Integrating a Focus on Academic Language, English Learners, and Mathematics: Teacher Candidates’ Responses on the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT)

Abstract

Throughout the United States, teacher educators are developing new strategies to improve the preparation of mainstream teachers for linguistic diversity. In this article, we explore teacher candidates’ responses to the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT), a preservice assessment required for credentialing that requires candidates to consider the English language demands of content-area instruction, to enact supports for English learners and others who may struggle with those demands, and to develop ways to promote the academic language development of these students. We report on a study examining written responses on the PACT from 8 elementary teacher candidates who chose mathematics as the focus for their teaching event. We found that the PACT induced teacher candidates to consider language issues and the needs of language learners in a content area often thought to be language-free, yet one in which language in fact plays a crucial role. Such responses provide important information that can be used not only for credentialing decisions but also by teacher educators, teacher-education programs, and teacher candidates themselves in supporting the academic-language development of ELs in content areas such as mathematics.

Notes

¹ For example, the number of ELs in South Carolina’s public schools increased from 2,000 in 1995 to 16,000 in 2005. Kentucky saw a 417% increase over the same 10-year period. North Carolina’s EL population grew 370% to over 70,000 ELs (Payán & Nettles, 2008).

² One of California’s 13 Teaching Performance Expectations (TPE) is directed solely to teaching of English learners, requiring that “Candidates for a Teaching Credential know and can apply theories, principles, and instructional practices for English Language Development leading to comprehensive literacy in English” (California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, 2013, p. 14).

³ For more information on the PACT’s structure and requirements, see Merino and Pecheone (2013).

⁴ In some teacher-education programs, individual candidates can choose to focus their Teaching Event on either English/language arts or mathematics. Programs also have the option of choosing one of the two foci for an entire cohort.

⁵ If candidates do not have ELs in their classrooms, they are instructed to “select a student who is challenged by academic English” (PACT Consortium, 2004a, p. 14).

⁶ The Appendix presents the Academic Language rubrics as used during the time of our study (2004–2006). For the rubrics currently in use, see http://pacttpa.org.

⁷ We selected the candidates from a larger corpus of Teaching Events collected by the PACT administrative office for benchmarking, revisions of rubrics, and the training of scorers. Beginning with a sample representing a range of overall scores, geographical locations, and teacher-preparation-program approaches toward academic language, we selected the 8 candidates who taught in courses with the highest numbers of ELs. Candidates’ names and teacher-education programs remained anonymous to us.

⁸ Our primary goal was to document the range of ways teacher candidates responded to the PACT’s prompts requiring them to discuss language demands, academic language, and ELs in relation to mathematics teaching and learning. Therefore, a number of other questions were beyond the scope of the study, including how teachers’ written work compared with our own judgment about the qualities or characteristics of their teaching as demonstrated on the video segments, whether candidates’ official PACT scores (which we did not have access to in the first place) were consistent with our interpretations of the quality of their work, and the relationship between candidates’ articulation of issues related to academic language and ELs on the PACT and the content or quality of the instruction they received in these areas in their teacher-education programs.