Expanding EAL expertise: Taking a multilingual stance

Abstract

English as an Additional Language (EAL) students are increasingly taught by non-specialist, mainstream teachers. This trend calls for a reconceptualization of teacher education to explicitly and purposefully include linguistically and culturally responsive pedagogy in their curriculum. In the United States, several frameworks have been proposed to address this need, although much still needs to be learned about actual practice in preservice teacher preparation programs. In this article, I caution against the monolingual bias in preservice teacher preparation and argue for the mandate for developing a multilingual stance for all teachers of EAL students.