Preparing Teachers to Work with English Learners: A Multimodal Vocabulary Mini-Lesson Project

Y

21

Second Language Instruction; English (Second Language); Multimedia Instruction; English Language Learners; Vocabulary Development; Preservice Teachers; Preservice Teacher Education; Lesson Plans; Student Teacher Attitudes; Instructional Design; Instructional Materials

10.1002/tesj.569

1949-3533

In K-12 classrooms, multimodal teaching, such as using visuals and technology, has been commonly embedded at different levels with different student groups. However, it has not been well discussed in English as a second language teacher training. As a response to the call for more research to study how teachers apply multimodal activities in working with English learners (ELs), this article reports a teacher educator's effort to implement a multimodal vocabulary mini-lesson project in one teacher education course that aims to train general education preservice teachers to work with ELs. The author describes the project and uses preservice teachers' presentations, lesson plans, and project reflections as data to answer two questions: What are preservice teachers' perceptions of designing multimodal teaching materials for all students, including ELs? How does the multimodal mini-lesson design help preservice teacher candidates understand the key elements of educating ELs? Data indicate that teacher candidates showed positive attitudes toward designing multimodal lessons and materials, and the mini-lesson appears to have deepened teacher candidates' concepts of teaching ELs. A discussion of problems on multimodal design and potential solutions is also included.

As Provided

2021

EJ1297932