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Considering the Instruction of English Language Development

David Whitenack , Language Foundations
San José State University


David Whitenack

This website was developed by David Whitenack as part of the Goldman-Carnegie Quest Project, and can be accessed at the following URL:

http://www.cfkeep.org/html/stitch.php?s=28259940006081&id=42879275272488

(this link was valid on 9/20/06)

Excerpt:
Greetings! I am David Whitenack, Associate Professor of Spanish Bilingual/Multicultural Education in the Department of Elementary Education at San Jose State University (SJSU). Welcome to my snapshot, which is an electronic portfolio documenting a self-study of an aspect of my teaching in Meeting the Needs of Second Language Learners, a required foundations course for all teacher candidates pursuing a multiple subject teaching credential at SJSU. In general, the course aims to prepare candidates, as the title suggests, to meet the needs of the second language learners in their classrooms. Theories of first and second language acquisition and their application to teaching reading, writing, and specially designed academic instruction in English (SDAIE) in linguistically diverse classrooms are introduced.

One of the teaching dilemmas that I have faced in the past in this course is how to disabuse teacher candidates of the notion that students must speak only in English during English language development time in the classroom. Because Sarah Capitelli's work with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is particularly germane to this dilemma, I use her website as a text in my course. This snapshot documents my approach to this dilemma and the other aspects of ELD instruction that the teacher candidates and I addressed during the ELD module on which this website focuses.