Teacher Interview on Professional Development

In order to know how ESL teachers view professional development for new ESL
teachers, on September 30th, 2020, I interviewed Ms. Musser, a 5th grade ESL specialist at
Blue Stone Elementary School in Harrisonburg city on Google Meet. Ms. Musser was the
ESL teacher with whom I had my practicum last year. When she was in Rockingham county,
she was a mentor for a new ESL teacher one year. She also helped the ESL teacher who came
to her building from another building but didn't have a mentor assigned since he was not a
new teacher. Later she moved to Harrisonburg city, where she has not had a chance to be a
mentor, because there has not been a new ESL teacher since she came to the school.

Ms. Musser’s response to my first question about the struggle that first year teachers
most likely to have is recognizing how much their students actually know. Thinking back to
her first year, she added, “Because sometimes you think they know more, and sometimes you
think they don’t know. Sometimes they may have the experience about that topic” (S. Musser.
personal communication, September 30th, 2020). Then, I asked her how she managed to know
how much her students actually know. She said you have to pay close attention to the
students’ responses, from which you will be able to figure it out. According to Ms. Musser,
each individual school has different professional development programs or support for their
teachers. As far as she knows, some schools provide ESL professional organizations’
conferences or webinars, such as VATESOL and VESA, for their ESL teachers. Within her
building, they actually have professional development for all teachers, but not just for ESL
teachers. According to Ms. Musser, Harrisonburg city offers SIOP training program and
“Intro to ESL” course for all teachers.

When it comes to my third question, Ms. Musser answered, “The best professional
development I have experienced so far is EXC-ELL” (S. Musser. personal communication,
September 30th, 2020). She asked if I know about it. I said I have heard of it, but didn’t know
much. According to Ms. Musser, EXC-ELL is an English instructional model, developed by Dr.
Margarita Calderón, aiming to expedite reading comprehension for English language learners.
The strategies she learned from the training conference have largely impacted her ways of
teaching with her ESL students. She asked whether I noticed her strategies being used in her
teaching during the practicum last year, such as repeating each vocabulary word three times,
giving students the definition of each word, providing example sentences of each word, sentence
frames, and having students ping-pong each word several times. Altogether, to master a new
word, students need to repeat the word 17 times by the end of 2 minutes, which is how they
expedite the learning of vocabulary. Ms. Musser shared with me the URL of EXC-ELL’s website
and strongly recommended that I sign up for their training programs if I ever get a chance.
My fourth question was about having a mentor for new ESL teachers at least in the first
year. Ms. Musser agreed that they definitely need a mentor. She was not provided with a mentor
in her first year at the elementary school in Harrisonburg city, because she was not a new ESL
teacher when she moved from Rockingham county to Harrisonburg city. Then, after hearing my
last question, “Statistics show that 15% of the new teachers leave the profession and another
14% change schools after their first year. Do you think this also happens to ESL teachers? What
are your suggestions for supporting new ESL teachers?”, Ms. Musser thinks it is less likely to
happen to first year ESL teachers, because people who teach ESL usually have previous teaching
experience and often ESL is an add-on certificate. While offering new ESL teachers to attend
organizational professional development activities is one way to support them, owing to the
budget of individual schools, it may be unrealistic to provide such offers to all new teachers. She
suggests those who have gone to ESL professional development programs sponsored make
training and coaching programs for other teachers in their schools.

Overall, Ms. Musser’s responses to my interview questions helped me now more about
professional development for ESL teachers, particularly, the detailed information on EXC-
ELL protocol. I am glad to know that in Ms. Musser’s opinion, ESL teachers are less likely to
quit in or after the first year of teaching, and that some school districts provide mentors for
new teachers, although the awareness of the importance of having a mentor for new ESL
teachers is still lacking among many schools and districts.