Book and Materials Review
Educating English Learners:
What Every Classroom Teacher
Needs to Know
Joyce W. Nutta, Carine Strebel, Kouider Mokhtari, Florin M.
Mihai, and Edwidge Crevecoeur-Bryant. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Education Press, 2014.
There is a growing number of culturally and
linguistically diverse students in almost every state
in the United States. According to Nutta, Mokhtari,
and Strebel (2011), “there are approximately 5
million ELs [English learners] in the United States,
and this number is on the rise” (p. 1). Even though
most of these students are in at least one course
taught by mainstream teachers, there is a
communication gap for teachers to reach English language
learners (ELs).
Educating English Learners: What Every Classroom Teacher Needs to
Know comes with a website (http://englishlearnerachievement.com),
and examines ELs in mainstream PK–12 settings by focusing on the
language demands on the learners and their proficiency levels. The
website provides additional information on the topics of each chapter
with webpage links including free online resources, activities and
lesson plans for classroom teachers, and research for further studies.
The classroom teachers can use this website to download lesson
plans, content, activities, and sample teacher–student interaction
videos, as well as to view workshops.
The authors touch on three major areas: communication and
language in the mainstream classrooms, the process of acquiring
language, and the distance between the communication in
classrooms and learners’ individual language development. While
most books discuss these educational issues through theories and
concepts, this book takes a very different approach by introducing
600 TESOL Journal 6.3, September 2015
© 2015 TESOL International Association
doi: 10.1002/tesj.205