Effective Strategies for Developing Academic English: Professional Development and Teacher Practices

The development of academic English and advanced literacy is crucial for student success, especially for English language learners. In this study, researchers used a survey to investigate which instructional strategies 108 fourth-and fifth-grade teachers learned in professional development and found to be effective for providing English learners with access to the curriculum. In addition, Likert-scaled items asked teachers to report the frequency with which they used strategies that were found to be effective based on a review of the literature. Findings indicated that teachers were frequently using research-based instructional strategies that related to cognitive and metacognitive comprehension strategy instruction and the direct instruction of academic language. However, strategies related to comprehensible input and opportunities for practice were cited as effective by only 27% and 26% of all teachers respectively. This indicates that teachers may need more practice with these strategies, or more time for implementation, as some are time intensive.