What are some common misconceptions about EL/SLIFE students and ESL instruction? How can professional development be leveraged to help educators support multilingual learners?

What are some particularly effective instructional strategies for multilingual learners in mainstream classrooms? We discuss these questions and more in an impassioned discussion with Nebraska’s 2022 Teacher of the Year Lee Perez. Perez is the first ESL teacher to win Teacher of the Year award in Nebraska, the recipient of the 2021 Award for Teaching Excellence through the Nebraska State Education Association, was named a Cox Communications Education Hero for the Omaha area, and is currently a 2023 Horseman Awards for Teaching Excellence finalist. He is a fifth- through eighth-grade English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher at Alice Buffett Magnet Middle School in Omaha, Nebraska.

He has traveled around the state speaking to current and aspiring educators to share best practices in EL education and advocate for better teacher preparation to serve ESL students. We sat down with him to hear some of the most important messages he wants educators to know about working with this student population and to share what strategies and approaches he has found success with in his ESL education career.

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