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Building on the best knowledge of research and practice available and many years of teaching, teacher preparation, and professional development practice, Quality Teaching for English Learners (QTEL) staff began in 2001 to conceptualize and develop tools and processes designed to build the capacity of teachers to deepen the linguistic, conceptual, and academic development of adolescent English language learners (ELL). These tools and processes provided by QTEL are packaged as modules and are intended for use by a wide variety of educators. In keeping with research on knowledge utilization, QTEL's tools and processes can be tailored to meet the needs of a broad range of users in various contexts with varying degrees of expertise and prior knowledge.
WestEd designed the QTEL professional development program to focus specifically on developing adolescent students' abilities to read, write, and discuss academic texts in English in rigorous academic courses. QTEL includes a professional development and coaching model that provides support for teachers, teacher educators, and professional developers in various learning and teaching contexts, using tools and processes that the program has developed in the form of multimedia modules. Drawing on theory and practice from a broad body of research – in pedagogy (McGonigal, 1997; Resnick & Nelson-Le Gall, 1997; Rogoff, 2003; Shulman, 1987, 1995; Walqui, 2000); teaching and learning theory (Bruner, 1983; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Lemke, 1990; Resnick & Nelson Le-Gall, 1997; Rogoff, 2003; Vygotsky, 1978); and second language acquisition and teaching (Allwright, 1988; Allwright & Bailey, 1991; Candlin, 1987; Candlin & Murphy, 1987; Gibbons, 2002, 2003; Hammond, 2001; Oxford, 1997; van Lier, 1988, 1996, 2004) – the program challenges traditional practices in which lowered expectations and simplified curricula for ELLs are the norm. Instead, QTEL offers an academic framework rich in intellectual challenge and highly supported tasks that are designed to develop teacher expertise and student achievement.
Targeting academic literacy development for ELLs through a lens in which classroom social processes, language, and learning are seen as inextricably intertwined, the QTEL program promotes highly supported, carefully scaffolded tasks, which amplify and enrich the linguistic and extra-linguistic contexts of learning, as key to student achievement.
Click here (PDF) to read the full research base, including relevant research, the QTEL model, current research and references cited.
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