Educating Emergent Bilinguals : Policies, Programs, and Practices for English Learners

Now available in a revised and expanded edition, this accessible guide introduces readers to the issues and controversies surrounding the education of language minority students in the United States. What makes this book a perennial favorite are the succinct descriptions of alternative practices for transforming our schools and students’ futures, such as building on students’ home languages and literacy practices, incorporating curricular and pedagogical innovations, using proven-effective approaches to parent engagement, and employing alternative assessment tools.

The authors have updated their bestseller to reflect recent shifts in policies, programs, and practices due to globalization and the changing economy; demographic trends; and new research on EL pedagogy. A totally new chapter highlights multimedia and multimodal instructional possibilities for engaging EL students.

This Second Edition is essential reading for all teachers of language-minority students, as well as principals, superintendents, and policymakers.

Book Features:

• Uses the most up-to-date research findings to demonstrate how ignoring children’s bilingualism perpetuates inequities in their schooling.
• Points out the problems with current policies and practices and proposes more effective alternative methods.
• Contrasts the common view of bilingualism as either subtractive or additive with more current understandings of individual bilingualism in translanguaging theories.
• Highlights how multimodalities form part of students’ communicative repertoire and shows teachers how they can leverage this to engage students.

Ofelia García is a professor in the PhD programs in Urban Education and Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York. She received the 2024 Literacy Research Association (LRA) Distinguished Scholar Lifetime Achievement Award. Jo Anne Kleifgen is professor emerita of Linguistics and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.