Professional Interview A:

Oversight and Coaching New ESOL Teachers

Being a new teacher is overwhelming. On top of getting a classroom together, planning
lessons and grading work, teachers are consistently attending professional development to help
them grow and expand their knowledge from their pre-service programs. For teachers of English
to speakers of other languages, this means growing professionally in the content areas being
taught as well as maximizing language outcomes for students. For this interview, my class and I
met with Laura Feichtinger, the ESL and Title III Coordinator for Harrisonburg City Public
Schools, to learn more about professional development and coaching for new ESOL teachers.

Overall, Laura stated that professional development, especially in the field of ESOL, has
been lacking in depth and challenge. The uniqueness of Harrisonburg City as a district with a
high EL population has created a distance gap between the professional development and
standards of the state and the district. According to Laura, Harrisonburg City consistently sees
English language learners as around 40% of the student population where the average in the
Commonwealth of Virginia tends to hover in the range of less than 5%. This leads to a huge gap
in the real experiences of teachers in Harrisonburg City and the state professional development.
Much of the professional development in English language acquisition is “intro level”
information that Laura says can be redundant and not address the actual needs of English
language learners in the school district. By engaging with more challenging professional
development, teachers will be able to meaningfully reflect on their content and language
objectives execution in the classroom and think carefully about meeting the needs of their
English language learners. This requires a more in-depth study of language acquisition and
development as well as best practices across content and language areas.

One of the biggest focuses of this interview on professional development was the concept
of instructional coaching as one of the most effective tools of professional development. This
method of planning, implementing, and reflecting allows for teachers of all experience levels to
receive some individualized, multi-level feedback of their practices and objectives. Having an
instructional coach to observe and reflect on your classroom can improve overall performance in
classroom management, objectives, and best practices in a way that provides low-stakes
mentorship and an open dialogue that allows teachers to grow professionally while teaching.
During our interview, Laura stated that one of the most effectives strategies (albeit its resource
demand and cost) would be cyclical instructional coaching where a teacher or administrator
rotates years between teaching and coaching. This cycle is beneficial for the teachers receiving
coaching as well as the coaches to get out in the field and authentically observe other classrooms.
This can be especially beneficial for teachers of English to speakers of other languages since
there are often multiple content and language objectives that can be tricky to juggle. Instructional
coaching can also help manage some of the chaos of teaching English in different classrooms
with different structures. Teachers of English language learners can also promote transfer of their
skills into the mainstream classrooms they engage in through modifying assessments, projects,
and day-to-day activities to encourage best practices across the board.

Professional development has historically been a part of teaching that can feel like a drag.
After our interview with Laura, it became apparent that professional development, especially in
the field of ESOL may just need a shock to the system to create engaging and meaningful routes
of professional development whether it be through workshops, meetings, instructional coaching,
or a host of other methods. I was grateful for the opportunity to learn and grow through this
experience and anticipate future interviews regarding partnership and advocacy.