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Pre-service teacher education (PSTE) has largely been excluded from investments in foundational literacy and numeracy in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This approach has consequences for sustainability due to the central role of PSTE in supporting lasting educational change. In this literature review, we examine key challenges facing PSTE in LMICs and draw on the evidence to suggest areas for teacher educators and stakeholders to focus attention--including curriculum revisions to make PSTE more applied and relevant, enhanced focus on the practicum, and high-quality professional development for teacher educators--to promote alignment of content and pedagogy with evidence-based practices. Keywords pre-service teacher education, literacy, numeracy, primary school, developing countries, Introduction Over the last two decades, actors in international education development have noted that there is a global crisis in education in low-and middle-income countries (LMIC). Though school attendance has [...]

The divergence between a predominately White teacher education population and a diverse public school system poses this question: how do universities best prepare teacher candidates to teach children of racially and linguistically different backgrounds than their own? Teacher education programs have addressed this issue in a variety of ways, such as requiring multicultural coursework and/or requiring placements in urban schools. States, too, vary with respect to their requirements for diversity. In many states, students are tested on their development of a multicultural perspective on a standardized test. A test, immersion placements, and stand-alone multicultural education courses may all forms of teacher preparation and accountability in many states, but what are the ways to develop a critical understanding of diversity in order for students to not only pass a standardized teacher's test, but more importantly, to integrate culturally responsive teaching strategies into their public school classroom? This article describes how online discussions between diverse ethnically and linguistic groups of teachers from Egypt, Japan, Ghana, and the U.S., over a one-year period, allowed teacher candidates and teachers to openly discuss issues of race, culture, and language. The interactions through this online dialogue created a community of learners in which students and teachers felt comfortable in stating their viewpoints, and the students were eager to learn from other teachers. Through this online dialogue, these students became familiar with how important it is for teachers to view the world from multiple lenses.

This paper examines the ways in which action research projects can be used to socialize teachers to the teaching of English language learners (ELLs) as well as help these teachers develop reflective practice. Drawing on surveys, action research projects conduced with ELLs and reflection papers as data, the study explored the teachers' statements about the impact of the course work and the projects on their teaching and their beliefs about teaching ELLs. Students stated that they felt they had grown as teachers, were more reflective, and more confident about teaching in general, and teaching ELLs in particular.

Education has been one of the highest priorities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) since it became a country in 1971 under the leadership of the late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan. In 1962, when oil production started in Abu Dhabi, the country had just 20 schools for less than 4,000 students, most of them boys. The discovery of oil became the catalyst for improving the educational system, with the aim of preparing the youth of the UAE to serve their country's future progress. By the early 1970s, many of the UAE development projects were financed with the revenues from oil production. The scope of these projects required many skilled and unskilled foreign workers. The steady influx of expatriates created a workforce of 35% non-Emirati Arabs and 47% non-Arab foreigners; Emiratis represent less than 20% of the workforce. This imbalance has led to the push toward so-called Emiratization, or increasing the number of Emiratis in the workforce. Education is a key element of a successful Emiratization strategy, particularly an increase in technical and English language training and work experience programs for Emiratis. However, this strategy will need to draw from public school graduates who have experienced a reformed curriculum. This highlights the need to prepare Emirati teachers to teach in schools, which will then graduate Emirati youth with strong academic backgrounds and proficient bilingual skills. In this article, the authors describe the collaborative partnership between the faculty and staff of Zayed University, a university for young Emirati women, and the Childhood Development Center (CDC), a school for 3- to 5-year-old kindergarten students, in Abu Dhabi and explore how one goes about collaborating to change a system that has deep roots in a traditional format of memorization, repetition, and classroom management based on physical punishment and fear.

You have to write. You hate to write You want it to be good. To make us cry or bust up laughing when the room is quiet. You want the [...]

The tall teacher wrote words on the board. They looked like sticks and chicken feet, humps and moons. He read from a book. Words changed with his voice. They sounded [...]