Integrated Teaching Strategies Used by ESL Teachers: How are Strategies of Arts, Mathematics, and Sciences Correlated?

The philosophy and practices of STEAM education have been drawing influential attention over the past decade. Using the interdisciplinary and integrated framework of STEAM, this study aims to understand ESL teachers’ integrated teaching strategies of arts, mathematics, and sciences and examine the correlation among the domains of linguistic, artistic, musical, mathematical and logical, and science-related teaching strategies. Data collected from 67 ESL teachers in a Midwestern state were analyzed using the Pearson correlations. Results indicated that ESL teachers not only emphasize the traditional linguistic teaching strategies, but also integrate artistic, musical and mathematical, and sciences-related strategies in their classroom teaching. ESL teachers’ classroom teaching strategies of arts, mathematics, and sciences were highly and moderately correlated. Interpretations of the findings related to the integrated perspective of STEAM and implications for school leaders and ESL teacher educators were discussed.