Chapter 7: D.A.N.C.E. Into Differentiation: Innovative Learning and Language Teaching

Over the past 20 years, there has been a steady rise in the population of linguistically and culturally diverse students across the United States. In 2014, an estimated 4 million immigrants, accounting for 9% of the United States’ overall immigrant population, were from the Caribbean (Zong & Batalova, 2016). Over 90% of these Caribbean immigrants were from Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Trinidad and Tobago, where Patois, Haitian Creole or French, Spanish, and English are spoken, respectively (Zong & Batalova, 2016). Within this Caribbean population, over 60% of these non-English speaking students are classified as English learners (ELs) with limited English proficiency (LEP).