Career and Technical Education (CTE) Career and Technical Education (CTE)

CTE educators take a hands-on approach to learning that tends to be concrete and provides immediate relevance for MLs. These programs also provide regular opportunities for productive talk in which students are working together to solve a problem or create something, making these classrooms an ideal place to learn and practice language. These features of CTE classrooms can have a positive impact on language acquisition and should be leveraged. By adding scaffolds to instruction, schools and educators can help MLs in CTE programs reach their full potential.  

SupportEd grounds their work with MLs in CTE programs around five practical strategy recommendations for embedding targeted scaffolds into CTE curricula and instruction. These recommendations include peer learning, vocabulary development, writing support, academic language mini-lessons, and exam preparation.  To learn more about engaging MLs in CTE programs, see our article series Supporting Multilingual Learners’ Participation in Secondary Career and Technical Education Programs.