Myths about English Language Learning

As the ethnic and racial diversity in U.S. classrooms continues to grow, myths about the education of English Language Learners (ELLs) persist, while many teachers feel ill-prepared to meet these students' academic needs. This article focuses on myths shared by in-service science teachers enrolled in a master's program at the University of Texas at El Paso on the Mexican border. The authors asked these teachers to describe at least one myth about second-language acquisition they had encountered. This article discusses their responses and offers strategies teachers can use to address these myths based on the authors' previous work with ELLs and the Project Citizen curriculum (Center for Civic Education 2014).