Juan M Flores

Digging Deeper Juan M Flores

One of the challenges of teachers of bilingual English learners from Spanish speaking backgrounds is the scarcity of authentic materials that are motivating and meaningful for their students. This is especially significant at the secondary level. We often find materials that are poorly translated, and as a result many of these materials are neither culturally accurate nor relevant. The teachers in our local schools have come to me with complaints about this dearth of bilingual and bicultural materials, and they have requested my assistance in finding better materials and resources. Over the last few years, I have asked my high school level teaching credential candidates to help me find the best culturally relevant materials that are available and to provide suggestions for their instructional use in the secondary classroom. I offer this annotated bibliographic collection to help our practicing teachers in getting a better sense of what culturally accurate and relevant materials are available for teaching Spanish speaking English learners and how they can effectively use them with their students. I intend that this collection will contribute to improving the educational experiences of our Spanish speaking English learners.