Educating Emergent Bilinguals: Policies, Programs, and Practices for English Learners (Language and Literacy Series)

Product Description

Now available in a revised and expanded edition, this accessible guide introduces readers to the issues and controversies surrounding the education of language minority students in the United States. What makes this book a perennial favorite are the succinct descriptions of alternative practices for transforming our schools and students’ futures, such as building on students’ home languages and literacy practices, incorporating curricular and pedagogical innovations, using proven-effective approaches to parent engagement, and employing alternative assessment tools.
The authors have updated their bestseller to reflect recent shifts in policies, programs, and practices due to globalization and the changing economy; demographic trends; and new research on EL pedagogy. A totally new chapter highlights multimedia and multimodal instructional possibilities for engaging EL students.
This Second Edition is essential reading for all teachers of language-minority students, as well as principals, superintendents, and policymakers.
Book Features:

Uses the most up-to-date research findings to demonstrate how ignoring children’s bilingualism perpetuates inequities in their schooling.
Points out the problems with current policies and practices and proposes more effective alternative methods.
Contrasts the common view of bilingualism as either subtractive or additive with more current understandings of individual bilingualism in translanguaging theories.
Highlights how multimodalities form part of students’ communicative repertoire and shows teachers how they can leverage this to engage students.

Review

“…we recommend this text without hesitation and with a particular nod to its call to action; rather than simply teaching the reader about inequities, this book prompts us to do something, inciting change for the good of all.”
―Teachers College Record

“This is a must-read not only for teachers of language-minority students, but also for school principals, policymakers, teacher educators, and researchers looking to promote socially-just, equitable education for emergent bilingual students.”
―International Journal of Multilingualism

“An excellent resource for policymakers, researchers, and educators who are interested in taking specific action to improve the education of English learners.”
―Linguistics and Education (of first edition)

Review

“In the second edition of this important book, García and Kleifgen show the continued disconnect between research that points to the rich cultural and linguistic resources of minoritized emergent bilinguals and policies and practices that at best ignore these resources and at worst treats these resources as deficits in need of remediation. The authors further develop their blueprint for developing educational policies and practices that insists on the naming of the bilingualism of these students and treating this bilingualism as a resource for teaching and learning. This book is a must read for researchers, policymakers and practitioners interested in improving the education of minoritized emergent bilinguals.”―Nelson L. Flores, University of Pennsylvania

About the Author

Ofelia García is a professor in the PhD programs in Urban Education and Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York. Jo Anne Kleifgen is professor emerita of Linguistics and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.