NIU partners in state program to recruit bilingual teachers

by Mark McGowan

Friends and colleagues of Jack Fields are lucky he has a cell phone.

His number at work – Fields is the coordinator of the Transition to Teaching Program for the Illinois Resource Center – is perpetually busy. As of last Tuesday, nearly 800 people had registered their interest in a federally funded initiative to recruit and train bilingual teachers, and Fields must call them all back.

NIU is a partner with the Illinois State Board of Education, the Chicago Public Schools and the Illinois Resource Center in the grant, which begins next month with a cohort of 30. Students will need two-and-a-half years to complete the rigorous curriculum, and new cohorts will start each semester through the fall of 2007.

“We're going to come up with a high level of quality in these candidates,” Fields said. “A lot of the process right now is getting out the information and answering questions.”

The Title II grant, part of No Child Left Behind, addresses the critical shortage of bilingual teachers in Illinois by identifying and assisting candidates from other fields who wish to change careers and become bilingual teachers.

Participants must be fluent in English and another language targeted by the state – the list includes Arabic, Cantonese, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Lao, Mandarin, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Urdu and Vietnamese – and must already have a bachelor's degree in any subject.

In Illinois, only the Chicago Public Schools meets the federal requirements for high need. The state's largest school district is home to 57,000 students for whom English is not their native tongue.

“NIU clearly has a very real, very compelling interest in this program,” said Vice Provost Earl “Gip” Seaver, who represented NIU at an Aug. 9 press conference in Chicago. “The greater Chicagoland region served by NIU is among the fastest-growing regions in the country. Latinos represent the fastest-growing ethnic group in the region. And, among Latinos, the fastest-growing subset is made up of non-English-speaking residents.”

“The sheer growth in the number of second-language learners in the state of Illinois makes it imperative we have individuals teaching in the classrooms who are bilingual. This is particularly true in Chicago, but true also in school districts such as Cicero, West Chicago, East Aurora, Waukegan and Elgin,” said Norm Stahl, chair of College of Education 's Department of Literacy Education.

“Positive role models are important,” Stahl added. “Kids need to be able to communicate with someone who speaks their own language and has an understanding of the culture the kids bring to the classroom.”

The Illinois Transition to Teaching initiative hopes to recruit around 250 participants over the next five years. It provides financial support for the completion of a master's degree and standard certification in elementary education along with bilingual and English as a Second Language teaching approvals.

All participants will work as bilingual teachers in the Chicago Public Schools while completing the required coursework, and then employed afterward within the district.

NIU already has trained nearly 200 bilingual teachers from across the service region in recent years, including more than 100 who graduated in May. More than 300 new bilingual and ESL teachers are currently in the NIU pipeline.

“Readiness for college is highly dependent on having teachers who are well-prepared and can make sure that high school graduates are ready for a smooth transition to higher education,” Seaver said. “Issues as important as bilingual education deserve the best efforts of many partners, and we're proud to be involved.”

“Northern has been the most flexible and the most supportive and cooperating in terms of trying to develop a program that will meet the needs of school districts and potential candidates,” Fields said. “You have a terrific group of people out there in terms of willingness to work hard and be creative.”

Robin Lisboa, division administrator for English Language Learning at the Illinois State Board of Education, said the NIU master's degree for bilingual teachers is solid.

“Some programs out there are alternative programs that look at condensing some of the process. With Northern, it's an alternate route, meaning they're not cutting any corners,” said Lisboa, an NIU alumna who earned her M.S.Ed. in elementary education in 2000.

“We're looking at a pedagogically sound curriculum. You're going to take the same courses anyone would take in an on-campus program. The difference is that Northern is able to deliver the coursework close to the community where the recipients are,” Lisboa added. “Being a product of the system – looking at it from a student's perspective and now an administrator's perspective – I believe in the soundness of the instruction.”

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