Semester of Graduation
Spring 2026
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
SECONDARY AND MIDDLE GRADES EDUCATION
Department
Bagwell College of Education
Committee Chair/First Advisor
Dr. Guichun Zong
Second Advisor
Dr. Anete Vásquez
Third Advisor
Dr. Beth Marks
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to determine teachers’ perceptions of benefits and barriers to using the WIDA Framework to support academic literacy in multilingual learners (MLs). Content-area teachers of MLs who continue to learn English are teaching academic literacy through complex linguistic structures for students to both comprehend and produce informative textual structures which occur in secondary textual reading and written assessments in the literature and historical content areas. Qualitative methods including reflective journal entries, semi-structured teacher interviews, and classroom observations were used to collect data on teachers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of using the WIDA Framework to better serve MLs in the content areas. Benefits to the framework included the rigorous Systemic Functional linguistics characteristics needed to help academic content area teachers of MLs, including facilitating the teaching of syntax, increasing the students’ lexicon, linking speaking and writing, and supporting reading comprehension. Barriers perceived by teachers to the WIDA Framework were found to include a difficulty understanding and a lack of time to develop teaching strategies not included in the framework. Most profound was the lack of reference to the deep impact of translanguaging in the classroom and the need for more multilingual teachers in the content areas or the inclusion of the students’ language in the classroom.