Jen Ouellette-Schramm, Jen Vanek
We are pleased to bring you the 2019 Volume 35(1) Spring Issue of MinneTESOL Journal!
This issue carries forth conversations begun during the Fall 2018 MELEd conference, and brings in new voices focusing on English Language Learner (ELL) academic language and success.
Invited feature articles in this issue include MELEd keynote speaker Dr. Esther de Jong and doctoral student Jiameng Gao’s article addressing English-only ideologies and advocating for supporting translanguaging in the classroom. They provide a continuum of strategies affirming ELL home language use in K-12 educational settings, including for monolingual teachers. In another collaborative piece, Dr. Sarah Henderson Lee and former master’s students Ryosuke Aoyama, Charlotte Harris-Hoffstrom, Alejandro Maya, and Shyam Pandey advocate for and demonstrate critical reflection on English language teaching in diverse contexts including Japan, the United States, and Nepal.
A theme in this issue is supporting ELL academic language learning and success in U.S. K-12 contexts. Dr. Cynthia Lundgren and Dr. Stephanie D’Costa present a pilot study describing WIDA’s Language Pathways resources in explicit, genre-based language teaching in K-12 settings. Dr. Caroline Maguire describes strategies to help ESL teachers integrate academic language into K-12 Content-Based Instruction (CBI). In her practitioner piece, veteran K-12 teacher Liz Hanson reflects on potential pitfalls with common teaching methods including graphic organizers, think-pair-shares, defining fiction and nonfiction, and summarizing strategies. She offers adjustments to these methodologies to increase their effectiveness with ELLs.
Please read, enjoy, and share the research and practice ideas in this issue of MinneTESOL Journal!
