Chapter 11: “I Don’t Have The Resources To Learn, Or … The Time To Do That”: Teacher Educators’ Perspectives and Practices of Preparing Preservice Teachers for English Language Learners

English language learners’ enrollment in K–12 American schools has increased to 9.3 % (an estimated 4.5 million) of the overall student population (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016). Many of these students experience more learning difficulties than their native-English-speaking peers. For example, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading scores for fourth and eighth graders have been lower for English language learners (ELLs) than for their non-ELL peers since 2002 (The Nation’s Report Card, 2015a, 2015b). Moreover, ELLs continue to have disproportionately high dropout rates (Menken, 2010;Sheng, Sheng, & Anderson, 2011), low graduation rates (Menken, 2010), low college enrolment and completion rates (Kohler & Lazarín, 2007), and overrepresentation in special education placement (Sullivan, 2011).