Coaching Protocol Gives Rural District A Common Language For Learning

Vol. 33 No. 2

Academic language has been referred to as a gatekeeper, something that stands in the way of academic success for native and nonnative speakers alike (Corson, 1997; Bielenberg & Fillmore, 2004). Short and Fitzsimmons (2004) focused on English language learners, asserting that those students must do “double the work” because of the need to learn academic English and content simultaneously. In rural eastern North Carolina, many students do double the work because they speak nonstandard dialects, lack the background knowledge for school success, and thereby disengage from the classroom. In a yearlong series of workshops, we focused on coaching as a vehicle to improve academic language proficiency across the curriculum using the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol, a research-based model for integrating language and content in the classroom.

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Authors

Marjorie C Ringler and Debra O'Neal

Marjorie C. Ringler ([email protected]) is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership, College of Education, and Debra O’Neal ([email protected]) is an instructor in the Department of English, College of Arts and Sciences, at East Carolina University.

Shared Goals Build Strong Partners

Our perspectives as East Carolina University faculty members from different departments informed our work in different ways. One of us — Debra O’Neal, from the Department of English — has a background in linguistics and teaching English as a Second Language and is a Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol trainer in the region.

The other of us — Marjorie Ringler, from the Department of Educational Leadership — was interested in English language learners from the leadership perspective and attended one of O’Neal’s sessions.

From that day forward, we began an instructional conversation that developed into a collaborative partnership. We find that while our individual areas of expertise give us strengths on one side in process and coaching and on the other in content, that line blurs as our work progresses and we both continue to learn from each other.

References

Bielenberg, B. & Fillmore, L. (2004). The English they need for the test. Educational Leadership, 62(4), 45-49.

Corson, D. (1997). The learning and use of academic English words. Language Learning, 47(4), 671-718.

Short, D. & Fitzsimmons, S. (2007). Double the work: Challenges and solutions to acquiring language and academic literacy for adolescent English language learners — A report commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.

Showers, B. & Joyce, B. (1996, March). The evolution of peer coaching. Educational Leadership, 53(6), 12-16.

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