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Shelley Svidal
Designated teachers of English as a second language (ESL) should receive specialized ESL training, as well as training in cultural competency and anti-racist education.
That’s what the Coalition for Equal Access to Education, a provincial ESL advocacy group, told the Standing Policy Committee on Education and Employment September 6. The committee, which is made up of cabinet ministers and government MLAs, advises cabinet.
The coalition recommends Alberta Education and the ATA develop policy requiring designated ESL teachers to have specialized ESL training. "Though the teaching of ESL requires specialized knowledge and skills, there is no minimum requirement for ESL specialist training in Alberta," it writes. "Unless students specialize in ESL teaching at the graduate level, they are not required to take courses related to ESL teaching, cultural competency or anti-racist education. . . . A lack of training in ESL teaching at the undergraduate level, combined with successive cuts in ESL services and a lack of professional requirements for ESL teaching, have created a condition of shortage of trained ESL personnel."
Professional Development Staff Officer Dorothy Stanley, who serves as secretary of the Teacher Education and Certification Committee, points out there are few designated ESL teachers in the province. The ATA believes all students with special needs, including students for whom English is a second language, should be, and for the most part are, integrated into regular classes. "In that sense, all teachers are ESL teachers," she says.
Stanley notes most education students already receive some ESL training through the special needs component of their teacher preparation programs. Because there is no ESL curriculum, such training is strategy based. "While we do not believe in a specialized ESL certificate, we do support specialization in ESL at the post-secondary level—through a major or a minor," she says. She adds that the opportunity to obtain a major or a minor in ESL does exist in some universities.
The ATA also has an active English as a Second Language Council, working with both pre-service and certificated teachers, which advocates on behalf of students learning English as a second language and seeks to constantly improve and promote the teaching of English as a second language.
In addition to calling for specialized ESL training, the coalition recommends Alberta Education and the ATA develop regulations mandating cultural competency as a professional requirement for all school personnel. "Opportunities for professional development and continuing education in the areas of ESL teaching, modification and differentiation of teaching, cultural competency and anti-racist and multicultural education are limited. Without policies and regulations that mandate all school personnel to develop professional competency in these areas, only selected school personnel, such as ESL staff and administrators of schools with a high concentration of ESL students, participate in ESL-related professional development," the coalition writes.
Barb Maheu, a Professional Development staff officer and member of the Diversity, Equity and Human Rights Committee, says that, while the ATA would never mandate cultural competency, it routinely encourages cultural competency through its focus on building inclusive school environments. That focus includes efforts to enhance teachers’ awareness of cultural differences, to offer them strategies for increasing diversity in their classroom and their school and to encourage them to reflect on what it means to be different. "We and the coalition are certainly on the same page when it comes to recognizing the need for teachers to be more effective with ESL students and their families," she says.
Maheu points out the ATA offers several workshops on building inclusive school environments, including ones on Aboriginal education; faith; and racism, sexism and homophobia, as well as workshops on differentiated instruction and supporting struggling students. It has also developed both print and online resources on diversity and has struck a subcommittee of the Diversity, Equity and Human Rights Committee devoted to inclusive schools.
The coalition also recommends Alberta Education and the ATA define in policy the role of designated ESL teachers and teacher assistants. "Due to the erroneous myth that anyone who can speak [English] can teach English, there is no differentiation between the role of ESL teachers and teacher assistants or school aids," the coalition writes. It suggests that, while designated ESL teachers are responsible for direct instruction, the role of teacher assistants is to assist designated ESL teachers in classroom instruction.
Member Services Staff Officer Robert Bisson says the suggestion is consistent with the ATA’s Code of Professional Conduct. Item 2 of the code states that teachers are responsible for diagnosing students’ educational needs, prescribing and implementing their instructional programs and evaluating their progress and that they may not delegate these responsibilities to anyone who is not a teacher. At the same time, teachers may delegate specific and limited aspects of instructional activity to teachers’ assistants under their supervision and direction. Those aspects include observing student behaviour and providing information to teachers, clarifying elements of lessons for students who are having difficulties and collecting data for use in student evaluation.
Additional information on different roles of teachers and teachers’ assistants can be found in Teachers and Teachers’ Assistants: Roles and Responsibilities. The publication is available in schools or from ATA Distribution at 447-9400 (from Edmonton) or 1-800-232-7208 (from elsewhere in Alberta).
Education Minister Gene Zwozdesky told the standing policy committee he is awaiting the results of an internal ESL review expected later this fall.
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