In today’s classrooms, bilingual teaching is becoming increasingly essential as it’s not uncommon to find several languages spoken among students.
While this linguistic richness is reshaping what effective teaching looks like in the 21st century, a growing number of educators still report feeling ill-equipped to teach students who are still learning English.
A 2024 RAND Organization national survey found that nearly half of all K-12 teachers don’t feel completely prepared to support multilingual learners in their classrooms, and that school and district leaders aren’t meeting the professional development needs in their institutions.
The reality is this: if teachers aren’t trained to support language development, multilingual learners are left behind.
It’s time to move beyond siloed ESL models and make inclusive instruction a core skill for every educator.
The Problem? A System That Isn’t Keeping Up
Traditional professional development (PD) models aren’t meeting the moment for bilingual teaching necessities.
The 2024 RAND Organization study also also found out that addressing the needs of MLLs in teacher’s professional learning and selection of instructional materials ranked low among principals’ priorities.
How does this look in practice? Most content-area teachers (like math, science, social studies, etc.) have little to no guidance on how to teach academic content in ways that also build language skills.
Furthermore, in many districts, paraprofessionals and instructional aides are left out completely from PD efforts. By 2020, even in states with large multilingual populations, many educators could renew their licenses without learning how to support ELs.
At this time, no newer comprehensive, nationwide analysis has been published that illustrates ongoing gaps in EL-focused professional development requirements. Until updated state-by-state reviews emerge, this remains the clearest picture of the policy landscape.
Instead of sustained, job-embedded training, EL-related PD often comes in the form of optional one-day workshops or generic sessions. This fragmented approach leaves teachers without the tools to scaffold content, differentiate instruction, or communicate effectively with students and families from diverse linguistic backgrounds.
Every teacher, regardless of subject, plays a role in developing a student’s language proficiency, even if they’re not bilingual themselves.
They need the systems to learn how to make this change.
Local and State Innovation in Bilingual Teacher Training English Learners
States, districts, and schools across the country are reimagining how they prepare teachers to support multilingual learners.
State Investments
• Assembly Bill 1127 in California (2023) designated $20 million to re-establish the Bilingual Teacher Professional Development Program, a “grow-your-own” initiative to address the shortage of bilingual teachers.
• House Bill 2168 in Texas (2023) directed the state education agency to create a career and technical education pathway in high schools for future EL teachers, prioritizing ESL and bilingual teaching, and called for financial incentives (tuition assistance or loan forgiveness) to attract teachers into these fields.
• H 6023 in Rhode Island (2023) enacted the “Multilingual Educators Investment Act,” which provides $2 million in scholarships to increase the number of bilingual, dual-language, and world-language teachers in urban public schools.
• House Bill 1228 in Washington (2023-2024) seeks to support EL education by creating and expanding dual language and tribal language education programs. This includes awarding grants, prioritizing schools with educational opportunity gaps, and integrating EL parents in advisory boards.
District-Wide Models
• “Grow-Your-Own” Bilingual Teaching Pipeline in Gwinnett County (GA) is one of the most successful examples in this matter. After opening 3 dual-language immersion elementary schools in 2014, the district faced a need for more bilingual teachers to expand the model, so they started to recruit locally. Gwinnett actively recruits paraprofessionals and other community members (who are often bilingual) to become certified teachers. By 2024, Gwinnett had grown to 11 dual-language elementary schools, all staffed with “homegrown” bilingual educators.
• Bilingual Teacher Residency in Chicago Public Schools (IL) started back in summer 2018 in partnership with the National Center for Teacher Residencies and participants seek to earn their teaching credentials along with a bilingual endorsement.
• Bilingual Teacher Professional Development Program (BTPDP) in California scaled GyO strategies into a coordinated system. This program provided $20 million in grants to districts and local education agencies to train current teachers to earn bilingual authorization and fill dual-language classrooms.
These efforts reflect a growing understanding: long-term, culturally responsive preparation is key to retaining and empowering teachers of ELs.
What High-Quality Professional Development EL Strategies Should Include
For general education teachers to become effective language teachers, PD can’t be just a checkbox.
Strong EL-focused training should equip educators to:
• Scaffold instruction across varying levels of English proficiency
• Differentiate academic content while developing students’ language skills
• Understand and value cultural backgrounds as integral to learning
• Integrate inclusive, language-rich pedagogy into all subject areas
Key Barriers to Address
Some of the most common challenges teachers and educational leaders face when trying to implement PD for multilingual education are:
• Voluntary participation: When PD is optional, implementation is uneven and often minimal
• One-off workshops: Without follow-up, knowledge fades and practice doesn’t shift
• Time constraints: Teachers lack the time during the school year to fully engage in meaningful training
• Limited collaboration: ESL and content teachers often work in silos, limiting shared learning and support
• Language-based assumptions: ELs are too often viewed through a deficit lens, which influences how they are taught and assessed
To make lasting change, PD must be sustained, equity-centered, and woven into the school’s daily experience.
NCTR: A Partner that Models Multilingual Preparation
Around the country, there are several initiatives helping shape and prepare teachers to serve the specific needs of their communities.
An example that makes us particularly proud to share is the work the National Center for Teacher Residencies (NCTR) is doing.
As a Sullivan Family Charitable Foundation partner, they offer a model for preparing teachers to meet the needs of multilingual learners.
Their yearlong residency model pairs aspiring educators with veteran mentors, embeds training in high-need classrooms, and centers equity, linguistic diversity, and community-rooted learning.
With over 14,600 teachers trained and 69% of residency candidates identifying as people of color, NCTR’s approach is both scalable and effective. Many of its partner sites focus on bilingual teaching training, dual-language programs, and grow-your-own pipelines to recruit future teachers from the communities they serve.
Their work can be inspiration for smaller-scale projects when it comes to educating and preparing current and future teachers.
5 Ways to Fuel Sustainable Teacher Development
Philanthropy plays a pivotal role in expanding the multilingual educator workforce and closing training gaps. Donors can:
1. Fund residency programs like NCTR that embed EL-focused training from day one
2. Support wraparound services like stipends, mental health support, and mentorship that keep teachers in the profession
3. Sponsor district-wide PD initiatives focused on inclusive, culturally responsive pedagogy
4. Advance policy reform that requires and incentivizes EL-focused training in licensure and recertification
5. Help develop open-source curriculum and tools for training general educators to work with ELs
With the right support, districts can move from scattered efforts to systemwide transformation.
Creating a Bilingual Teaching Force for the Future
Multilingualism is a growing reality in U.S. public schools, but it also is one of the country’s greatest untapped assets.
It will take a new approach to bilingual teaching preparation to realize that potential.
That means embedding language development into every part of the PD system and equipping every teacher, not just specialists, with the tools to serve multilingual learners.
From state initiatives in Texas or Rhode Island to national partners like NCTR, the groundwork has been laid. What’s needed now is scaled investment and a shared belief in the brilliance of multilingual students.
If you’re ready to help educators face the moment, please reach out to me at the Sullivan Family Charitable Foundation and explore opportunities to build a truly inclusive, multilingual teacher workforce.
