Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate technological tools and programs that can be used in general education classrooms to support English language learners (ELLs) in their academics. Research indicates that “recent waves of immigration into the United States have led to the public schools enrollment of more than 14 million students for whom English is not their first language” (O’Hara, Pritchard, Huang, & Pella, 2013, p. 275 as cited in Cutter, 2015, p.2). Most ELLs will spend the entire day in a general education classroom in which the English language is spoken from the majority of their peers and during classroom instruction (Harper & Jong, 2004, pg. 152). A great way for general education teachers to help break the cultural and language barriers to best educate their ELL students is to use technology to “find multilingual resources and creative activities and materials that can be adapted quickly and inexpensively (Nemeth et al., 2013, pg. 48). The study conducted was a qualitative phenomenological research approach. Participants were 25 ESL and general education educators who taught in grades K-5. Data was collected by a survey that consisted of 15 questions: 1 eligibility question, 3 background questions, 3 multiple choice, 2 short answers, 5 ranking questions, and 1 long answer. The researcher also included her own artifacts from her own experiences in the classroom as data. The findings of this study indicated that technology is effective in supporting ELLs in the domains of speaking, listening, reading, and social emotional skills, but not so much in writing skills. The study also gave insight to technological programs that the participants found to be effective with teaching their ELL students. These programs were google applications, epic books, and LEXIA.

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