ABSTRACT
U.S. schools traditionally serve students who bring rich cultural and linguistic resources. The past three decades have brought an upsurge in linguistic and cultural diversity in the classroom not experienced since the 1920s (Capps et al., 2005). Often culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students bring resources that may go undetected or underutilized by mainstream teachers. Language arts educators have been asked to examine current instructional practices to build upon the heterogeneity of students and the resources they bring to learning (Gutiérrez, 2001; Gutiérrez, Baquedano-López, & Tejeda, 2000). Educators are to look to pedagogical practices which connect to students’ local cultural and linguistic knowledge and practices (funds of knowledge), personal experiences, and varied ways of showing their abilities (González, Moll, & Amanti, 2005; Ladson-Billings, 2001; Zentella, 2005), rather than students’ language designation. Ultimately, good instruction begins with knowing one’s students. This chapter paints a demographic portrait of language learners, illustrating the complexity of issues underlying the resources they bring and their achievement patterns. We focus on English Learners (ELs) in particular-language minority students who require linguistic support in English-as they represent the fastest growing segment of the student population.
