Community Literacies en Confianza

<p><strong>Most teachers of English language learners are not fluently bilingual and many don't receive formal professional development in teaching emergent bilingual students. </strong></p><p>Thus they aren't always adequately prepared to meet the challenges of working with this growing demographic of K-12 students in US classrooms. So teachers' greatest resources argues Steven Alvarez are the students themselves with both a facility in their home language and ties to their home communities. After-school programs focused on English learners Alvarez suggests offer a way for parents teachers and volunteers to come together to navigate school systems and the English language share stories and work to develop facility in reading and writing across languages. </p><p><em>Community Literacies en Confianza: Learning from Bilingual After-School Programs</em> directly addresses teachers who are learning about emergent bilingual students. Alvarez offers ideas for approaching engaging and partnering with students' communities to design culturally sustaining pedagogies that productively use the literacy abilities students bring to schools. Drawing on the <em>NCTE Position Paper on the Role of English Teachers in Educating English Language Learners (ELLs)</em> Alvarez highlights the importance of building mutual trust or confianza between students schools and communities both inside and outside of the classroom. Our students have as much to teach us as we have to teach them as long as we're open to their experiences and stories as we learn and grow together.</p><p></p>