Professional Development in Education

ISSN: 1941-5257 (Print) 1941-5265 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjie20

Moving beyond ‘just good teaching’: ESL

professional development for all teachers

Ye He , Kathryn Prater & Teneka Steed

To cite this article: Ye He , Kathryn Prater & Teneka Steed (2011) Moving beyond ‘just good
teaching’: ESL professional development for all teachers, Professional Development in
Education, 37:1, 7-18, DOI: 10.1080/19415250903467199

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Published online: 21 Dec 2009.

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Professional Development in Education
Vol. 37, No. 1, February 2011, pp. 7–18

Moving beyond ‘just good teaching’:

ESL professional development for all
teachers
Ye He*, Kathryn Prater and Teneka Steed
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA
Journal
10.1080/19415250903467199
RJIE_A_447087.sgm
1367-4587
Original
Taylor
02009
00
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y_he@uncg.edu
000002009
YeHe
&
and
ofArticle
Francis
In-Service
(print)/1747-5082
Francis Education (online)

In order to prepare all teachers for working with the increasing number of English-as-a-second-
language (ESL) students in the US, researchers have explored what teachers need to know and
pointed out that ‘just good teaching’ is not enough. In this article, we described our effort to
design and deliver professional development sessions based on key features of effective profes-
sional development to facilitate teachers to move beyond ‘just good teaching’. In addition, we
examined the impact of the professional development on teachers and the ESL students in the
school district. The participants included 22 teachers from one school district in the US who
participated in 46 hours of professional development sessions over the course of one year. Find-
ings indicated that the research-based, needs-oriented professional development provided teach-
ers with useful strategies and resources. ESL student performance data also demonstrated the
effectiveness and impact of the professional development. Implications were drawn to further
enhance the collaboration between university and school districts, and between ESL teachers
and regular classroom teachers, for the achievement of all ESL students.

Introduction
Data from the most recent US Census indicate the number of people who speak a
language other than English in the home doubled between 1980 and 2000 while the
overall population grew by one quarter during that same time (US Census, 2007).
According to a recent report (Education Week, 2009), there were 4.5 million English-
as-a-second-language (ESL) students in K12 settings during the 2005–2006
academic year, which is an increase of 18% from 2000. In certain states, the growth
of ESL students is especially worth noting. North Carolina, for example, has

*Corresponding author. Department of Teacher Education and Higher Education, School of

Education, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27402-6170, USA.
Email: y_he@uncg.edu

ISSN 1941–5257 (print)/ISSN 1941–5265 (online)/11/010007–12

© 2011 International Professional Development Association (IPDA)
DOI: 10.1080/19415250903467199
8 Y. He et al.

experienced a 350% growth in the ESL student population between 1995 and 2005,
and the population nearly doubled from 2002 to 2007 (Maxwell, 2009).
One of the biggest challenges all ESL students face is learning academic content in
English. While there are a growing number of ESL teachers hired in the US to provide
service for all ESL students and support their academic learning at the schools, it
remains a challenge for ESL students to gain access to academic instruction in their
regular classrooms. In current US K12 schools, the majority of regular classroom
teachers have not received bilingual or ESL courses as part of their professional train-
ing (Menken & Antunez, 2001). Only three states (NY, AZ, FL) require ESL training
for all teachers, and no state requires ESL training for recertification (Education
Week, 2009). Having more and more ESL students in their classrooms, increasing
numbers of regular classroom teachers have started to seek professional development
opportunities to better prepare themselves for the linguistic and cultural diversity they
encounter in their day-to-day teaching.
In order to address this professional development need and better prepare our
teachers to serve all ESL students, we have worked closely with in-service teachers as
part of a five-year US Department of Education professional development grant
effort. In this study, we describe the design and delivery of the professional develop-
ment based on both research findings and needs assessment conducted at one of our
partner school districts during the 2007–2008 academic year. In addition, we exam-
ined the impact of the professional development based on participants’ feedback and
ESL student performance.

Professional development context

The one-year professional development program for in-service teachers reported in
this study was one of the foci of a five-year professional development project sponsored
by the US Department of Education. This funded project, called TESOL for ALL
(Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages = Academic Achievement for
Language Learners), was designed to address the language and achievement gap
between ESL students and non-ESL students by providing comprehensive professional
development to teacher educators and in-service teachers in two local school districts,
and by preparing ESL pre-service teachers. The two local school districts were selected
based on the number of ESL student enrollment and the existing collaboration with
the university through pre-service teacher education programs. All the co-principal
investigators (PIs) of the project participated in the planning, designing and delivery
of the professional development sessions. The evaluation of the professional develop-
ment was conducted through an evaluation center affiliated with the university.
Participants in the professional development included ESL teachers and regular
classroom teachers from one school district in North Carolina. Based on the data
from the National Center for Education Statistics (2007), there were 16 schools in
this district with 7521 students and 518 teachers during the 2005–2006 school year.
Among the student population, 1069 were ESL students (14%). As an effort to
support ESL professional development at this school district, a needs assessment
 Moving beyond ‘just good teaching’ 9

was conducted in fall 2007, and nine professional development sessions (46 hours)
were provided by the co-PIs of the TESOL for ALL project to 26 teachers over the
2007–2008 school year.

Professional development design and delivery

In the past decade, researchers have reviewed professional development for in-service
teachers and reported consensus in their summary of key features for effective profes-
sional development (Birman et al., 2000; Crawford et al., 2008; Wayne et al., 2008;
Desimone, 2009). These key features include: content focus, coherence, duration,
active learning, and collective participation (Birman et al., 2000; Desimone, 2009).
In the design and delivery of our professional development, we incorporated all these
features in collaboration with the school district.

Professional development design – content focus, coherence and duration

Both university teacher education programs and school professional development
programs have continued to provide theories, applications and good teaching prac-
tices as examples to inform and support teachers in working with ESL students in
their own classrooms. However, a more systematic and cohesive professional devel-
opment model beyond the simple extension of good practices is needed to coordinate
the efforts of both ESL and regular classroom teachers (de Jong & Harper, 2005;
York-Barr et al., 2007; Nordmeyer, 2008).
Specific knowledge and applications of English language, linguistics, language
acquisition and cultural implications need to be stressed in the professional develop-
ment for teachers working with ESL students (August & Hakuta, 1997; Olsen, 2000;
Fillmore & Snow, 2002; Gandara et al., 2003; Freeman, 2004). Challenging the
assumption that the professional development efforts addressing general multicultural
education issues can be easily extended to preparing teachers for ESL students, de
Jong and Harper (2005) highlighted the gap between ‘just good teaching’ and effective
ESL instruction. They proposed that regular classroom teachers need to enhance their
understanding of language and cultural domains in teaching and be equipped with
skills to effectively integrate this knowledge into their daily interactions with ESL
students. In addition, they highlighted teachers’ cultural roles in their model and
concurred with Nieto (2000) and Brisk (1998) in the importance of preparing teachers
to embrace their roles as language teachers and cultural facilitators. Their proposed
framework—which emphasized three dimensions of teachers’ understandings about
language and culture beyond effective practices and dispositions, including: (1)
second language learning process; (2) language and culture as a medium of learning;
and (3) language and culture as a goal of instruction—served as the foundation for
the design of our professional development in this study (de Jong & Harper, 2005).
With the intention of providing professional development that moves in-service
teachers’ instruction with ESL students beyond ‘just good teaching’, we decided to
incorporate content regarding language and culture and focused our discussions on
10 Y. He et al.

teachers’ self-awareness of their cultural roles in addition to instructional practices.

Instead of designing the professional development sessions purely based on our
knowledge as teacher educators and on research findings, we conducted a needs
assessment to ensure that the professional development content was coherent and
consistent with other professional development efforts at the local school district.
Seventy-five teachers from the district completed the needs assessment in August
2007. Based on the responses, 89% (N = 54) reported that they were interested in
participating in the year-long professional development workshops. In terms of
participants’ backgrounds, 46 reported having training in the Sheltered Instruction
Observation Protocol (SIOP) workshop (Echevarria et al., 2008); eight had ESL add-
on certification; and five had graduate level courses in language acquisition. Based on
participant ratings on the five-point Likert-scale items (‘1’ was ‘Novice’ and ‘5’ was
‘Expert’), it was noted that most of the participants (>60%) rated themselves as ‘3’
or lower in all the items, especially in terms of legal issues, current trends in ESL
instruction, research and theories related to language learning, and assessment issues.
The findings of the needs assessment echoed the research on what qualified teach-
ers need to know about ESL teaching. The professional development sessions were
designed to supplement the district’s effort in promoting the SIOP instruction in
mainstream classrooms, with an emphasis on teachers’ understandings about
language and culture, effective practices, and teachers’ dispositions.
After discussions with the school district, the year-long professional development
outline was developed. The professional development contained nine sessions, with
six hours for the first session and five hours for each of the remaining sessions. A total
of 46 hours were required. For teachers who successfully completed all the required
hours and assignments, the professional development could be counted as one of the
elective courses toward their ESL add-on licensure program or MEd program at the
university. The content, applications and assignments for each professional develop-
ment session reflected de Jong and Harper’s framework (2005). In addition to
addressing effective practices and teacher dispositions, we also focused on teachers’
understanding of the second language learning process, the nature of language and
culture as a medium of learning, and the importance of language and culture as a goal
of instruction (see Appendix 1).

Professional development delivery—collective participation and active learning

To enhance ESL students’ academic performance, it is critical to establish and extend
the collaboration between ESL teachers and regular classroom teachers (August &
Hakuta, 1997; Gandara et al., 2003; Varghese & Jenkins, 2005). Purposeful recruit-
ment and grouping of teachers from the same school during the professional develop-
ment could serve as a potential initiation of a school-based learning community to
sustain professional development efforts. In collaboration with the school district,
teams of teachers were recruited from participating schools to include at least one
ESL teacher and one content area teacher working at the same grade level. Such
collaboration allowed for the ‘powerful format of teacher learning’ (Desimone, 2009,
 Moving beyond ‘just good teaching’ 11

p. 184) and more opportunities for teachers to actively participate in the professional
development through meaningful interactions.
Further, in order to engage teachers in active learning through the professional
development sessions, we not only engaged teachers in discussions and applications
of the content during the professional development, but extended the professional
development effort to encourage teachers’ learning from each other and from the
community as well (see Table 1). The cultural exploration project, for example,
required teachers to participate in a social gathering in a language other than English
or conduct a home/community visit with an ESL student they wanted to learn more
about. These community experiences deepened teachers’ understanding of the ESL
students and the community they serve and the follow-up sharing and discussion
during the professional development sessions further enriched our understanding of
cultural issues in ESL teaching.

Method
A total of 22 teachers participated in the year-long professional development deliv-
ered at the professional development center at the local school district, including 9
ESL teachers and 13 regular classroom teachers. The majority of the teacher partici-
pants were white (68%).
Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected to complement each other in
the interpretation of the data and to expand our understanding of the project
(Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998). Data collected from teacher participants used two
instruments: a pre- and post-ESL knowledge inventory and feedback from each of the
nine professional development sessions. The instruments included both Likert-scale
items and open-ended questions. The pre inventory was administered in fall 2007
before the professional development started. During the 2007–2008 year, profes-
sional development feedback was collected in an on-going fashion for the professional
development developers to adjust the professional development content and better
meet the needs of the participants. Finally, the post inventory and feedback form were
administered at the end of spring 2008. In order to examine the impact of the profes-
sional development on ESL students, English language proficiency test data from
spring 2007 and spring 2008 were also collected in this study.
SPSS and NVivo were used as data analysis software. Initially, the quantitative and
qualitative data were analyzed separately to explore the patterns and themes. To
enhance the validity of the interpretation through data triangulation, both quantita-
tive and qualitative results were converged to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of
the professional development (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007).

Results
The effectiveness and impact of the professional development were measured from
three different aspects: (1) quality of the professional development sessions based on
teacher feedback; (2) teacher understanding of working with ESL students; and (3)
12 Y. He et al.

English language development of ESL students as is measured by district achieve-

ment data.

Quality of professional development sessions

Feedback was collected after each session of the professional development. Overall,
participants rated all training sessions as excellent or good (>90%) and considered
objectives met for each session (100%). Participants provided 86 comment entries,
74 (86%) were positive. When explaining their positive ratings, most participants’
comments focused on the content of the professional development (39%) and the
delivery method (42%). In terms of the content, participants commented directly on
the information presented in the sessions. For example, after the second session, one
participant commented ‘I enjoyed the examples and explanations of models, defini-
tions, legislation, etc’ (feedback form, 16 October 2007). Participants’ comments on
the delivery method include pacing, group interactions and activities designed to
facilitate the discussions. In addition to the discussion of theories and strategies, each
session of the professional development was also purposefully designed to model the
application of certain theories and strategies. For example, content and language
objectives were introduced and reviewed at each session. Strategies such as anticipa-
tion guides, graphic organizers, structured note taking and vocabulary development
were all integrated into the delivery of the professional development. Participants
noted this feature in their feedback and commented that they liked ‘How interactive
the sessions were among the instructors and our colleagues. Also, I liked how we
participated in various activities that we can use with our students’ (feedback form,
28 May 2008).
In addition to content and the delivery method of the professional development,
participants commented on the organization of the professional development (10%),
and the impact of the professional development (8%). It was interesting to note that
more teachers started to comment on the impact of the professional development
during the last several sessions. Most of the comments focused on how they were
using the strategies in their classroom. For example, one teacher commented after the
eighth professional development session: ‘It was explicit, specific to the classroom,
and followed SIOP model. I’ll be a better teacher of reading comprehension because
of this’ (feedback form, 24 March 2008).
The negative comments (N = 12, 14%) focused on the pacing of the professional
development (‘too fast and too much information’), and the connection between
theories and practices (‘more examples and strategies for secondary teachers in
specific content area’).

Growth of teacher knowledge

In order to measure the growth of teachers’ knowledge in working with ESL
students, we compared the results from teachers’ pre and post responses to the ESL
knowledge inventory, and examined the areas of learning identified by participants
 Moving beyond ‘just good teaching’ 13

in relationship with our focus on teachers’ understandings about language and

culture, effective practices, and teachers’ dispositions (de Jong & Harper, 2005).
Comparing participants’ pre and post responses to the ESL knowledge inventory,
no significant difference was noted in their quantitative scores on the inventory.
Participants reported knowledge of more concrete and relevant strategies they can use
to work with ESL students in the post inventory (such as vocabulary development
strategies, using cognates, etc) than in their pre inventory, where most participants
listed modified assignments and peer tutoring as the major strategies they would use.
In addition, when asked about resources they can use to facilitate ESL instruction,
participants were able to identify specific books, websites and community resources
on their post inventory responses compared to only referring to dictionaries and stan-
dards as their major resources in the pre inventory.
When asked about what they had learned from each session, participants
provided comments on what they had learned in terms of effective practices (57%),
language development theories and cultural understandings (34%) and understand-
ing of their roles and responsibilities as teachers working with ESL students (9%).
Not surprisingly, the majority of the comments focused on effective practices and
very few teachers commented on their roles and responsibilities.

ESL student learning outcome

As one of the measures for the program evaluation, we also analyzed ESL student
performance data provided by the district. Although we did not intend to establish
any causal relationship between our professional development effort and ESL student
language proficiency development, we included the data from the ESL students who
might be indirectly impacted.
A total of 235 ESL students were indirectly impacted through the 22 teachers who
participated in the professional development sessions. The majority of the students’
first language is Spanish (97%) and most of the students are at the elementary level
(48%). In addition to ESL services, 26 students (11%) also receive special education
services at the schools. Comparing students’ English proficiency test scores based on
the IDEA Proficiency Test (IPT), the t-test results indicated that students’ scores on
listening, speaking and reading were significantly higher in 2008 compared to their
scores from 2007 (α≤.000). Over 70% of the ESL students reached superior and
advanced levels in listening (88%), speaking (72%) and reading (74%) based on their
IPT test scores (see Appendix 2).

Discussions and implications

Considering that projections indicate that in two decades ESL students will comprise
more than one-third of the student population in US public schools (Thomas &
Collier, 2002), it is crucial for teacher educators, administrators and all teachers to
work together to extend our own understandings of ESL teaching and learning and
promote sustainable efforts to support ESL students in both English learning and
14 Y. He et al.

their learning in English (Nordmeyer, 2008). This study not only identified teachers’
perceptions of areas of professional development needs and the effectiveness of the
professional development sessions, but also provided a university-school collabora-
tion model to encourage contextualized teaching and learning.
The positive feedback from teachers and enhancement in ESL student English
proficiency test scores are encouraging results that indicate the effectiveness of the
first-year professional development sessions. Several contextual and program
factors need to be recognized that promoted the successful delivery of the
professional development. First, the district’s support ensured teachers’ participa-
tion in our professional development sessions. In order to design the professional
development based on the district’s needs, we met with the administrators several
times during the summer to reach consensus as to the content and evaluation of
the professional development. In addition, as is recognized in other professional
development studies, the number of contact hours (46 hours) provided adequate
opportunities for teachers not only to receive information regarding linguistic and
language development theories, but also share their experiences and reflect on
their own practices (Yoon et al., 2007). Having both regular classroom teachers
and ESL teachers from the same schools further enabled active learning and
collaboration among teachers.
Recognizing the effectiveness of the professional development sessions, partici-
pants also highlighted several challenges they face in implementing the theories and
strategies for ESL students in their schools. The majority of the participants
mentioned their concerns with applying the instructional strategies in content area
instruction, especially as is measured by standardized testing. As one teacher
commented after the professional development, she would like to learn more about
‘how this model [SIOP model] could help improve test scores for ELLs [English
language learners]’ (feedback form, 28 May 2008). Several participants commented
on the need for more regular classroom teachers to attend this type of professional
development and are concerned about ‘how to share this model with school faculty’
(feedback form, 28 May 2008). Three regular classroom teachers also commented on
the need for more professional development in areas such as co-teaching or collabo-
rative teaching models with ESL teachers.
While it is encouraging to know our participants feel it is their responsibility to
disseminate the knowledge at their own schools, measure the impact on student
achievement test scores and conduct co-teaching in their daily instructions, we do
realize that continued professional development needs to be provided in those areas
to follow-up and sustain the effort in preparing all teachers to better serve ESL
students. Our participants, along with other ESL teacher professionalization efforts,
recognized that one of the biggest challenges in ESL professional development is to
implement the theories and strategies across classrooms and schools because ESL
teachers are not the only ones who work with our ESL students and are responsible
for their academic success (Lewis-Mereno, 2007). In order to cultivate a school
culture that fosters the shared responsibility among teachers, we need to engage all
teachers at the school in our professional development and build capacity at the
 Moving beyond ‘just good teaching’ 15

school and district levels to encourage teachers who have received the professional
development to be change agents and teacher leaders (Varghese & Jenkins, 2005).
Reflecting on de Jong & Harper’s (2005) framework for preparing mainstream
teachers for ESL students, we believe that as we move from ‘just good teaching’ to
preparing all students—including ESL students—for academic success, all teachers
working with ESL students need to be equipped with not only knowledge of language
and culture, but also skills in collaboration, leadership and critical reflection, to
engage all educators in the innovative process that leads to change in schools. Not
only do all teachers need to understand and embrace their roles as language teachers
and cultural facilitators, but they need to take on the challenge of being an advocate
for ESL students and collaborating with other educators, parents and the community
in advancing our efforts to prepare ESL students for the twenty-first century.

Conclusion
In this study, we described the design, development and effectiveness of a one-year
ESL professional development series at a local school district to prepare both ESL
and regular classroom teachers for working with the growing number of ESL students
in their classrooms. The identified professional development needs from our partner
school district, feedback from participating teachers and challenges identified by
participants might provide other educators who are engaged in such professional
development efforts with ideas for moving the preparation of teachers beyond ‘just
good teaching’. We hope that the collaborative process of the design of our profes-
sional development inspires more educators to seek cooperation and collaboration
between universities and schools to provide quality professional development for all
teachers. Furthermore, we hope that through our examination of the development
and evaluation of our professional development, other educators engaged in similar
efforts may gain insights to face challenges in their practices.

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 Moving beyond ‘just good teaching’ 17

Appendix 1. Professional development design

Moving beyond
‘just good
Professional teaching’
development (de Jong &
Session content Application Assignment Harper, 2005)

1. Professional development kick-off

2. Legal and historical ESL teachers: Select a unit lesson Importance of
issues facilitate the that you want to language and
Models of ESL discussion and modify as a group culture as a goal of
teaching assignment instruction
SIOP overview
3. ELD SCS and Modify content and Finish writing Understanding of
lesson planning language objectives content and second language
Theories of of lesson plans language objectives learning process
language ESL teachers: for the unit lesson
development facilitate the plan
SIOP lesson discussion and
preparation assignment
4. Cultural diversity Cultural Lesson plan Nature of language
SIOP – building exploration project modification – and culture as a
background Build on L1 and L2 building medium of
cultural differences background learning
5. Vocabulary Modify course Modify assessment Integrate
building/SRE materials for ESL for the unit lesson understandings of
SIOP – students plan language and
Comprehensible Interpreting Finish modifying culture in
input assessment assessment results materials for the instruction
and ESL unit lesson plan Effective ESL
SIOP – review and practices
assessment Teachers’
dispositions
6. Literacy and ESL Integrate literacy Modify lesson plan
and language to integrate literacy
development in components
content area
instruction
7. Literacy and ESL Balance literacy Integrate literacy
SIOP – strategies Integrate literacy strategies in content
strategies area instruction
8. Literacy and ESL Balance literacy Strategies to
SIOP – interaction Monitor language enhance quality of
use interaction in class
Input and feedback
9. SIOP – practice Teach the modified Share reflections
and lesson delivery lesson
18 Y. He et al.

Appendix 2. Students’ IDEA language proficiency test levels 2007-2008

(N = 235)

Subcategory Level Spring 2007 Spring 2008

Listening Superior 97 (41%) 159 (68%)

Advanced 66 (28%) 47 (20%)
Intermediate high 36 (15%) 13 (6%)
Intermediate low 21 (9%) 10 (4%)
Novice high 11 (5%) 6 (3%)
Novice low 4 (2%) 0 (0%)
Reading Superior 40 (17%) 123 (52%)
Advanced 43 (18%) 48 (20%)
Intermediate high 58 (25%) 33 (14%)
Intermediate low 56 (24%) 21 (9%)
Novice high 29 (12%) 9 (4%)
Novice low 8 (3%) 1 (0.4%)
Speaking Superior 42 (18%) 88 (37%)
Advanced 89 (38%) 87 (37%)
Intermediate high 61 (26%) 38 (16%)
Intermediate low 27 (12%) 13 (6%)
Novice high 4 (2%) 1 (0.4%)
Novice low 12 (5%) 8 (3%)