| Census documentation has shown a rapid rise in the number of children for whom English is not their first language. These children are attending school systems throughout the United States. As a result, classroom teachers will have English language learners (ELLs) in their classrooms. Research has shown most of these classroom teachers have had little or no preparation as to how to teach the ELLs who will be assigned to their classes. Programs for pre-service teachers at the university level must provide the knowledge and skills for teaching ELLs to their teacher candidates so they will be prepared when they have their own classrooms. The question is how to teach the pre-service teachers so they will have knowledge of the best instructional strategies to use with their ELLs. Several education theorists stress the importance of social constructivist learning as beneficial to all students, particularly ELLs. But most pre-service teachers have never been taught using social constructivist strategies themselves. This research focused on whether using social constructivist teaching strategies would increase the learning of pre-service teachers over direct instruction with some cooperative learning in a class which aims to provide pre-service teachers with the knowledge and skills in teaching ELLs through effective instructional practices. In this research, both quantitative surveys and qualitative questionnaires were used to gather data to compare two different sections of the course, which included, amongst its objectives, presenting pre-service teachers with learning strategies and best practices to most effectively teach ELLs in the regular classroom. The results of the comparison of the pre- and post-quantitative surveys between the two sections of the course showed no statistical difference between using direct instruction or social constructivist teaching strategies. The qualitative questionnaires indicated, overall, the students in both courses felt they had learned information concerning teaching ELLs. |
