This qualitative study investigates the at-home educational efforts of six immigrant families as they prepare their children for school in the United States. The participants’ at-home educational activities were provided by the Mexican immigrant families using photographs of activities that they judged as skills which developed the child’s ability to engage with other children, teachers, and the curriculum on their first day at school. Photovoice methodology was used in order to provide the Mexican immigrants’ voice.

The families were recruited from a large urban city in the Southwest with a large immigrant population. They were recruited from medical centers, social support centers, churches with immigrant communities, and schools that had Mexican immigrant children in attendance. The schools and churches provided the greatest source of participants. The educational level of the parents varied from over fifteen years to three years of schooling in Mexico. The children in the study were citizens of the United States, were from two to four years of age, had not yet attended school in the U.S., but had siblings attending public schools in the United States. The families opened their life to the researcher and provided an insight through their photographs that could not have been gained if only interviews and/or questionnaires were used.

The twenty five photographs selected to identify the six educational themes that were highlighted throughout the study are demonstrative of what the families in the study were doing to prepare their children for their first day of school. Mexican immigrant parents have high expectations for their children and are willing to sacrifice for the children’s education.

The purpose of this study was to explore and report on the impact of coaching as an embedded part of professional development has on teacher learning and practice in the context of educating English Language Learners (ELLs). A close examination was made of what teachers, coaches and principals believe to be effective professional development and how the relationship between a coach and teacher affects understanding of and classroom practice with a specific population of students. The research questions were (a) How can coaching support implementation of professional development goals over traditional development activities as reported by the teacher, coach and administrator? (b) What is the relationship between the coach and teacher? (c) How does the coaching process relate to self- reported coach and teacher knowledge of instruction and practice in the ELL context? I used a qualitative approach to gather data through classroom observations and in-depth interviews. The 17 participants came from Title 1 elementary schools with high ELL populations located in the central and west valley of Phoenix, Arizona. I analyzed the data deductively then coded and categorized participant responses in relation to the literature on professional development and coaching. The findings indicated that those involved perceived embedded coaching as an effective component of professional development. What I have now termed based on my study as Professional Development Praxis (PPD). They agreed that with a structured system of coaching in place, both teachers and coaches increased their knowledge of how to best instruct ELLs as well as enhanced their ability to put research-based strategies into classroom practice. The recommendation of this study is that districts, schools and professional developers provide training and support for educators in a meaningful, effective and student centered way. Professional development were educators are provided knowledge about ELLs, opportunities for practice of what they are learning in and out of training sessions and on-going collaboration and support as they work with their students. It is the job of everyone involved in the system to better prepare educators to meet the critical needs of students who come to school with specific linguistic and academic needs.

This thesis study describes English Language Learner (ELL) participation practices in a summer English language development (ELD) middle school classroom in a public school district in Arizona. The purpose of the study was to document Mexican immigrant and Mexican American English learners' language experiences in a prescriptive ELD program in relation to the social, historical and cultural context. The study utilizes a sociocultural framework and critical language awareness concepts as well as qualitative interpretive inquiry to answer the following research questions: What is the nature of ELL participation during language lessons? That is, what are the common participation practices in the classroom? What social or cultural values or norms are evident in the classroom talk during language lessons? That is, in what ways do participants use language for social purposes? And, what is the cultural model of ELD evident in the classroom language practices? Data collection and analyses consisted of close examination of ELL participation within official language lessons as well as the social uses of language in the classroom. Analysis of classroom discourse practices revealed that ELL participation was heavily controlled within the common Initiation-Response-Evaluation pattern and that the students were limited to repetition and recitation responses. Further, analysis of discourse content demonstrated that classroom participants used language for social purposes in the classroom, most often using regulatory, decontextualized and resistance language. The findings revealed a cultural model of constrained ELD language practices that can be considered a pedagogy of subtractive assimilation.