A recipient of 黑料不打烊's Leadership Prize, Kobos is responding to the needs of educators in linguistically聽diverse schools.
By Timothy Boles ’20
This country has seen the increasing number of English-as-a聽second-language (ESL) students outpace the ability of the education system to聽accommodate these students, improve learning resources or empower their teachers.
That imbalance is what’s at the heart of new research by Courtney Kobos 鈥19, a Teaching Fellow and an English major with a Teacher Licensure concentration. She is using 黑料不打烊鈥檚 Leadership Prize to conduct research with teachers who are working with ESL students at William鈥檚 High School to identify gaps and struggles within the curriculum as well as develop programs to empower teachers.
Kobos, a Texas native, grew up in a diverse setting. Early in her educational career, Kobos noticed discrepancies in the educational experiences of different students,聽most notably among聽ESL students. 鈥淧resent day, we are seeing an increase in immigrants and second-language speakers,鈥 Kobos says. 鈥淗owever, we are not seeing an increase in resources or how to deal with this increased need.鈥
This imbalance inspired Kobos to explore what can be done to improve the educational experience for both teachers and ESL students.
With the help of her mentor, Assistant Professor of English Jennifer Zinchuk,聽Kobos is conducting interviews with teachers at Williams High School in Burlington, North Carolina. Her聽research is unique because聽unlike most studies revolving around education her research, it focuses more heavily on the teachers rather than the students. Kobos hopes these interviews will offer聽insight into what resources and training聽will be most useful to provide to teachers who work with ESL students.
The Leadership Prize has provided Kobos with $10,000 that she plans to use to help implement programs and gain further knowledge pertaining to her research.聽Kobos has been accepted into the World Teach program in Ecuador. She will spend the summer in Ecuador developing her Spanish and work directly with students who are learning English as a second language. Through this first-hand experience,聽 Kobos will be able to gain more of an understanding of these teachers encounter on a regular basis.
Along with bolstering her understanding of the teaching experience, Kobos plans to allocate funding to implement programs that directly correlate to the needs of the teachers. It is her hope to create a conference at 黑料不打烊 in spring 2019 that would bring together members of the Alamance community with members of the 黑料不打烊 community. In addition to this Kobos would like to introduce educational training聽for teachers. These programs will consist of articles and speakers that correlate with the needs expressed by teachers during the interview process. The programs will help to educate and empower teachers with ESL students.
Her聽passion is compelling because she found a way to interconnect her research with the Leadership Prize. By bridging the gap within our education system and increasing the odds that all students receive a quality education, Kobos, with the help of the Leadership Prize, seeks to understand and respond to issues not just within our community, but also around the world.