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In the summer of 1989, a group of eight plaintiffs--known as the Multicultural Education Training and Advocacy (META) Project--informed the state education agency of its intent to sue on behalf of underserved students with limited English proficiency. The suit was based on the state's failure to establish statewide standards and guidelines for the provision of services to these students. META and the state negotiated an agreement (called the consent decree) that prescribed a four-part remedy: (1) identifying, assessing, and monitoring the progress of language minority students; (2) providing LEP students with access to teachers trained to meet their needs; (3) requiring teachers to obtain appropriate training and certification; and (4) evaluating program effectiveness. In practical terms, the consent decree requires all teachers working with any LEP student to participate in courses related to teaching English to speakers of other languages (ESOL) and, in some cases, to earn formal bilingual or ESOL credentials. To meet the terms of the decree, DCPS and other Florida districts were faced with the responsibility for setting up immediate training for a large number of teachers and winning the teachers' cooperation in this endeavor.
DCPS saw the decree as an opportunity to expand existing professional development activities, and, as soon as the terms were announced, the director of Bilingual/Foreign Language Education and Training at DCPS began developing a plan. Her commitment and vigor arose from first-hand experience learning English as a second language. Through her efforts and those of her colleagues, the DCPS's Bureau of Human Resource Development created a program of inservice training that allows teachers who need ESOL endorsement, desire professional growth, or want recertification to enroll in the necessary courses during times when they are not teaching.
Courses. Teachers are able to meet their training requirements by taking courses offered several times throughout the year to accommodate their schedules. Courses are offered in afternoons and evenings during the school year, all day Saturday for seven weeks, and in summer institutes that run for seven consecutive seven-hour weekdays in June and July. All classes meet at schools or at the Dade County Training Center. During the seven-day summer sessions, any participant absent more than one day is automatically dropped from the course; two absences are allowed in afternoon and evening courses. Teachers may take up to three courses in the summer session.
The eight courses offered are: Methods of Teaching ESOL, ESOL Curriculum and Materials Development, Cross Cultural Communication and Understanding, Applied Linguistics, Testing and Evaluation of ESOL, ESOL Issues and Strategies, Home Language Strategies, and Issues and Strategies for LEP Students. Courses consist of combinations of lecture, films, discussion, homework, role-plays, and small-group activities. In addition, trainees apply new ideas in lessons that their supervisors observe and assess, and they write reviews of current articles or publications on second-language learning and methods.
Requirements. All teachers who have LEP students in their classrooms must acquire a certain number of Master Plan Points (MPPs) within six years. The number of points and the timeline for completion depend on their teaching assignment (for example, ESOL or content area) and prior experience. Points are achieved by completing the courses offered through the program. Basic ESOL teachers who provide students with LEP primary language arts instruction must take five courses of training. Basic ESOL teachers with prior experiences need only take one course (any one other than Applied Linguistics). Primary language teachers who teach LEP students basic subjects in their native language must take Home Language Strategies. Teachers of other non-basic subject areas must take a mini-course called Issues/Strategies for Teaching LEP Students.
Although the state did not require districts to begin training until July 1991, DCPS's bilingual/ESL program director quickly began training assistant principals for 87 school sites throughout the district. These administrators then trained teachers in their own schools.
Institutional collaboration. Today instructors from the district and the Region 5 Multifunctional Resource Center, located at Florida Atlantic University, provide most of the training for the program. They offer courses in use of cross-cultural ESOL materials, curriculum development, applied linguistics, and assessment. Other instructors include certified ESOL teachers with masters degrees. Almost all instructors and staff are bilingual.
Accountability. Using a powerful management information system, the district monitors the training status of each teacher with LEP students. Whenever a student with limited English proficiency--as identified by an oral interview and a standardized test--is assigned to a teacher's classroom, that information is entered into the computer system. Monitors review the inservice background of the teacher for compliance with the terms of the consent decree. If the teacher's training status differs from META requirements for the student's placement, the school loses district support for the teacher's position. Thus, schools and teachers have a strong incentive to take the requirements seriously.
The director reports that many changes are occurring in classrooms of teachers who have gone through the training. Most importantly, she notes, many teachers are exercising initiative to find better ways to reach their language minority students and, sometimes, to reduce reliance on traditional methods and texts. In content areas, she sees more teachers using peer tutoring and heterogeneous grouping to help students with limited English proficiency. She has also noticed greater use of visual aids, outlines, advance organizers, and charts. Finally, the director believes that many teachers have become more culturally aware and sensitive, and that fewer staff demonstrate the effects of ethnocentric biases, such as assuming that lack of eye contact during a conversation indicates lack of respect.
In evaluations completed after each session, participants comment on how much they have learned. The feedback suggests that teachers often begin the course with hostile attitudes toward the mandatory training, but most eventually recognize they have learned a considerable amount about ESL instruction and specific techniques to use in their classes. Several project participants have expressed interest in becoming fully certified in ESOL or bilingual education as a result of their training.
Both teachers and district staff worry that the program targets too many groups of people at once. Courses are necessarily geared toward a heterogeneous group of teachers (K-12) with a variety of experiences and classroom situations. Because the program serves hundreds of teachers each year, project staff are struggling to figure out ways of tailoring the courses to match the needs of those in different assignments.
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