Teaching ESL and STEM Content through CALL : A Research-Based Interdisciplinary Critical Pedagogical Approach

English learners are not offered adequate support to succeed in STEM-related areas necessary for college and careers. This book provides a research-based and a critical pedagogical framework using project-based learning methodology and classroom-tested CALL programs to address this need.

English Learners (ELs) are left behind in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). The growing need for effective critical pedagogical competence (CPC), critical technological competence (CTC), and critical cross-cultural communicative competence (C⁵) in teachers who serve ELs has become more evident because of the increasing numbers of ELs and the global socio-economic, and technological developments. C⁵, which encompasses CTC and CPC, is defined in the book as the teacher’s ability to communicate effectively across cultures with diverse individuals. An educator who possesses C⁵ is able to critically understand the power relations and importance of the socio-economic and political contexts in any human encounter and the ability to make connections with real life to teach STEM content successfully. The book provides teachers of ELs with a research-based framework using classroom-tested Computer-assisted Language Learning and Teaching (CALL) programs to empower themselves, through a practical reflective self-professional development component, as they help their students succeed academically in STEM. A critical pedagogical and a genre-based communicative approach is used to achieve this goal by teaching vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing, listening, and speaking. These key English language skills are given special attention in the book while supporting ELs’ native literacies and STEM education. Throughout the book, the critical pedagogical approach focuses on the socio-economic context of education and makes connections between life in the classroom and real life. Research on successful STEM schools indicates that cultivating partnerships with industry, higher education, nonprofits, museums, and research centers is crucial for engaging students in STEM learning through internships, mentorships, interdisciplinary project-based learning, and early college experiences. To cultivate these partnerships and engage ELs in STEM requires educators to possess a C⁵. From an interdisciplinary approach, the book''s argument is supported by insights gained from research in various fields of inquiry. The book offers practical detailed lesson plans, hands-on reflective inquiry activities, classroom vignettes, rubrics and research-based criteria to evaluate practice, strategies, and CALL programs and resources, that are either very inexpensive or free of charge. The main goal of the book is to develop students’ English proficiency and help ELs maintain their native literacy to succeed academically in STEM content areas.