Special Education Teachers’ Preparedness for Teaching Emergent Bilingual Students with Disabilities

Abstract

Throughout the United States, public school districts serve increasing numbers of students with disabilities who are in the process of developing proficiency in English as a new or additional language. As a result, the need persists for special education teacher preparation programs to cultivate competencies for meeting the needs of emergent bilingual students with disabilities. In this study, researchers gathered special education teachers’ perceptions of their current levels of competence for teaching emergent bilingual students with disabilities. Self-assessment ratings for 50 competencies within seven broad categories (i.e., language development, learner characteristics, assessment, instruction, environment, collaboration, and professional practices) were collected from 101 in-service and 19 preservice special education teachers in the Midwest. Overall, self-assessment ratings reflected emergent levels of competence across the seven broad categories, with similar scores reported by preservice and in-service special education teachers. Significant differences (i.e., generally higher ratings on the 4-point scale) were recorded by bi/multilingual special education teachers (with or without bilingual or English as a Second Language [ESL] credentials) as compared with monolingual special education teachers without ESL credentials. This finding reveals the need to reimagine ways to build essential competencies for special education teachers to meet students’ intersectional needs. Specific suggestions are provided in relation to redesigning the content of coursework and reexamining the formats used to design and deliver coursework and field experiences in special education teacher preparation.

Beyond English centrality: integrating expansive conceptions of language for literacy programming into IEPs

“…They felt effective when they knew the students' native language(s). This study corroborates with other research that demonstrates the importance of teachers' ability to leverage the multiplicity of students' languages into their instruction and assessment (Artiles and Ortiz, 2002;Jozwik et al, 2020;Ortiz et al, 2020). Miranda et al (2019) examined a special education teacher education program that had revised their curriculum to support the education of EBs with disabilities and found the content about EBs to be disjointed and teachers' sense of efficacy in teaching EBs to be lacking.…”

Preservice Special Education Teachers’ Perceptions of Field Experience with English-Language Learner Students

“…Consistent with the findings of Robb et al [5], only two out of the four participants reported having any prior training in working with ELL students. Like Jozwik et al [9] found, the participants' responses suggested a limited confidence in their abilities to work with students in the ELL population prior to the experience. Participants reported that they gained both experience and confidence in working with this population, with one noting that it is likely that they may have a student who is dually identified on their caseload.…”

“…Moreover, recent research continues to confirm these findings. Jozwik et al [9] found that both preservice and in-service teachers self-assessed their competence in educating bilingual students as not proficient. In a program review of one institution's special educator training program, Miranda et al [10] reported that, while a curriculum pertaining to the education of ELL students with disabilities was included, this curriculum was "scattered and disjointed".…”

“…Such training programs may assist in building the collaboration between specializations, as discussed by Kangas [8] and Lopes-Murphy [7]. Similarly, providing explicit training may address the limited competence that Jozwik et al [9] found in special educators when working with ELL students. However, little research has been conducted on the explicit incorporation of a curriculum and the field experiences of preservice special educators when working with ELL students.…”