EAL 103

Facing a changing student demography where multilingual learners are now the majority of students enrolled in international schools? This nine-week online learning experience focuses on the study of language, literacy, and pedagogy designed specifically for multilingual learners in PK to 12 international-school classrooms. Participants build knowledge about how language works in content areas and about pedagogical approaches for teaching and progressing academic language. Inclusive classrooms will be a reality when the mantra ‘every teacher is a language teacher’ is an integral part of multilingual learners’ day.

What will I learn?

During this learning experience we will investigate:

• differences between different theories of linguistics and their implications for language teaching and learning (e.g. structuralism vs. functionalism)

• building schoolwide systems for developing academic language across the curriculum the use of the Teaching & Learning Cycle (TLC) pedagogical framework for expanding multilingual learners’ spoken and written language output in specific genres

• the design of content and language integrated learning (CLIL) in school discourse contexts (science, math, social studies, and language arts)

• conducting ‘analyses’ of multilingual learners’ use of language structures to progress their usage to next levels of proficiency 

• explore learner variability and second language acquisition to reflect on ways to scaffold collectively and individually

• to reflect on research and theories of linguistic and cultural diversity as a means to use language teaching to build multilingual learners’ sense of belonging

You will learn and practice how to:

• rethink language teaching based on SFL-informed pedagogy 

• express your reflections upon the quality of explicit and intentional instruction provided to multilingual learners for the development of academic language by all teachers 

• implement SFL language theory to design a lesson using discipline-specific language, including vocabulary, sentence structures, and discourse features 

• use classroom-based assessment data to hypothesize multilingual learners’ language progressions to design next step lessons accordingly

• access and engage with information on second language acquisition research as it applies to multilingual learners in international schools 

You can anticipate

• Logging in to three times a week (early in the week to obtain the task, mid-week to collaborate and engage in group discussion, end of week to post weekly

  formative task)

• 5-6 hours of asynchronous learning (accessing information, engaging with peers, completing eight formative assessment tasks)

• Completing at least one application or culminating task (depending on whether you take this course alone, take this course in order to obtain the TTC EAL certificate, and/or you take the course to obtain TCNJ university graduate credit)

What will it cost?

Per participants from a PTC member school: USD $1000.
Per participant from a non-member school: USD $1100.