| To participate in today's twenty-first century workforce and to have even the opportunity to gain the greater goods of society one must have some formal schooling (Mortenson, 2004). To that effect, education is an important tool for economic sustainability, for reducing the increasing rate of social stratification, for improving civic life, and for enabling general well-being associated with the American dream. This paper is intended to study a single school that educates all of the elementary ESL students from a single district. The "El Barrio" school has been designated as the center school for English Language Learners (ELLs) for this Midwestern suburban school district. This model has been in existence for about 15 years, but only recently has it been put to the test due to the large Hispanic population moving in to the district. The overall intent of this study will be to understand the school as a community of practice: to describe the community, its identity, its practice and its meaning (Wenger, 1998). Although this entails an ecological type study of the school, that is the culture, the community, teacher beliefs and practices, the focus of this study will be on ESL and bilingual teachers and their practices with ELLs. To do that, this dissertation will conduct and report on a qualitative research project involving interviews and observations with administrators, bilingual and ESL staff, regular education teachers and parents.; It is my hope to use the project's findings by sharing them with other school districts that have been recently impacted by an increasing population of ELL students. In addition, I would like to set up instructional models that are effective with this population and, in the process, to continue with my own professional development efforts. |
