Date of Graduation
5-2017
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Curriculum and Instruction (PhD)
Degree Level
Graduate
Department
Curriculum and Instruction
Advisor/Mentor
Lincoln, Felicia F.
Committee Member
Wavering, Michael J.
Second Committee Member
Farah, Mounir A.
Keywords
Education; Affective filter; Best practices; Comprehensible input; ESL students; Formative assessment; Metacognition; Reading skills
Abstract
This study explored what themes of best practices teachers report using in real classrooms to teach reading skills to ESL students across curricula. It examined teachers’ applications of the following five themes in their instruction as a regular routine described as best practices in the literature for teaching diverse students: (1) providing comprehensible input, (2) teaching learning strategies of metacognition to bridge the gap between school literacy practices and home literacy practices (3) lowering the affective filter, (4) implementing formative assessment, and (5) cooperating between teachers and ESL facilitators. The study involved teachers from two high schools in one school district in Northwest Arkansas. This school district was selected because it involved a large number of ESL students. The data were self-reported and collected by the Literacy Instruction Questionnaire constructed by the researcher. Based on teachers’ self-reported responses, teachers’ alignment were aware of the need of to implementing the first four themes in their teaching routines: (1) providing comprehensible input, (2) teaching learning strategies of metacognition to bridge the gap between school literacy practices and home literacy practices (3) lowering the affective filter, and (4) implementing formative assessment. However, not all the mentioned ESL strategies under each theme were frequently used. For example, the majority of teachers never integrated online communication ‘blogs’ as an assessment technique. Also, the fifth theme, teacher and ESL facilitator cooperation, rarely occurred and happened only for specific questions regarding student achievement. Teachers mostly depended on their knowledge of second language acquisition when they wanted to differentiate instruction to deal with diversity in classrooms.
Citation
Ben Idris, A. A. (2017). Strategies of Reading as a Second Language Instruction Across Curriculum in Secondary Grades. Graduate Theses and Dissertations Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/1862
Included in
Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons, Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Secondary Education and Teaching Commons
