Teaching English Language Learners (TELLs): A US-UK collaborative evaluation of an approach to training teachers for multilingual classrooms

Who is running this project?

This project is led by Dr Naomi Flynn working in collaboration with Professor Annela Teemant at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, USA.

What is this project about?

This project brings together two teacher educators to evaluate the potential adaptation of a US-designed, successful teacher development framework for use in the UK with teachers of pupils who are English language learners (ELLs).  It attends to the shared US-UK challenges of: under-attainment of some groups of ELLs; teachers under-preparedness to teach them; and the need for low-cost, locally managed, sustainable improvement in practice for ELLs. The focus on understanding and unpacking teacher pedagogy – illustrating what effective teachers do and say when trained with this framework – is aimed at enhancing teaching of ELLs on both sides of The Atlantic.

The project is funded by Naomi’s US-UK Fulbright Commission Visiting Scholar Award which will support her three month stay in Indianapolis from July – October 2021. On her return Naomi will translate the findings of this Fulbright project to a related CeLM project with her PhD student Aniqa Leena.