Chapter 24: In Our School, We All Teach Esl: The Impact of the Collaborative Work of a Teacher Study Group

The focus of this chapter is to share the ways in which a group of teachers collaborated for the purpose of better serving the English language learners (ELLs) in their school. The vehicle for this collaboration was a Teacher Study Group on Instructional Strategies for English Language Learners (subsequently referred to as the Teacher Study Group), and its purpose was to raise achievement for the many immigrant students who live in the surrounding community. Through the combined efforts of these teachers, their school became a place where all teachers, in some respect, became English as a second language (ESL) teachers. To truly understand the origins of this transformation, it is necessary to share an experience I had with an immigrant student in my monolingual reading class.