Teaching in Multilingual Classrooms: A Teacher's Guide to Context, Process, and Content

Comprehensive -- yet not overwhelming -- this book provides a basic framework for teaching in classroom settings that are multilingual and multicultural. Written specifically from an educational perspective and using a balance of contemporary theory, research, and practice, it explores different dimensions of context, process, and content -- as well as assessment and evaluation -- elated to pedagogy that empowers language minority students. It is accessible and appropriate for teachers with little or no background in ESL or bilingual education as well as for specialists. Captures a teacher's vision of the concepts and strategies that make a difference for language minority students. Synthesizes contemporary scholarship complemented by strategies and techniques that teachers can readily apply in K-12 classrooms. This book reveals the complexity of the cultural and linguistic influences on teaching and learning processes -- and helps teachers conceptualize the interrelationships involved in relation to dimensions common to all classroom settings. It addresses the needs of all teachers -- elementary and secondary, beginning and experienced, prospective specialists and non-specialists, those in urban, suburban, and rural settings. It explores classrooms that are multilingual and multicultural from a tripartite perspective. It describes multilingual classrooms and explains why a focus on context, process, and content is central to providing instructional programs that empower language minority students.