of a S olution Research shows that teacher preparation and staff development have a strong correlation with student achievement (Darling - Hammond, 1999). Teacher learning opportunities are effective when they occur in light of the sch educational mission and complement the environment of the program in which teachers practice (Leighton, 1995). However, studies in job - embedded staff development practices in bilingual educational settings indicate a major gap in such opportunities ( Garcia & Kliefgen, 2010; Gandara, Maxwell - Jolly, and Driscoll, 2005). In this chapter, I examine the nature of instructional support system at Spring Valley Dove Lane Elementary School that has been designed in response to its dual language bilingual progr am goals, on one hand, reform policies, on the other. Using the evidence gathered from my interviews with the school administrators, the four classroom teachers, the literacy consultant and the instructional coaches I analy goals; the perceived impact of the professional development consultants; and the , perceived instructional needs and challen ges identified by the school personnel. program goals have been developed the beliefs of the administrators and the changes in the district reform policies through the adoption of high standards and aligned assessments. Accordingly, the focus of the new goals have been to improve 158 student achievement across grade levels, languages, and content areas; to align instructional approaches to student learning needs and goals specified by the d attempt to balance the demands of a dual language program with that of the ds. In order to attain the balance, the school has to design a coherent instructional program, which according to Newmann et al (2001) has (a) a common instructional framework that guides the curriculum, teaching, assessment, and learning environment and t hat matches expectations for student learning with relevant instructional strategies and assessment instruments; (b) staff working conditions that support attainment of the goals and the framework; and (c) an adequate and coherent allocation of resources t o establish a stable curriculum, student assessments and teacher professional assignments. As a dual language school, Spring Valley Dove Lane has the goal of facilitating student learning and instruction, and allocating resources to promote knowledge and skills simultaneously in two languages English and Spanish. As prior research (Howard et al, 2007) suggests, providing and preparing for effective instruction in a dual language program is especially challenging because of its added goals of promoting bili ngualism, biliteracy and multicultural competence, while balancing the learning needs of students from two language groups. Accordingly, teachers and administrators at Spring Valley Dove Lane have consistently emphasized the need for specialized instructio n and teacher support, and therefore the demand for an autonomous teacher support system. Figure 3 illustrates the challenges school 159 framework and the perceived gaps in the di development programs. Table 3 : Perceived PD gaps and instructional challenges School Personnel Perceived Gap in District PD Perceived DL Instructional Challenges SVDL Asst. Principal (Alyson Garcia) N ot targeted to Spanish Teacher Collaboration due to DL instruction model + Developing specific skill - set for successful implementation of school - adopted literacy & math curricula + Ability to use second language acquisition - based teaching strategies 3 rd Grade Spanish Teacher (Santiago Romero) Does not consider language needs of the SVDL student population Lack of teacher collaboration + Lack of equal resources + Unclear goals and expectations 3 rd Grade English Teacher (Emily Miller) Does not address s specific needs The English - only training has no Spanish equivalent + Same provision and support for bilingual and monolingual programs Lack of equal distribution of resources in English and Spanish + Lack of teacher collaboration + Lack of adeq uate time to collaborate+ Due to every - other - day model, there is a break in the instructional rhythm, momentum and consistency teachers see a cohort 2 - 3 times a week 160 School Personnel Perceived Gap in District PD Perceived DL Instructi onal Challenges 5 th Grade Spanish Teacher (Sylvia Sanchez) Only in English teachers lose time on separate PD in Spanish Even if the books are same book, the way something reads in English or Spanish is different and the goals are different + Meta - linguist ic awareness needed as translations do not work + Piloted Spanish word study does not apply to upper grades & English word study does not address language learning in Spanish. 5 th Grade English Teacher (Edwin Wilson) Not relevant Need for true collaborat ion in planning and implementation of content area + Lack of relevant feedback program to address the language - based demands of a dual language program indicated its failure in the eyes of the school personnel. Chapter 5 highlights how and its demand for an autonomous instructional framework. In this chapter I look ts internal teacher support system, which auton omous instructional support framework, it did not provide any additional technical or financial support either. As Ms. Garcia notes: 161 I knew as I was making that decision that it was putting us down a road of creating something on our own outside what the D istrict was going to be able to support. observations learning needs derived from annual district exams had been major determinants of After considering the student performance data in reading and math, collecting feedback from teachers, and examining the recent trends in best instructional practices, the administration solicited advice of the approach and internal teacher support system. Selecting literacy and math first step in designing an autonomous professional support system. ctors and the Design The key actors in professional support system . The autonomous instructional support system. However, the data gathered during the c ourse of this study is heavier on the side of the literacy consultant. During interviews, teachers and administrators emphasized the advisory role played by the literacy consultant, but the same did not apply for the consultant in math. In general, 162 the per ceptions regarding the value of the support provided by each consultant varied greatly. The administrative team selected both the consultants based on the program needs to provide training and technical assistance to all the teachers in regards to classro om instruction. Besides, the consultants play an advisory role for the leadership team and often provide assistance in developing the annual program goals. Over the years, the literacy consultant has provided support in implementing while and the math consultant has supported the implementation of the Singapore Math curriculum. Besides the consultants, the instructional coaches are also a crucial part of ofessional support system. The coaches provide continued support to teachers as part of their district - assigned responsibility. The goal is to - embedded support. However, as discussed in Chapter 5, their role is essentially split between the two spheres of the district and the school, as they delicately balance their functions and divide their services to serve both ends. Their work hours are supposed to be divided to fulfill district resp onsibilities for 80% of the time and the program responsibilities for 20% of the time as discussed in the earlier chapter. Two tables below represent the roles played by the school - appointed consultants in comparison to the district - assigned instructional coaches. While in Table 4 I illustrate their envisioned roles, in Table 5 I highlight the roles that 163 teachers and administrators have associated with them based on the support they were perceived to provide. Table 4 : The Envisione d Roles In - house PD Personnel PD Program Designer & Employer Employer assigned responsibility Others incidental responsibilities Literacy Consultant (LC) SVDL Administration program goals & [It is assumed that prom oting biliteracy and bilingualism is an integral element of the school goals ] May incidentally address district goals in the process. Math Consultant (MC) SVDL Administration program goals & [It is assumed that pr omoting biliteracy and bilingualism is an integral element of the school goals ] May incidentally address district goals in the process. 164 In - house PD Personnel PD Program Designer & Employer Employer assigned responsibility Others inciden tal responsibilities Literacy Instructional Coach 1. Support & enhance teacher practice through Job - embedded PD 2. Serve as part of May incidentally mission of promoting biliteracy and lilingua lism in the process. [ Literacy coach identifies a limit to providing such support as district will hold her accountable for it often refrains from reporting ] Math Instructional Coach 1. Support & enhance teacher practice through job - e mbedded PD 2. Serve as part of May incidentally mission of promoting biliteracy and lilingualism in the process. 165 Table 5 : The Enacted Roles In - house PD Personnel PD Designer & Employ er Responsibilities fulfilled Responsibilities unaddressed Literacy Consultant (LC) SVDL Administration to fulfill district requirements in literacy instruction Does not address s m ission and - based challenges Math Consultant (MC) SVDL Administration to fulfill district requirements in math instruction Does not address m ission and - based challenges Literacy Instructional Coach 1. Provides job - embedded support 2. Provides support with dual language instruction in literacy meet district requirements is incidental Math Instructional Coach 1. Provides job - embedded support 2. PD t goals to fulfill district requirements in math instruction Does not address s m ission and - based challenges Later in this chapter, I unpack the contrast between the envisioned and enacted roles of the consultants and the coaches to illustrate how various institutional factors influence the remarkable split. Ms. Garcia, the Assistant Principal and Santiago Romero, the third grade mework 166 - - - crucial in understanding the alignment between the program goals and the instructional support framewo rk , considering the identified gaps Specialized Support from Specialized Professionals At the district level, professional development for teachers primarily involved workshops and after - school meetings designed and condu cted by professional learning designers to help schools implement the district recommended standards and curriculum. In the 2013 - 14 school year, the district piloted the PARCC tests aligned with the newly adopted Common Core State Standards. This required schools to align their program goals according to the standards to ensure that students attained the benchmarked grade level expectations. This also required improved teacher learning systems to ensure teachers understood the grade level proficiency requir ements in math and literacy. Accordingly, in 2013 - 2014, Spring Valley Dove Lane shifted the focus of its instructional support plan towards helping teachers analyze student assessment data and quality of to understand their language and cont ent facilitate instruction that would bridge the learning gaps and match their content - and language - based proficiencies. Consultants were also asked to provide support bas ed on what our school - (Garcia). The teachers and the coaches confirmed the key role of the school administrators 167 framework. However, the Assistant Principal emphasized the pivo tal roles of the literacy consultant and the dual language planner at the Office of Language Learning (Olivia Nunez) in the program development process. The administrators recognized their re liance on the expertise of Freda Vasquez, the literacy consultant, in program development since Spring Valley Dove Lane was consolidated in 2008 - he administrators looking at Freda Vasquez has a background in teaching ELL populations and working as a staff developer on Reading and Writing Projects at a renowned teacher education institution. As a staff developer she consulted in bilingual schools across the country, among which Spring Valley Dove Lane was one. Currently, she leads a bilingual program that has adopted the Every - other - day instructional approach and has a high ELL po pulation. During the interview Ms. Garcia, the Assistant Principal explained the nature - 2012) when we had the new teacher PD, (Salma) and I sat dow us design a new teacher PD that was specific to meet the needs of the teachers lot of learning that needs to happen. In 2011 - 2012, the and instructional coaches. At that time Ms. Abadi was the math coach and Ms. Garcia 168 implementing the Every - other - da y instructional model at her own dual language program, she advised the administration to replace its earlier Roller - coaster model with the Every - other - day approach. Despite her initial reluctance to introduce such a drastic change in the instructional app recommendations for the model to improve student performances influenced the ultimate decision - making process. Vasquez had suggested that students benefit more from consistent content and language inst ruction in b which is possible through the Every - other - day approach. When interviewed, Vasquez confirmed her belief that the every - other - - suited for the According to the new model, English and Spanish classroom teachers would teach lessons in the progression of the same topic every other day. Due to the need for partner teachers to teach the same content simultaneously in two languages, the approach would call for greater teacher collaboration in lesson planning and implementation. This approach not only brought about changes in instructional patterns, it also implied the need for adequate teacher support so that teachers in English and Spanish classrooms could better under stand and implement the best practices associated with the new model. The Shifting Program Goals and t he Evolving Professional Development During the 2011 - 2012 academic year , the school was undergoing large - scale programmatic changes due to the adoption of the Every - other - day instructional approach, as well as, high teacher turnover . Consequently, a large number of teachers, including both existing and newly appointed teachers, had to be trained on 169 the new methodologies of collaborative planning and execu ting instruction in two languages. The , discussed above, was introduced based on Freda Vasquez provide group coaching to the teachers an opportunity to try various instructional strategies together and learn through peer observation and feedback. - based instructional strategies during the group coaching sessions, ne ither of them clarified how the sessions helped to address the dual language aspect of the every - other - us planning and implementation of the Spanish and English teachers. However, that aspect of instruction was not revealed through the observations. T instructional support framework was evident in Abadi e changing program needs and goals . She observed how the focus of support framework changed in 2012 - 2013 due to a more stable teacher cohort based on the a ssum ption that the teachers continuing from the previous year did not need the continuing support on the foundational concepts of dual language instruction them know what we do what structures we use. , the focus of th at year had been on 170 developing instructional skills that are key to the successful implementa tion of the T he focus of the support framework shifted once again in 2013 - the Common Core Standards and the piloting of the associated PARCC assessments. With t he changes in the district policies the school had to focus on aligning its program goals with the new standards, and the support framework focused on supporting teachers prepare students to acquire the grade - level priority skills needed to meet the new standards. Ms. Garcia admitted that: understanding of the content that they are supposed to teach and making sure that our rigor is at the right level Despite the focus on content area instruction in 2013 - 2014, Garcia recognized that the program need ed to balance both the district requirements and mission of promoting biliteracy and bilingualism among students. She admitted the imp ortance of providing rigorous instruction , but with equal emphasis in both English and Spanish . Hence looking forward to the 2014 - 2015 school year, she projected the new goal to be: giving our teachers more strategies for working with second language lear making the language objective. The proposed professional development would, for the first time , address the language learning and vocabulary development demands in both languages to make the program inclusive of the learning needs of both E nglish and Spanish language 171 learners . In the following section I analyze how the professional support system described as s - address the identified program needs. Literacy consultant as a professi perceptions. advisory role, the interview with Vasquez revealed how she perceived her own more as the that are delivered twice or thrice a year. The workshop sessions usually start towards the beginning of the school year, with one or two follow - up sessions around role in determining the content and focus of her trainings. She noted that the trainings were Principal makes that decision based on what the in - house coach says. If the observations of the fifth grade English classroom teacher, Edwin Wilson, are considered in this regard, the targeted support on specific aspects of literacy instruction. The support, he claims, is derived from the learning cycles goes The 2014 grant document identifies several factors that helped shape Ms. 172 communic ated by the administration. These factors include the district standards (CCSS and the PARCC assessments) and the interim and annual student achievement data derived from tests (TRC xix , EDL xx , DIBELS, ANet xxi ) students take throughout the school year. The docum ent indicates that the recent focus of the workshops has - based expectations; to ongoing test results; and to match t he appropriate teaching strategies accordingly. Therefore Vasquez confirms, A lot of the professional development has been around looking at student work and figuring out what the students need needs and identifying the teachin g modalities to match that. She cites the example of using the individual reading assessments in evaluating of language proficiency. workshops. During my visit to one of the literacy workshops, I noticed Freda Vasquez modeling lessons for 2nd through 5 th grade teachers from English and Spanish cla ssrooms, as well as for the school interventionists. The focus was mainly on using PARCC practice items for individual grade levels and across grade levels, to help teachers develop strategies and sequences of teaching points (looking for evidence to answe r questions, annotating directions, reasoning, using connecting Vasquez used sample passages to help teachers identify the priority skills for 173 students at one grade leve l and then the next, to clarify their understanding of the vertical alignment of standards across grades. Teachers from the fourth and fifth grade levels were paired together to help them understand the skills that needed to transfer from one grade level t o the next. The skills included the ability to annotate directions and questions in order to provide answers using relevant evidence; the ability to understand the purpose of reading a passage; and the ability to connect reasoning and evidence to provide a solution. The following day, Ms. Vasquez would be training Kindergarten teachers and instructional aides on preparing and teaching guided reading lessons, and on the use of informational texts for reading. The purpose of this training was to help teacher s identify the knowledge and skill - sets that students will need in order to perform at a grade level, later on. Part of her visit also consisted of coaching the teachers are f acing and necessary approaches to address them. Ms. Vasquez also conducts follow - The contribution of the mathematics consultant . Since the 2008 - 2009 brought in math consultants to train teachers on effective implementation of the curriculum. As noted in previous chapters, Singapore Math combines the emphasis on fluency in basic math facts with a deep conceptual understanding by moving from the concrete manipulative stage through the pictorial representation stage to the abstract conceptual level. This progression in learning requires the skill of 174 form ing concepts by moving through the three stages of concrete, pictorial and the - solving skills. The m ath consultant at Spring Valley Dove Lane was not available for interview. However, it was gathered from interviews with the teachers, administrators and coaches that the consultant visits the school 2 - 3 times a year to support teachers on math instruction . Previously, he had provided support exclusively with implementing the Singapore Math curriculum. But since the standards, his sessions have combined the Singapore Math and Engage New York teaching the content of Singapore Math curriculum. The curriculum website describes the consultant as an experienced and award - winning teacher, recognized for his succes s in improving student achievement in Title I xxii schools through the Singapore Math programs who has worked on implementing the program with over 30 schools across the United St ates (Curriculum website). form of lesson studies. During these sessions he works with the teachers to plan a apply the plan through direct classroom instruction. Garcia also added that following the adoption of the new district standards, the consultant has supported teachers with understanding the vertical alignment of the math content standards across grades: 175 rd , 4 th and 5 th the standards at 1 st grade through 5 th grade to see how it articulates all the way up. stud observation, the consultant introduces teachers to the vertical alignment of standards across grades. The - - A - Instructional Needs The earlier sections of this chapter reveal how the professional development planners at the school level primarily the administrators and the instructional coaches prov ided teacher support aligned to their view of the evolving program need - based system (where) we look at the staff each year and assess what the needs of the current staff PD was specific to meet the needs of helping the teachers learn all of the needs of our curricular models that are teacher - we ask (consultants) to do something based on what our school - wide goa ls are. - - and instruction evaluation data der ived from classroom observations. staff needs on shaping the annual program plans (including curricular, instructional, 176 and PD models); on the other hand, she emphasized the strong influence of district standards and expectations on the change of the program goals. The presence of various factors that affect the nature and quality of the support structure for the teachers makes it is imperative to ask how teachers perceive the relev ance of the framework the ways in which the framework has addressed their needs and challenges, the agents who contribute to effective teacher learning, and the extent to - called - b Perceptions of teachers on needs - based professional support. I used fram ework. Teachers were asked to explain the relevance and effectiveness of the support they received and their suggestions for improving the system. In general, all the four teachers interviewed Edwin Wilson and Sylvia Sanchez at the fifth grade level and Em ily Miller and Santiago Romero, at the third grade level had a positive viewpoint about the impact of the training they received from the math and literacy approach, their percep tions of the relevance of the training seem to vary due to different factors their past experiences, their use of a specific language for instructional purpose, and their stance about the challenges associated with the Every - other - day approach to dual lang uage instruction. These are discussed in greater detail below. 177 Perceptions of the third grade Spanish teacher, Santiago Romero. designed professional development program and in order to offer its own. Spring Valley Dove Lane had brought in consultants to provide instructional support to teachers in math and literacy since 2009 - 2010. However, the district approved the ional support program, in 2013 - 2014. According to Santiago Romero, the third grade teacher, the new program were successful and meaningful for the teachers. Here, Mr. Romero does n ot refer to the benefits derived from the literacy and math consultants; rather he recounts the support teachers receive from the literacy coach especially those who are (language) learning, to improve their instruction on vocabulary development, and to provide guidance on developing stud research in bilingual education shows the central importance of metalinguistic awareness in dual language instruction to help students reflect on and manipulate the structural features of a language (Jacobson, 1963 cited by Roberts, 2011; Bowey, 1988; Garton & Pratt, 1989) . For Mr. Romero, the metalinguistic awareness is 178 He explained that for the first time Spanish teachers a t Spring Valley Dove Lane received such targeted instructional support from the literacy coach during the learning cycles. In his view, this opportunity has been a crucial element of the However, when specifical ly asked about other elements of the program, Mr. Romero also recognized the role of the math and literacy consultants in supporting the respective curricula on which they t ffective instructional engage teachers in reflective practice and wishes that the administrators as well as the providers of instructional support within the program would also adopt that illustrated on Tables 4 and 5, are emphasized i instructional demands that goes beyond the limits of district - assigned helps support the acquisition of content knowledge, without an emphasis on the language acquisition aspect of instruction that has to occur in a dual language setting. 179 profession This, according to him, created barriers for teachers in successfully realizing those expectatio ns and implementing the best practices in a classroom setting despite the support from the professional developers. He believes that in order to make the teacher learning process a more successful endeavor, administrators need to identify and clearly commu nicate the gaps identified during classroom observations. that any bilingual school shou Perceptions of the third grade English Teacher, Emily Miller . When asked ou consultant: Principal, and expertise. familiarity with stu 180 have a prior background in bilingual instruction needed support in addressing the challenges associated with dual language instruction and had difficulties with - difficulties internalizing the strategies that the consultant shared during her workshop, and struggled to incorporate them in their instruction. Teachers at Spring Valley Dove Lane are not required to have prior experiences in dual language settings. Hence many lack the necessary understanding and ability to teach using adequate second language instructional strategies in a b ilingual setting. Since this gap is not addressed by the literacy consultant, teachers lacking such backgrounds often find it challenging to transition Regarding the math consultant, Ms. Mil ler notes that he lacks a dual expected to help teachers with grasping the math concepts as align ed to the district standards. However, in her view, the attempt to combine the earlier Singapore Math curriculum with the new Engage New York curriculum has minimized the relevance - is overtly at different proficiency levels. When asked, how the consultant could assist teachers with the scaffolding strategies and the modifications, Ms. Miller makes an interesting observation. She notes: 181 The idea is that the instructional coach will help with that , but I have just learned to do it on my feet. This observation aligns with what San tiago Romero had previously mentioned about the envisioned and the enacted roles of the literacy coach she bridges the gap in the dual language aspect of content instruction. These observations emphasize the ways the school is trying to address the need to support dual language instruction using district - assigned agents, rather than the school - l responsibilities between the consultants and the literacy instructional coach illustrated in Ta bles 4 and 5 is once again confirmed, indicating the differences between the envisioned and enacted roles of the school and the district agents. Perceptions of the fifth grade Spanish Teacher, Sylvia Sanchez. Ms. efforts to help all teachers understand the model of bil ingual instruction its value in student learning by setting high expectations for all language learners and believing in the abilities of both English and Spanish language learners. However, speaking of the consultants, like Ms. Miller, Ms. Sanchez too re grets the English - heavy nature of their support and the lack of attention to Spanish 182 instruction. She believes that the Spanish teachers at her school seek instructional tell me how you did it in English, so that we can do it in Span ish partner teachers f ailed to improve the collaborative efforts among teachers needed to successfully implement the Every - other - day instruction model. Ms. Sanchez claimed that due to the lack of balanced support from the literacy consultant in both the languages, she and her E nglish partner teacher were unable to apply the strategies they learned from the literacy workshops. She admits: we decided not to do it partner did not feel comfortable enough to do it. Ms. Sanchez feels that the ir inability to use the support from the literacy consultant programs expecting teachers to benefit from them in improving their instruction. This is context, it is impor Edwin Wilson did not have a traditional teaching license. He had been trained preparation in second language acquisition strate gies. His only exposure to bilingualism has been through his earlier experiences while working in Latin American countries and with Hispanic communities in the United States. Sanchez felt that the collaborative relationship that she shared with her partner , helped improve the alignment of the Spanish and English lessons they taught. However, 183 there were still some gaps in addressing the needs of second language learners in the English classroom that she thought, could have been bridged through better guidanc e from the literacy consultant, which, unfortunately that did not occur. Regarding the math consultant Sylvia Sanchez noted that his training lessons ce, she thought, the consultant was unable to address the language learning objectives underlying a math content lesson; instead he provided omitting the ESL or the second l anguage strategies. Despite the absence of an emphasis on language development in these trainings, Sanchez found the math were helpful since the consultant modeled lessons in real classroom settings, unlike the workshop setting of the literacy consultant. This approach provided teachers with opportunities to observe and ask questions about instructional strategies that they are learning and trying to implement. Teachers cou ld also receive direct feedback during these sessions, which both Spanish and English teachers were able to use in developing mathematical concepts. internal professional support was mostly made in relation to the consultants, rather than the instructional coaches. She referred to the instructional coaches only when did not link the support systems of th e school and the district. Instead, she focused 184 on the ways in which the math and the literacy consultants influenced her and her I hope the trainers that come here, really understan d and share and give us resources in both languages. xxiii and that is going to open a lot of eyes. confirm that the school - appointed agents for in structional support do not address - oriented. She hopes that in future teacher learning would involve more elaborate trainings on bilingual instruction strategies. For her, the Two - way Instructional Observation Protocol or TWIOP holds the promise to mend that gap. Perceptions of the fifth grade English Teacher, Edwin Wilson. In Mr. sessions team, consisting of the Assistant Principal and the instructional coaches, gathers teacher input every week, during collaborative learning cycles: s o that the y know what our concerns a consultants to address weaknesses in the areas that teachers have identified. Edwin Wilson finds the math consul describes the 3 - 4 day math training sessions as consisting of activities centering on lesson plan design and delivery under peer and a dministrator observation. These activities are often followed by a debriefing session when the consultant 185 demonstrates how a mathematical concept may be developed using the Singapore s. through the proc esses step - by - step so that teachers are able to understand how the reading and writing skills of students may be improved to address the district standards using this literacy curriculum. Unlike the other three teachers, Wilson did not bring up the issue s related to the importance of developing metalinguistic awareness among all language learners or the English - observations did confirm the fact that the emphasis of the consultant - designed trainings w as mostly on the content, rather than the language element of instruction. This reinforced what the other teachers have also recognized a critical gap in teacher learning about effective dual language instruction. Mr. Wilson emphasized the need for impr oved intervention techniques to address individual learning needs of students , like spending more time supporting how teachers could address individual learning needs of students. In his view, gaps in both content - related and language - related learning coul d be bridged through targeted interventions. His observations about effective instruction and teacher learning needs sheds light on how some English classroom teachers are able to relate to the content aspect of instruction, more than the language aspect. These have implications for school administrators and designers of professional learning 186 to ensure that English classroom teachers are engaged on the language acquisition aspects of instruction as well, especially if they are part of a dual language progra m where every student is a second language learner. respective backgrounds, earlier experiences, and use of language for instruction on their perceived instructional needs and chall enges. Edwin Wilson is a native English speaker who received his education mostly in English and hence has a sound grasp English - only workshops as both relevant and effect ive. On the other hand, despite challenges are different. Her background in Spanish language learning and international development is reflected in her recognition of the lac k of support and the need to emphasize the language - related aspect of bilingual instruction in the Of the two Spanish classroom teachers, Santiago Romero was born and brought up in the United States. Despite being a native speaker of Spanish, his school experiences are rooted in a transitional bilingual education program in a Hispanic - dominant school community. In that program he received instruction purely in English after transitioning out of Spanish starting at the fourth grade level. His command over the use of English as an academic language is stronger than other native Spanish - speaking teachers at Spring Valley Dove Lane, like Sylvia Sanchez, who emigrated from a Spanish speaking country and did not grow up l earning English. Thus, despite being native speakers of Spanish, Mr. Romero and Ms. 187 workshops in different ways and based on different criteria. Although the teachers identified different instructional challenges, they all agreed on one aspect that the assistance from the instructional coaches and the consultants. However, none of the observations indicated active teacher involvement in the process of developing the program plan and instructional support framework. Continuing the Quest for Better Professional Supp ort Bridging the Gap The mixed perceptions of teachers about the effectiveness and/or relevance meaning of their experience based on their perceived instructional needs an d challenges. They also raise important questions about how past experiences of teachers with or without dual language backgrounds tend to approach the act of the different challenges they encounte r, the strategies they tend to adopt or avoid, the support they ask for, and the changes they wish to see in the future. The findings from the conversations with the planners (administrators), the providers (consultants), and the recipients (teachers) of support program indicate differences in perceptions and approaches to developing a relevant program that would be aligned with the school goals and help attain the district requirements. The findings seem to reveal how teachers perceive the relevance of each kind of instructional support based on their focus on the content 188 vis - à - vis language aspect. They identify the expertise of each provider in relation to adopted e instructional change required to attain the new district standards through My findings in this cha claims about the involvement of teachers as active participants in the process of developing the instructional support framework, teachers did not share the same views about their agency in the process . Such divergences indicate a missing link - envisioned design for instructional support illustra ted in Table 4 gets enacted in a different way, as represented in Table 5 , where the roles of the school - designated agents and the district - appointed agents get reversed. This gives rise to critical questions about why a dual language program like Spring V alley Dove Lane does not use its consultants to address its language - based demands. Is it because the funds used towards employing the consultants are provided by the district? If so, are the schools mandated to use the funds only to attain the district sp ecified goals, which does not necessarily include supporting Spanish instruction in bilingual schools? 189 CHAPTER SEVEN students need to know, do, feel , and think and as they learn what the school can - Mooney & Mausbach, 2008, p. 36. Research indicates the effectiveness of intensive, targeted, en gaging, and demonstrative professional learning environments that are grounded in the initiated in many schools and districts have been focusing on teacher learning as the pathway leading to improved student achievement. There is a growing consensus in the field that schools that are successful in promoting student learning often function as professional learning communities (DuFour & Eaker, 1998; Little, 1997). As part of these learning communities teachers should get the opportunities to understand the elements of the systemic change as a first step towards transforming their practice (Finley, 2000). However, teachers participating in many district - designed professional d evelopment programs continue to be subjected to fragmented and often irrelevant forms of teacher learning (Darling - Hammond et al., 2009). Despite extensive research and continuous efforts to improve teacher learning, teachers continue to struggle with the implementation of new knowledge and skills (Ermeling, 2010) in complex instructional situations. For teachers in bilingual settings, the main struggles are commonly around communication, insufficient planning time, varying academic levels of students and i nadequate 190 instructional resources and support. Research indicates that poorly planned and executed professional development programs offered by uninformed presenters ( Gandara, Maxwell - Jolly, and Driscoll, 2005) who are ignorant of the teaching - learning nee ds and challenges in bilingual settings (Tellez & Waxman, 2006) are the root cause of these challenges. My research on the teacher learning experiences and opportunities in a dual language bilingual program echo many of the above - mentioned claims made by existing research. It also indicates how differences in individual backgrounds and of the value, challenges and approaches involved in dual language bilingual education . Th e study raises questions about how the surrounding contextual complexities institutional goals, policy structures, and actor perceptions and relationships within an institutional structure affect the learning experiences of teachers in a dual language envi ronment. Additionally, the findings from the study indicate the importance of alignment between program goals and program elements (such as the standards, curriculum, student and teacher assessments, and instructional support framework) in forming the basi s of a coherent system that enhances the possibilities of student achievement. The sequence in which I have presented data gathered from my research is intentionally arranged to unravel the institutional dynamics that shape the process of designing an inst ructional support framework that facilitates effective teacher learning, implementation of the framework, and the resulting learning experiences in the dual language context. Despite wide variations in the forms and structure of 191 existing dual language bili ngual programs in the United States, the study confirmed the universality of certain issues around biliteracy and biculturalism in the monolingual national education environment, which continues to be a common battle for all of them. Research shows a clos (Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock, 2001; Marzano 2007; Reeves, 2010) . These perceptions and beliefs are nd knowledge and prior life experiences (Brofenbrenner, 1998). During the course of my study, a close connection was found program mission, instructional and learning goals, instructional challenges, and need for support. Throughout the study individual perceptions have been used as the primary lens for examining various aspects of teacher learning experiences and program design, in reference to the greater educational context in which these occue. Opfer and Pedder (2011) have used the complexity theory framework to conceptualize teacher professional development as a learning system resulting from a combination of the teacher, the institutional context and the learning activity . I professional learning occurs at Spring Valley Dove Lane, what such learning aims to address, and how it becomes a function of envisioned goals and institutional reality. Finally, coherence to conceptualize the importance of the alignment of program elements in effective student learning and success of school improvement reforms. 192 Review of Key Findings and Impl ications Influence of prior experiences and backgrounds on perceptions and program development: Its implications for the school and the district. In my experiences of the sc hool administrators and their mission of equal access to bilingual education as a key to ensuring equity and success in education for all students. At the early stages of adopting the dual language program, convictions about the sociological advantages of beliefs. The vision was to develop every student as a language learner and to prepare them as global thinkers and citizens. envisioned conditi ons for success and equity in learning, it seemed to hold a different value for the four teachers that I interviewed. Some perceived bilingual education as a gateway to inculcate cultural tolerance and respect for diversity, while others perceived it as an opportunity to promote collaboration in an trainee, or a professional were strongly reflected in their perceptions of why they valued dual language education and their com mitment to attain the program goals. An institutional mission not only provides the purpose for an educational pursuit (Wiggins and McTighe, 2007), it also influences decisions about program planning and design. Different approaches and understanding of a mission might result in the ways different individuals and institutions pursue the selection of curriculum, instruction, assessment, and professional development designs in order 193 to create the envisioned educational environment (ibid). In my study, intervi ews conducted with school personnel revealed the important role played by the school leadership team in program planning and development. It also highlighted the influence of individual perceptions and practices on the implementation of the approach to pursuing the bilingual mission while balancing the district standards and expectations for student a differentiated instruction, an essential component of bilingual instruction, was shifted towards increased instructional rigor, which is an essential aspect of the district adopted Common Core State Standards. C onsequently, the focus of the language instructional strategies towards developing content - based knowledge and grade level skills. Moreover, the time allocated for language use in instruction also evolved with the newly adopted Every - other - day model. This was the result of the literacy population may be effectively addressed according to her own experie nce. The consultant served as an advisor to the school leadership team; hence her perceptions and understanding of successful bilingual instructional had a significant learning, the alignment of the instructional practices to district standards to meet district 194 expectations, rather than to align instruction to the bilingual mission of the school. Hence, during the du ration of the study it was revealed that teachers lacking prior experiences and expertise in bilingual instruction faced instructional challenges that were left unaddressed by the instructional support programs both at the school and the district levels. The school district within which Spring Valley Dove Lane Elementary is located does not have any certification requirements for teachers who are teaching in bilingual programs. Although a certification in English as a second language instruction is encoura ged, it is not required of teachers entering these programs. Besides, the district has a fast track certification program for candidates who do not have a traditional certification in teacher education. The fast track program claims to transform profession als into effective teachers through an eight - week pre - service program centered on field experience and focusing on core instructional skills developed through class - room - based coursework . This is followed by a period of practice teaching with peers as well as with students in summer school classrooms. The focus of this program is to equip candidate s on aspects of classroom management, content instruction, high academic expectations for students. Implications for the district planners . Two among the four te achers I Santiago Romero, the third grade Spanish classroom teacher and Edwin Wilson, the fifth grade English classroom teacher. According to both Mr. Romero and Mr. Wilson the program was s uperficial and focused mainly on the content of math and reading instruction. They both wished that the pre - service program provided better 195 instruction on theories of learner development and learning in order to equip them to work effectively with students with diverse abilities, backgrounds, and needs. - service programs, all the instructional support program designed by th e Central Professional Development approach to providing instructional support to teachers in bilingual contexts, both at the pre - and in - service levels. Implications for plan ners at the school level. Several concerns also teachers to bridge gaps in their instructional practices. As noted previously, teachers came with various linguistic and educ ational backgrounds, and with different levels of expertise in bilingual instruction. Besides, the evolving curriculum and instructional approaches that were adopted to align with the new district policies demanded new skill sets among teachers. These invo lved development of communicative and collaborative abilities to facilitate effective instructional planning of the content, simultaneously in two languages. However, these skills have that mainly consisted of workshops facilitated by consultants in mathematics and these workshops, the language, communication, and collaboration aspects of successful b ilingual instruction are often left out. According to the four teachers, 196 development of bilingual skil ls. The complexity of the context of professional development design: Implications for developing teacher learning systems . Findings from interviews mission is not the sole deter program development process. While the institutional mission determines the long - term education purpose, the program goals target short - term objectives based on the changes in needs and conditions that occ ur within and outside of the program. In the case of Spring Valley Dove Lane, internal factors like the rate of teacher turn - have been determinants of its short term program goal s. Similarly, external factors such as change in state or district level policies regarding student and teacher evaluation systems have affected its program goals in several ways. What researchers (Clarke & Hollingwood, 2002; Clarke & Peter, 1993; & Clark make up a complex learning system. Due to the close interdependence between student learning and in structional quality, progress in student achievement can get disrupted due to the gap in teacher preparedness resulting from teacher turnover. language acquisition is one of the co re expectations, new teachers who may not have the relevant training would need additional support. This in turn would call for 197 facilitating teacher learning. Findings from this study reveal that Spring Valley Dove However, it is important to understand the influence of the greater socio - political context within which programs similar to Spring Valley Dove Lane are nested. In Figure 4 I have illustrated the dynamic relationship among the various factors that influence institutional program planning and implementation. Figure 3 : Interdependence of elements in a complex teach er learning system Dual language bilingual schools often do not receive adequate funds from the district to support their programmatic needs, due to the predominantly English - only focus of the U.S. education environment that affects policies at the distric t level and 198 ultimately affects how dual language schools are supported. As Figure 4 demonstrates, the ripple effects of such education policies and systemic reforms initiated at national, state and district levels have a significant impact on the program i mplementation at the school level. The No Child Left Behind Act (2001) brought in broad changes in the policy orientation of educating language minority students in the United States leading to the disappearance of the public discourse about bilingualism i n education (Crawford, 2004; Garcia, 2006; Hornberger, 2006; Wiley & Wright, 2004). The ripple effects of the federal legislation can be noticed in renaming of federal and district offices xxiv and policy acts xxv to indicate the shift away from the support of bi lingual instruction (Garcia 2009). The changes have also removed the emphasis from preparing teachers for bilingual education to preparing teachers of English language learners. As findings from my study, as well as, existing literature in the field indic ate, districts often do not require second language preparation of teachers as a criterion classrooms (Lindholm - Leary & Genessee, 2010). Moreover, district standards and studen t assessments largely focus on developing English - proficiency of students as a priority skill necessary for academic success (ibid). Consequently, district funding for instructional support are often directed to support education programs that promote Engl ish - language proficiency for all students, rather than dual language proficiency for all students. As Olivia Nunez, the dual language planner in my study 199 funds to support teacher professional development. The distri ct policies about funding programs are, in turn, dependent on the support received from the federal Title III program that funds initiatives directed only at English - language learners. Since dual language bilingual programs serve English language and non - E nglish language learners, districts are often faced with conflicts around the ownership of funding and supporting these programs. g to buy the books in Spanish for (Nunez). the elements of the teacher learning system. On the one hand, the ripple effects of a change in a Federal policy about language education can be felt in the classrooms professional support needed to address the demands of bilingual educati on. On the other hand, teacher turnover in a dual language program during a particular school program planning process and use of internal and external resources to address the gap in teaching and learning. This can also influence the way institutions and individual professionals might prioritize the pursuit of bilingualism as an educational goal within a largely monolingual learning environment. 200 In this cyclic process of c hange and interdependence the goals, aspirations and expectations set by the greater socio - political context of education will affect the individual experiences of teaching and learning at the classroom level. This, in turn, will affect how school administ rators will prioritize the need for preparing students and teachers. The prior experiences and professional preparation of the teachers will affect how they perceive the challenges associated with dual language instruction, as the school struggles to cope with the goals set by the district. In this context, the call for institutional autonomy in regards to curriculum and professional development design and implementation can be viewed as a culmination of the inter - mission and the - learning expectations. Existing research on the effects of local educational policies on teacher human, social, physical, and cultural can affect due to the impact the and often serving low - income and minority communities are likely to hire teachers who lack experience (Lankford et al, 2002; Sh ields et al, 2001); these districts are also likely to adopt state - performance on standardized tests (Hoffman, Assaf, & Paris, 2001; McNeil, 2000; Moon, Callahan, & Tomlinson, 2003) among other things. B esides, their professional cultures influence the amount of and quality of professional support teacher s receive ( Achin stein, Ogawa, & Speiglman, 2004) . 201 T he 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress on mathematics and reading indicate s that S pring V alley D ove L ane wide student achievement gaps between its white and African - American students and between its white and Hispanic students. These findings have prompted rapid changes in the s , which inclu de among other things, adoption of new academic standards (the Common Core State Standards) and replacement of the traditional teacher evaluation system with individual value added measures xxvi . T he ad option of the new standards has had direct infl uences on t design due to the need to develop new program goals. These goals a re the bases on which the school curriculum is revised in order to ensure alignment with the new standards and to meet the required academic rigor. The standards also pro mpted the need for teachers to acquire a better understanding of the progression of the standards across grade levels ; and the curricular revisions demanded modification of instructional approaches. All these changes had major implications for t he kind of support teachers needed as they tried to balance the bilingual mission performance implying the interdependence of the elements and parts that make up a complex learning sy stem. Where the individual perceptions meet institutional reality: Implications for program coherence leading to effective professional learning. The discussions with teachers about their perceptions about the program always centered on their endeavors to attain the bilingual mission through their daily classroom experiences driven by their unique view about the value of bilingual 202 education. The descriptions they shared about their past experiences and their drive to join a bilingual school revealed a pass ion each shared about the need for educational equity and about the place of language in education. Some of the teachers were comparatively new to the program and some were veterans. Besides their preparation, understanding and approaches to second languag e education were different as well. However, as a result of working within the same institutional framework there were some common and some unique challenges that each of them emphasized on. e indicative instructional structure, on the other. Balancing the demands from the school and the district program goals implied that teachers had to meet the expectations in relation the of bilingual instruction vis - à - Some teachers perceived that the changes in district standards created a pressure on schools to adop - result teachers often found it challenging to adapt the curriculum according to the linguistic and content - level proficiencies of students. These modifications seemed to demand an increased use of s proficiency levels adding to the complexity of addressing the content proficiency. 203 Moreover, the fact that the teachers were not able to access adequate instructional support during the curriculum transition possibly affected the way they perceived the effectiveness of the new curriculum and its implications for instructional adjustments. Lack of communication from the administrators about the new goals and expectations associated with the new curriculum crea ted a gap between how the school leadership and the school educators perceived the instructional challenges and their respective solutions. While the administrators believed that the teachers should be able to modify the lessons using the new approach base enforcing its policies and standards. Besides the challenges related to the curriculum changes, teachers also - allocation for Spanish and English instruction, which required greater teacher collabo ration. This shift also required greater time commitments on the part of all teachers, improved communication between partner teachers in English and Spanish classrooms, and a greater understanding among English teachers (who often lacked preparation on se cond language instruction) to adopt second language acquisition strategies in instruction to facilitate learning of Spanish language learners. One of the many challenges teachers at S pring V alley D ove L ane seemed to face is the lack of adequate opportuniti es to exchange ideas and learn from their structure and protocol that did 204 not provide adequate opportunities for teachers to come together as a group and form a learning community where they can share ideas on effective teaching practices and concerns . Different teachers recognized different instructional challenges as ways to attain their perceived instructional goals. Interestingly, in most cases the perceived challenges were found to be associated wi th the kind of preparation or support that instruction is reflected on how he/she perceives the incorporation of differentiation strategies in instruction as a major ch understanding of bilingual instructional strategies is seen to influence what he/she believes as an adequate approach to Spanish literacy instruction that needs to be differentiated according to proficiency levels as well as grade levels something that other Spanish teachers, the literacy coach and the administrators were unable to identify. Hence, the need to adopt an adequate literacy curriculum to fit the language learning skills and demands of students according t o grade levels, remained unaddressed. The most crucial among these challenges identified by all and the teachers about the instructional goals and professional expectations. Implications for coherence in program development. One of the core findings of this study is a mismatch between goals and expectations at different levels of the learning system between school and district level goals and expectations about learning and i 205 support; and mismatch between envisioned and implemented roles of professional development providers. These findings have significant implications for establishing coherence in the instructional support framework. My conversations with professionals both at the school and district levels on teacher learning through instructional support frameworks converged on the issue support system are largely embedded in what Newmann et al. (2001) had conceived of as instructional program coherence a set of interrelated programs for students and educators that guid es the common framework for curriculum, instruction, assessment, and learning environment. The gap in the case of the learning experiences of teachers at Spring Valley Dove Lane is related to the lack of coherence in the school and district program develop ment. The link between the content component and linguistic component of effective bilingual education and instruction were missing in the instructional support framework. Research in the field of professional development has documented how alignment amon g various organizational elements is key to attaining school improvement. Unity of purpose among the different agents involved in the administration, planning and implementation of classroom instruction and related professional support; and clarity of inst itutional goals and shared values about student and teacher learning brought about by consistent communication at all levels, have been documented as a way of establishing institutional program coherence (Newmann et al, 2001). 206 In a broader education conte external district policies and standards are also found to be key determinants of in a perfect world, alignment of the different be seen as the foundation for institutional improvement, learning systems are often mired by contradictions in policy and practice, and differences in envisioned goals and actual implementation. Differences emerge as perceptions collide within an institution and among institutions in a broader context; as agents functioning at different institutional levels socialize to form communities to gather resources to support their perceived goals; and as discourses around the purpose and media of education diverge, rather than overlap. bridge the gap created by these differences. Complementary school and district support programs: Lessons for others in the field. Professional develope rs are the central actors in the continuum and mathematics that are brought in by the school administrators; the district appointed instructional coaches in math and litera cy that provide job - embedded District Office of Language Learning provide instructional support to teachers at Spring V alley D ove L ane in various ways. The support that they are able t o deliver is mainly the 207 these agents the scope of their support is largely molded a nd redefined by the administrators at the school level . This is reflected in t he Office of Language Learning and from the district - assigned literacy coach on issues related to dual language instruction and bilingual program development . As a contrast, the school has employed the math and literacy consultants to provide instructional support to wards attaining the district goals. Given the adequacy and availability of these resources, the school administr ation has tried to use them to strike a balance between attaining the program mission and district expectations . It is interesting to note how the school has been using district resources to support the language aspect of dual language instruction, while u sing its internally funded resources to support the content aspect. Such creative attempts at swapping roles of professional support providers at the school and district levels to suit program needs, can be great lessons for other bilingual programs faced with similar constraints. Although the school has adopted effective measures in the use of professional development agents and resources, one of its major weaknesses has been in engaging its teachers as active agents and resources to promote peer learning and creating a learning community within the school. Findings from the interviews portray teachers as passive recipients of the school instructional support program . Neither the teachers nor the school leadership perceive the former as active agents in developing and facilitating the experiences of teacher learning. There is also a severe lack of opportunities for direct peer support or mentoring. Th us, despite the 208 descri ption of the instructional support system as - based , in effec t the system lacked adequate representation of teacher needs. As the teachers have noted consistently the Assistant Principal has been responsible for making the decisions regarding teacher support determining the content and focus of the consultant - led wo rkshops, the coach - led learning cycles, and the dual language developer - led bilingual support. Consequently, important gaps in teacher learning identified by the teachers themselves such as the collaborative planning aspect of successful bilingual instruct ion, instructional support in math and literacy for Spanish classroom teachers are left out of the scope of support framework. Thus, when I tried to identify the ways in which the school program has been designed to accommodate the needs of its teachers t o help them attain the expectations related to dual language instruction, it is difficult to recognize a definite pattern. There is a mismatch between the claims about the program needs ims about the unique demands of the program as distinct from those of the district, their perceived expectations of instructional effectiveness, and their approaches to program implementation through curriculum, instruction and instructional support show a lack of alignment. The elements of their program design the frameworks for curriculum, instruction, assessment, and learning climate as well as the communication regarding program implementation indicate a lack the coherence. A ceptions about the instructional challenges and needs are not aligned with the perceptions and approaches of professional planners and developers, there is an indication of a major gap within the structure of the 209 instructional program. Such a gap often imp edes the successful attainment of the program goals. The school leadership needs to identify these gaps as a significant next steps in establishing a coherent and successful dual language bilingual program. T his study makes a uni que contribution to the fie ld through its findings on how the relevance of teacher learning (in a dual language program) tends to get defined primarily by the issue of language, rather than the format or source of the support system. The main concern here is related to equity in bil ingual education represented in the form of the nature of instructional support educators in dual language programs receive as th ey function in a primarily mono lingual broader education context. The cyclic nature and interdependence of the elements and ag ents involved in the teacher learning system have implications for professional development planners at both the district and the school levels. An understanding of how discrepancies in teacher support based on differences in ideologies driven by issues of language use in education can result in fragmentation of school development efforts is crucial in an environment that emphasizes heavily on accountability and performance. , calls for failure on all accounts , at every level, but most importantly for the learners, who are at the center of the debate. Limitations and Scope of the S tudy The most apparent limitation of this study is that it is a case of one dual language bilingual school in a district that has e ight bilingual schools. Hence the 210 findings from this study must be seen through the lens of this particular. The examination of the perceptions about professional development of teachers at SVDL are based on interviews with teachers, as well as, school adm inistrators, an independent PD consultants, the district planners responsible for designing PD for SVDL teachers, District Teacher Evaluator s who are responsible for evaluating teacher instructional quality and dual language PD providers at the district le vel. While I was able to interview the literacy PD consultant and observe her literacy workshop that same did not happen with the math consultant due to his unavailability. Moreover, given the scope of the study, I interviewed a total of two pairs of Span ish and English partner teachers from the third and fifth grade levels. The teachers were selected arbitrarily based on their availability. The intent was to compare the views of teachers across the two languages and across the two grade levels to understa nd the similarities and/or differences between how they perceived issues related to PD; the goal was also to understand whether the differences emerged due to grade level requirements, differences in their backgrounds, differences in approaches to bilingua l instruction, or due to differences in the language used for instruction. The diversity in the perceptions of teachers irrespective of the language they used or the grade levels they taught implies the need for further exploration involving greater number of teacher pairs from all grade levels. The findings based on the interview of four teachers cannot be taken as representative of how SVDL teachers experienced, perceived and used PD resources available to them based on what challenges they encountered. 211 While there were opportunities to observe multiple collaborative learning cycles during which coaches provided group support to teachers, I had limited opportunities to observe the workshops provided by consultants in mathematics and literacy. Due to the s hort time during which consultants held their workshops and lesson learning sessions, I was able to observe o nly one literacy workshop at the time of the study. Additiona l observations, mostly of the math workshops would have helped to better understand te math curriculum. Although the findings from the study would not allow making generalizations due to its limited scope, it raises important questions that provide opportunities for further research. Directions for Further R esearch Further research is warranted to enhance the findings of this study. In order to be more productive, the future study needs to be conducted to explore the aspect of teacher evaluation and feedback. This study already revealed that the provide district offices important information about instructional gaps and challenges existing in a school building or in a particular classroom. This is a viable wa y for the district to measure the validity and reliability of the assessment instrument. A future study could focus particularly on the instrument to determine whether the rubric, which is primarily based on an ESL framework, has the validity and reliabili ty to evaluate instructional effectiveness in a dual language bilingual setting. Findings from such a study could have significant implications about the 212 relevance of the feedback teachers receive based on the elements specified on the rubric and the profe ssional consequences of the evaluations for teachers. There is also a need to explore more deeply trends among dual language programs about their access and ability to use district provided funds for supporting bilingual instruction. It is important to kno w the implications of using district funds to promote bilingual education when the greater social and political contexts of education promote an English - only environment . 213 ENDNOTES 214 ENDNOTES i Spanish Preterite Verbs: The preterite tense is used to refer to action that occurred at a fixed point in time; actions in the past that were performed a specific number of times; actions that occur as part of a chain of events. ii PARCC : PARCC stands for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career. The new PARCC assessment is scheduled to replace the older district assessment in the 2014 - 2015 school year. The PARCC assessment is aligne d to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in English Language Arts (reading & writing) and Math. It is computer - based and requires students to think critically and solve real world problems. It is expected that t his new assessment will give students, par ents and teachers specific feedback about whether or not students are on track or off track for college and career and what extra support they need. District students in grades 3 - 8 and students enrolled in Algebra I, Geometry, and English I & II will take the PARCC assessment. iii All the names of the teacher and administrative staff, as well as those of consultants, and district personnel are pseudonyms to protect the identities of . iv District Teacher Evaluator: This is a position at the district level responsible for conducting impartial evaluations & observations of all district teachers. Following each observation, District Teacher Evaluators conduct a one - on - one conference with each teacher to dialogue about specific areas of development. They also provide targeted, content - specific feedback and resources to help improve effectiveness of classroom instruction. v ESEA Classifications: https://www.ed.gov/sites/default/files/demonstrating - meet - flex - definitions.pdf vi A bilingual strand is usually situated in an English - language mainstream public school much as a traditional bilingual program might be. But in a strand program two - way/ dual language bilingual instruction would be not be offered across the school but in one or two classrooms at each grade level. Whereas, a whole school program takes over the whole school site (Palmer, 2007). vii A ccording to this model, second language learning is expected to be carried out on the lines of the content - based ESL (English as a second language) approach whereby instruction is provided to all students in English to help ensure mastery of academic 215 conte nt areas (English/language arts, social studies, science and mathematics) - As stated on District website under ELL Programs and Support. viii Phonics is teaching students how to connect sounds of language with corresponding letters or groups of letters, as w ell as teaching them to blend the sounds of letters together to produce unknown words. Morphology is giving students the skills to study word patterns and structures of language, such as meaningful word parts (like root words, prefixes, etc.). ix Wilson Fun dations: http://www.wilsonlanguage.com/FS_PROGRAM_FUN.htm x Vertical alignment refers to developing and delivering standards, assessments, and curricula that prepare students for success in t he next grade level and beyond. xi The Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC): In keeping with the spirit of multistate collaboration that fueled the creation of the common core, states now have the opportunity to work t ogether to develop a shared assessment system to measure student learning against the CCSS. Three consortia of states have formed to apply for the assessment funds. The Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is a group of 26 states committed to building a next - generation assessment system for grades 3 through high school. The system will be anchored by college - and career - ready tests in high school, and will include a combination of end - of - year assessments and - c the system will include optional formative tests, starting in kindergarten. The system will also be completely computer based. Achieve is coordinating the work of PARCC. xii T he Dictado is a cross - language strategy that can be used in both Spanish literacy and literacy - based ESL. It is an adaptation of a methodology from Mexico and Central/South America. The Dictado is used within Literacy Squared to refine language arts skills in both S panish and English, and it can be used to teach spelling, conventions, and grammar. More importantly, it can be used to teach the skill of self - correction and metalanguage. A unique quality of this strategy involves teaching children how Spanish and Englis h are similar and different . xiii Literacy Squared: http://literacysquared.org/?page_id=15 xiv To ensure that the two languages are covered equally, variants of the 50:50 model Alternating Day, Half Day, an d Roller Coaster follow an alternating pattern of language instruction within a two - week cycle. In the Alternating Day model, classes alternate days using the target language and English. In the Half - Day 216 model, classes use the target language before lunch and English after lunch (or vice versa) each day. In the Roller Coaster model, classes using the Half - Day model switch the order each day so that instruction time in each language is more equally divided. All can be combined depending on the teachi ng and c lassroom configuration. xv Understanding student data is one of new district requirements for teachers to align instruction according to the standards in order to meet the gap in student learning . xvi The Fundations approach is generally recommended for all P &M schools irrespective of their second language instructional models ESL as well as whole - school/strand dual language programs xvi -- and subsequently, similar professional development opportunities. xvii In Guided Reading approach the teacher works with a small group of students who demonstrate similar reading behaviors and can read similar levels of texts ( Scholastic ). The purpose is to help students expand their reading strategies, focus on me aning, deal with difficult sentence structures and understand concepts and ideas. This is done by selecting books students can read with about 90 percent accuracy. xviii The Teaching and Learning Framework or TLC: beliefs about me asurable student achievement goals, the Teaching and Learning Framework provides a common language to discuss instructional practices and teacher actions. It also provides clear expectations for teachers and is used as an instrument in driving coherent, ro bust professional development, systems of support and evaluation. website documenti ng the Framework and related documents.] xix TRC or Text Reading Comprehension is an early reading formative assessment for grades K - 2 that was designed to help teachers understand student reading development by measuring progress on a range of skills, from fluency to comprehension. TRC enables teachers to collect detailed running records and assess student comprehension level. It provides teachers detailed information on the number and type of errors students make while reading. It also measures oral and wri tten comprehension of instructional level text. TRC is adminis tered up to three times a year. xx EDL or Evaluación del desarrollo de la lectura (English equivalent is Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA). It is administered to students at grade levels K - 6 and is used to monitor student growth and development and tailor instruction for individual student needs. It is designed for bilingual and dual 217 language classrooms and measures fluency, reading comprehension, non - fiction texts f eatures, and reading strat egies xxi ANet or The Achievement Network interim assessments are designed as assessments FO R learning that are often used by schools as tools to identify gaps in student mastery of skills and standards. ANet provides quarterly Performance on that interim and their sta xxii Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 6301 et seq.) is amended to read: Title I Improving the Academic A chievement of the Disadvantaged . The purpose of this title is to ensure that all childre n have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high - quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging State academic achievement standards and state academic assessments. For further details, refer to : http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/pg1.html xxiii TWIOP Two - way Instruction Observation Protocol. The school has planned to adopt this as another form of professional support for its teachers starting the 2014 - internal PD program due to paucity of funds. xxiv The Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Language Affairs (OBEMLA) renamed as Office of English Language Enhancem ent & Academic Achievement for LEP Students (OELA). xxv Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (the Bilingual Education Act) replaced by Title III (Language Instruction for Limited English Proficient & Immigrant Students). xxvi Individual Value - added (IVA) student achievement data is a way of estimating e impact of other factors, composition. 218 APPENDIX 219 APPENDIX Types of Education al Programs for Emergent Bilinguals [Garcia & Kliefgen, 2010, pp. 26 - 27] Table 6 : Types of Educational Programs for Emergent Bilinguals PROGRAM LANGUAGE USED IN INSTRUCTION COMPONENTS DURATION GOALS Submersion (Sink or Swim) 100 % English Mainstream education; no special help with English: no qualified teachers Throughout K - 12 schooling linguistic assimilation (shift to English only) ESL Pull Out (Submersion plus ES L) 90 - 100% in English: may include some home language support o r not Mainstream education: students pulled out for 30 - 45 minutes of ESL daily. Teachers certified in ESL As needed Linguistic assimilation; remedial English ESL Push - in 90 - 100% in English: may include some home language support or not Mainstream educat ion; ESL teacher works alongside the subject teacher as needed. Teachers certified in ESL As needed As needed 220 PROGRAM LANGUAGE USED IN INSTRUCTION COMPONENTS DURATION GOALS Structured Immersion (Sheltered English, Content - based ESL) 90 - 100% in English: may include some home language support or not Subject matter instruction at students' level of English; students grouped for instruction. Teachers certified in ESL, should have some training in immersion 1 - 3 years Linguistic assimilat ion; exit to mainstream education Traditional Bilingual Education (Early - Exit Bilingual Education) 90 - 50% home language initially; gradually decreasing to 10% or less Initial literacy usually in home language; some subject instruction in home language; ES L and subject matter instruction at students' level of English; sheltered English subject instruction. Teachers certified in bilingual education 1 - 3 years; students exit as they become proficient in English Linguistic assimilation; English acquisition w ithout falling behind 5 - 6 years academically Developmental Bilingual Education (Late - Exit Bilingual Education) 90% home language initially; gradually decreasing to 50% or less by grade 4 or 50/50 from beginning Initial literacy in home language; some sub ject instruction in home language; ESL initially and subject matter instruction at students' level of English; teachers certified in bilingual education 5 - 6 years Bilingualism and biliteracy; academic achievement in English 221 PROGRAM LA NGUAGE USED IN INSTRUCTION COMPONENTS DURATION GOALS Two - Way Bilingual Education (Two - Way Dual Language, Two - Way Immersion, Dual Immersion, Dual Language) 90/10 model: 90% language other than English, 10% English; 50/50 model: parity of both languages English speakers and speakers of a LOTE taught literacy and subjects in both languages; peer tutoring. 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