| The study investigates how teachers in two "ordinary" California high schools experienced and responded to English learners in their mathematics classes during the early 1990s. It explores the contextual factors (emanating from state, district, school, subject area traditions, subject area department, and student and classroom characteristics) that shaped teachers' practice. Guiding questions included: (1) What were the daily realities of teaching mathematics to English-learning students in ordinary high schools? (2) What practical and philosophical considerations shaped the teachers' task? (3) How did state and district policies affect local level practice?;Research methods were primarily qualitative. The author made classroom observations and interviewed mathematics and ESL teachers, program coordinators, and administrators at the two schools between 1993 and 1995. These data were augmented by student records, school documents, observation of inservice training, and interview data collected in the same schools between 1988 and 1992 by researchers from the Center for Research on the Context of Secondary School Teaching (CRC) at Stanford University.;The study describes how the daily realities of teaching mathematics in these high schools were shaped by a constantly changing student population; by the challenges of mathematics curriculum reform; by the differing levels of mathematical and English skills of the students; by the broad range of English proficiencies within any given classroom; and by the need to rely on bilingual aides in mathematics classes taught in English-Only, sheltered, and content-based ESL instructional formats. The mathematics teachers' considerations included how to foster uniform content coverage across course sections and how to maintain classroom configurations that were "manageable" (a function of the mix of students and the availability of bilingual assistance). Mathematics reforms promoted by the district and state, district desegregation and detracking policies, and evolving state requirements regarding the staffing of classrooms serving English learners all figured into how these mathematics teachers and their departments carried out their work with English learners. |
