In its present state, this course reflects my current thinking about what is essential in teaching English-Learners. For both of these reasons, this course has changed from two separate courses to a single, two-semester long sequence. Nowhere is this truer than when teaching students whose native language and culture, English proficiency level, and academic experience are so diverse that it would be nearly impossible to catalog all permutations and combinations. Instead, my decisions in planning and teaching this course are informed by five main ideas. Learning, and especially language learning, is a social process.
Language is both instrumental for and symbolic of power relations in society.
Proficiency in a language amounts to acceptance into and participation in a discourse community. Successful teaching of English-Learners is marked by a tension between the recognition of group patterns and individual differences. With these five ideas in mind, we will explore the teaching of academic English and subject matter to students who are in the process of learning English as a second language. Our learning will be guided by questions that emerge out of a practical basis and have important theoretical implications. I hope you will see that, contrary to popular notions, there's nothing more theoretical than good practice and nothing more practical than a good theory.