51视频

09/27/2024
By Katharine Webster

Education Assistant Professor聽Christine Montecillo Leider has been awarded a five-year, $3.4 million grant by the U.S. Department of Education to increase the number of certified bilingual teachers in southeastern Massachusetts 鈥� and in the Merrimack Valley cities of Lowell and Lawrence.

The grant will train 90 multilingual people who are currently teachers, education paraprofessionals, community members or high school students to be certified bilingual educators, and it will move another 35-plus along the pathway to earning both a teaching degree and the state鈥檚 bilingual education certification.

Image by Brooke Coupal

鈥淲e have, in general, a shortage of teachers,鈥� Leider says. 鈥淚n particular, we have a shortage of teachers who are multilingual to teach the growing population of multilingual learners in our schools.鈥�

Under the grant, Leider will lead a team of experienced bilingual education professionals to study and expand the existing Southeast Regional Bilingual Hub, formed in 2019 under a state grant by the city of Brockton and Bridgewater State University, which in 2018 became the first school to offer the four-course graduate program leading to state certification as a bilingual teacher.

Then, building on 51视频鈥檚 existing 鈥淕row Your Own鈥� teacher education programs, which include pre-teaching dual-enrollment programs in partnership with local high schools and community colleges and the paraprofessional-to-teacher program at the Lawrence public schools, the School of Education will build out a similar Merrimack Valley Regional Bilingual Hub to serve Lowell and Lawrence, she says.

鈥淲e鈥檒l be learning from the community in Brockton and surrounding towns, using that to improve their program and to inform us as we build our own,鈥� Leider says.

The Southeast Regional Bilingual Hub serves Brockton, where nearly 50% of all pre-K-12 students speak a language other than English at home, as well as Fall River, New Bedford, Randolph and Stoughton, which also have many more multilingual students than teachers. Over the past four academic years, 52 teachers and paraprofessionals with bachelor鈥檚 degrees in those towns became bilingual teachers through the hub, Leider says.

Image by Adrien Bisson

But Leider, who is president of the and a member of the , says the pipeline of potential bilingual teachers needs to be expanded to meet the needs of multilingual schoolchildren.

鈥淭his grant called for a 鈥楪row Your Own鈥� approach,鈥� she says. 鈥淪o, we thought, 鈥榃hy don鈥檛 we look at the linguistically rich communities we already have and see how we can support them and draw on their resources?鈥欌��

That means that, under the grant, the Southeast Regional Bilingual Hub will create new bilingual teacher certification pathways for bilingual paraprofessionals (teacher aides who provide one-on-one assistance to students with disabilities or help an entire class) who do not yet have a bachelor鈥檚 degree; bilingual teachers and professionals with technical skills from other countries who are not licensed to teach in the United States; and bilingual high school students who aspire to become teachers.

Each participant in the program will get different tuition-free services, based on their individual needs, to move them toward a teaching degree, initial teacher licensure and bilingual education certification. They will then be able to teach in bilingual classrooms, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) programs, dual-language programs and sheltered English immersion programs, Leider says.听

Image by K. Webster

Those services may include ESOL adult education classes to strengthen aspiring teachers鈥� spoken and written English; a new class, Language of Education, designed to prepare bilingual and multilingual high school students and community members for college- and graduate-level education coursework; undergraduate and graduate classes at Bridgewater State toward a teaching degree; at least 20 hours of individual coaching and mentoring; and preparation for licensing exams.

The high school students and community members will also complete a supervised, four-week summer internship, working closely with multilingual students in the Brockton schools, she says.听

During the second year of the grant, the leadership team and faculty in the 51视频 (UML) School of Education will do a community needs assessment in Lowell and Lawrence, where 42% and 72% of K-12 students, respectively, speak a primary language other than English at home. Then, in subsequent years, they will develop and enroll people in a similar bilingual education hub here.

鈥淢y dream would be to build the eventual bilingual education endorsement classes at UML into the B.A.Ed. program, so that students would leave ready to teach in a bilingual program,鈥� Leider says.

Leider, who joined 51视频 this fall, is the principal investigator on the grant. A second-generation Filipina American who grew up in southeast Alaska, she is multilingual to varying degrees in English, Spanish, Tagalog, Bisaya and Portuguese. She started her career teaching Spanish and ESOL, and has since been a teacher educator at Boston University, Boston College and, most recently, UMass Boston.

Leider focuses much of her research on bilingual education and teacher beliefs about multilingual learners. She has found that many teachers still regard a student鈥檚 home or 鈥渉eritage鈥� language as an educational handicap rather than a benefit, she says.

Image by Adrien Bisson

鈥淥ne of the things I still observe today is teachers telling parents they need to stop using their heritage language with their kids because it will hurt their ability to learn English,鈥� she says. 鈥淩esearch has shown that鈥檚 just not true, but it鈥檚 still a pretty common belief among teachers.鈥�

The grant鈥檚 leadership team includes Leider; Kellie Jones, director of bilingual education for the Brockton Public Schools; Paula Merchant, instructional coach for the Southeast Regional Bilingual Hub, who will provide pathway advising, individual coaching and mentoring; and Mostafa Mouhieeddine, head of Brockton鈥檚 Adult Learning Center.听 Christina Dobbs, associate professor of English Education for Equity and Justice at Boston University, who has expertise in teacher professional learning development and literacy instruction for multilingual learners, will serve as external evaluator.

The Merrimack Valley Regional Bilingual Hub Development Team at 51视频鈥檚 School of Education will include Leider; Assoc. Prof. Phitsamay Uy, who has expertise in family and community engagement in education, with a focus on immigrants and refugees; Asst. Prof. Robai Werunga, who researches special education and language acquisition; and Assoc. Prof. Stacy Szczesiul, who oversees UML鈥檚 鈥淕row Your Own鈥� programs and is also an associate dean of the College of Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.听

Two Ph.D. students at 51视频 and one at Boston University will also be paid to work on the grant.