The primary purpose of this book is to provide science teacher educators with exemplars of
professional development programs designed to prepare school teachers to effectively help
language learners in science classrooms simultaneously gain language proficiency and conceptual
understanding. To this end this book examines seventeen science teacher preparation programs
that span a wide variety of grade levels (elementary middle and secondary) countries (Italy
Luxemburg Spain UK and US) and linguistic contexts (English as a Second Language English
as a Foreign Language trilingual classrooms and teaching deaf children science through sign
language). The book is divided into three main parts. Each part consists of chapters that
illustrate a common cross-cutting theme in science teacher preparation in content-based second
language acquisition namely pre-service teacher preparation in-service teacher preparation
and international perspectives. Each part provides many insights on the similarities and
differences in the professional development approaches used to prepare science teaching with
varied amounts of instructional experience help students in different parts of the world
overcome linguistic barriers while simultaneously learning concepts central to science.
Bringing together researchers from various academic backgrounds (science education TESOL and
Applied Linguistics) attention is given to varied facets of the intersection of science and
language learning in the specific context of school teacher preparation.
