Undergraduate
Saint Michael’s receives $900,000 grant from U.S. Department of Education
The funding will help train student teachers of English Language Learners in content classrooms
Contact Information:
Buff Lindau, Public Relations
802.654.2536
blindau@smcvt.edu
In Vermont and around the country, more and more classroom teachers will be called upon to teach in schools with large immigrant populations. “We are trying to prepare our students who graduate with teaching credentials to be equipped to deal with this kind of classroom,” said Dr. Susan Jenkins, associate professor and chair of applied linguistics at Saint Michael’s College.
To this end, Saint Michael’s is devising an innovative education curriculum. Professor Jenkins is project director of Project CREATE (Curriculum Reform for the Education of All Teachers of ELLs). She received notice this month that Project CREATE would receive a $900,000 grant, $180,000 for each of five years, from the U.S. Department of Education No Child Left Behind Act, specifically the, English Language Acquisition: National Professional Development Program.
Working jointly with Saint Michael’s programs in English as a Second Language and in the education department, Professor Jenkins and her co-principal investigators, Dr. Elizabeth O’Dowd of the ESL program and Dr. James Nagle of the education department, will devise and implement a program to train all Saint Michael’s education students seeking state licensure.
“Our goal is that every teacher who graduates with a degree from Saint Michael’s College goes out fully equipped to teach language learners in their content classroom,” Professor Jenkins said. This will require expanding and revising the Saint Michael’s education curriculum to meet an expanding need to reach students who are not yet fluent in English.
The central theme of the new curriculum will be to train teachers to reach all students right in the same classroom, whatever the subject—math, physics, literature, and so forth—so that they will no longer have to be taken out of the regular classroom. Part of the new philosophy is to train teachers “to understand the powerful role of language in learning any content,” Professor Jenkins said.
Because Saint Michael’s is unique in the state in having both a general education degree and a TESOL (teaching English as a second language) department, it is the ideal place to create a collaborative program for general education students and English-as-a-Second-Language students seeking licensure. The project will include curriculum development, professional development for college faculty and cooperating teachers, workshops, a Vermont ESL website and faculty presentations over the five-year course of the grant.
The program will reach all Saint Michael’s education students, some 100 of whom graduate every year and generally go on to teach in Vermont and neighboring states. Many of these will eventually become cooperating teachers in their turn. The project will thus build the region’s capacity to effectively educate students not initially fluent in English, students called English Language Learners.
Saint Michael’s College, founded in 1904 by the Society of St. Edmund and headed by President Marc A. vanderHeyden, has been identified by U. S. News & World Report for 17 consecutive years as one of the top15 Master’s Universities in the North. A liberal arts, residential, Catholic college located in the Burlington area of Vermont, Saint Michael’s was recently invited to sponsor a chapter of the prestigious academic honor society, Phi Beta Kappa, on campus. Saint Michael’s has 2,000 full-time undergraduate students, and some 500 graduate students and 200 international students, studying part time. The College was named recently by Newsweek magazine a “Hidden Treasure,” one of 30 colleges recommended most frequently by guidance counselors for being “schools that deserve more national recognition.” Saint Michael’s is included in Princeton Review’s The Best 361 Colleges: 2007 Edition.
Buff Lindau, Public Relations
802.654.2536
blindau@smcvt.edu
In Vermont and around the country, more and more classroom teachers will be called upon to teach in schools with large immigrant populations. “We are trying to prepare our students who graduate with teaching credentials to be equipped to deal with this kind of classroom,” said Dr. Susan Jenkins, associate professor and chair of applied linguistics at Saint Michael’s College.
To this end, Saint Michael’s is devising an innovative education curriculum. Professor Jenkins is project director of Project CREATE (Curriculum Reform for the Education of All Teachers of ELLs). She received notice this month that Project CREATE would receive a $900,000 grant, $180,000 for each of five years, from the U.S. Department of Education No Child Left Behind Act, specifically the, English Language Acquisition: National Professional Development Program.
Working jointly with Saint Michael’s programs in English as a Second Language and in the education department, Professor Jenkins and her co-principal investigators, Dr. Elizabeth O’Dowd of the ESL program and Dr. James Nagle of the education department, will devise and implement a program to train all Saint Michael’s education students seeking state licensure.
“Our goal is that every teacher who graduates with a degree from Saint Michael’s College goes out fully equipped to teach language learners in their content classroom,” Professor Jenkins said. This will require expanding and revising the Saint Michael’s education curriculum to meet an expanding need to reach students who are not yet fluent in English.
The central theme of the new curriculum will be to train teachers to reach all students right in the same classroom, whatever the subject—math, physics, literature, and so forth—so that they will no longer have to be taken out of the regular classroom. Part of the new philosophy is to train teachers “to understand the powerful role of language in learning any content,” Professor Jenkins said.
Because Saint Michael’s is unique in the state in having both a general education degree and a TESOL (teaching English as a second language) department, it is the ideal place to create a collaborative program for general education students and English-as-a-Second-Language students seeking licensure. The project will include curriculum development, professional development for college faculty and cooperating teachers, workshops, a Vermont ESL website and faculty presentations over the five-year course of the grant.
The program will reach all Saint Michael’s education students, some 100 of whom graduate every year and generally go on to teach in Vermont and neighboring states. Many of these will eventually become cooperating teachers in their turn. The project will thus build the region’s capacity to effectively educate students not initially fluent in English, students called English Language Learners.
Saint Michael’s College, founded in 1904 by the Society of St. Edmund and headed by President Marc A. vanderHeyden, has been identified by U. S. News & World Report for 17 consecutive years as one of the top15 Master’s Universities in the North. A liberal arts, residential, Catholic college located in the Burlington area of Vermont, Saint Michael’s was recently invited to sponsor a chapter of the prestigious academic honor society, Phi Beta Kappa, on campus. Saint Michael’s has 2,000 full-time undergraduate students, and some 500 graduate students and 200 international students, studying part time. The College was named recently by Newsweek magazine a “Hidden Treasure,” one of 30 colleges recommended most frequently by guidance counselors for being “schools that deserve more national recognition.” Saint Michael’s is included in Princeton Review’s The Best 361 Colleges: 2007 Edition.
