Teacher Preparedness for a Changing Demographic of Language Learners‪.‬

Introduction Ontario is the province of choice for over 50% of newcomers to Canada (Chui, Tran, & Maheux, 2007a, 2007b; People for Education, 2008). Immigration continues to fuel Ontario's population growth while significantly contributing to linguistic diversity. As immigration increases, the English-language learners (ELLs) will become increasingly common in regular classrooms. ELLs are the fastest growing segment of elementary students (Antunez, 2002; Buck, Mast, Ehlers, & Franklin, 2005; Harper & de Jong, 2004). The need to prepare teachers better for working with ELLs is widely recognized (Taylor & Sobel, 2003). Studies have concluded that teachers graduating from education programs do not have the strategies necessary for simultaneous support of both academic content development and English-language growth (Buck et al.; Evans, Arnot-Hopffer, & Jurich, 2005; Waxman & Tellez, 2002). These teachers enter the field with limited cross-cultural knowledge and understanding of classroom challenges (Barnes, 2006; Buck et al.; Dorrington & Ramirez-Smith, 1999; Harper & de Jong; Taylor & Sobel), and teachers are taught to understand diversity merely in terms of celebrations and the appreciation of differences. With limited knowledge, teachers are susceptible to misinterpreting the capabilities of ELLs (Buck et al.; McLaughlin, 1992), and ineffectual core courses yield low inclusion competence and low levels of ELL sensitivity, leading to premature assumptions and blinders with respect to the assets that ELLs bring to the learning of all children (Pappamihiel, 2004).