Book Penned by College of Education Professors
Helps New Teachers Work with English Learners

Practical Strategies for Successful Classrooms

August 13, 2007

By Debra Cano Ramos

Throughout her career in teaching, Carmen Zuniga Dunlap, associate dean of the College of Education, has focused on helping non-English speaking students succeed in the classroom.

A recently published book co-authored by Zuniga Dunlap and Evelyn Marino Weisman, associate professor of elementary and bilingual education, is helping new teachers become successful working with English learners.

 “Helping English Language Learners Succeed,” published by Shell Educational Publishing, is a resource for new teachers whose students include a proportion of English learners, say the authors. Demographic changes in California and across the United States reflect increasing numbers of English learners in K-12 schools, Zuniga Dunlap explained.
“One of every four students in California is an English learner. Preparing teachers to find effective ways to work with this population has become a critical element of professional development,” she added.

The book presents practical instructional approaches and strategies, drawing on the authors’ experiences in K-8 classrooms and instruction in teacher preparation programs. It also provides research-based explanations that support the instructional efficacy of these approaches, Zuniga Dunlap said.

Topics in the book address oral and written language development, as well as reading and content instruction and assessment. The book is part of the “Practical Strategies for Successful Classroom Teaching” series.
Zuniga Dunlap, a former bilingual education teacher who taught in U.S. and Latin American public schools prior to joining CSUF in 1989, has written extensively on issues of language and literacy development, especially as they relate to second-language learners and teacher preparation for diverse settings. She has a doctorate in education with an emphasis in applied linguistics from the University of Illinois. Weisman served as a bilingual teacher, curriculum specialist and an elementary school principal. She joined Cal State Fullerton in 1997 after earning her doctorate from Claremont Graduate University. Her research interests include bicultural development and teacher education issues, focusing on children from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds.