An Examination of Pre-Service Teachers’ Development of Communication Skills with Parents of ELs and Conceptual Understanding about Parental Involvement

ABSTRACT

Parent involvement has been shown to have a positive effect on second language acquisition, student motivation and academic achievement. This is particularly true for the almost five million English learners (ELs) in our PK-12 schools today and has important implications for the preparation of pre-service teachers. This study investigated how a set of experiences that engaged pre-service teachers in working directly with parents facilitated their development of a conceptual understanding of parental involvement and improved their communication skills with parents of ELs.

KEYWORDS:

• Qualitative research
• parent & community
• teacher preparation
• Latino/a children and families

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.