The existing literature indicates that elementary teachers experience a range of
difficulties in teaching science to ELL students and other nonmainstream students in
urban schools. These difficulties can be traced in part to their insufficient knowledge
of science content and inadequate skills in using content-specific teaching strategies
and addressing the academic language needs of ELL students. Beyond these factors
and others residing at the level of individual teachers, organizational supports and
barriers within and outside the school influence teaching practices with nonmainstream
students.
This study is part of a 5-year research project designed to simultaneously
promote urban elementary school teachers’ knowledge of science content, practices
in teaching science, and practices for supporting English language development of
ELL students in a large urban school district. As initial efforts to design effective
professional development interventions, this study presents descriptive results about
urban elementary school teachers’ perceptions with regard to (1) their own
knowledge of science content and their practices in teaching science and English
language development of ELL students and (2) organizational supports and barriers
to teaching science for student diversity.
This study contributes to the existing literature by examining how urban
elementary teachers perceive challenges at both the school and classroom levels in
teaching science and English language development to nonmainstream students,
especially ELL students. The results establish a baseline for our own interventions
using a longitudinal design and help others consider the role of teacher perceptions
in their efforts to develop professional development interventions in elementary
science instruction with diverse student groups.
Method
Research Setting