Foundations & Strategies for Bilingual Vocational Education: A Handbook for Vocational-Technical Education Personnel.

Overview & Synopsis

As an aid in preservice and inservice teacher education, this handbook is intended to produce a vocational instructor who understands the rationale of bilingual education, is sensitive to the special needs of bilingual and limited-English-proficient (LEP) vocational students, and is not afraid to try new teaching techniques. The six chapters, which include practice questions, cover the following areas: (1) terminology associated with both bilingual education and vocational education; (2) the history of bilingual education, vocational education, and bilingual vocational education; (3) a detailed description of the needs of bilingual and LEP vocational students, along with a list of suggested practices to meet the needs; (4) a description of several approaches to designing a bilingual vocational education program and suggestions on how the instructor can get support from colleagues and the administration in establishing a program; (5) details on constructing a vocational course, from analyzing the occupation and its associated duties to developing lesson plans; and (6) a discussion of 20 commonly used teaching techniques and how each can be modified for multicultural vocational settings, along with several suggestions for communicating with LEP vocational students. Information about testing and resources in bilingual vocational education and prevocational English as a second language is appended. (Author/SW)