Dialogs for Success

Teachers often start their careers in schools with large populations of English language learners (ELLs), whose enrollment in U.S. public schools reached some 4.4 million in 2012 (Kena et al. 2014). To serve these ELLs, new science teachers must develop skills to not only teach the content and language of science but also academic English. Proper mentoring can help new teachers avoid didactic, lecture-based, teacher-centered instruction in favor of more hands-on, inquiry-based teaching (i.e., where students gain experience with science and engineering practices). Unfortunately, few teachers are offered professional development on how to mentor new science teachers. This article addresses that need by showing the importance of shifting the frame in which new teachers approach working with ELLs, offering mentoring strategies, and, finally, providing strategies to engage ELLs in the practices of science and engineering. In order to help beginning science teachers move toward student-centered science strategies that promote success for all students, the authors collected sample dialogs from a range of settings including their own work as mentors, interviews with other mentors and mentees, and interactions with mentors at NSTA-sponsored workshops.