Legitimating Multilingual Teacher Identities in the Mainstream Classroom (original) (raw)
Related papers
2020
Contemporary literacy practices need to be addressed in school settings. That requires awareness by teachers and students of the cultural and linguistic diversity present in our cosmopolitan societies. In the field of English Language Teaching (ELT), one way of responding to such demand is engaging teachers with multiliteracies' pedagogies throughout their professional preparation. Based on that assumption, this paper reports on a component experience of the Brazilian Government Program for Initial Teacher Education (Pibid), where, in 2017, three teacher candidates planned and taught three English lessons using the multiliteracies' pedagogy framework. It stands as a case study which seeks to identify the impacts of using multiliteracies' pedagogy in a teacher education context, in terms of knowledge building and identity work. Teacher candidates engaged in a Designing process of multimodal teaching materials and documented their experience in journals. Those items were used as data to investigate the impact of the pedagogy on teachers' development, focusing on the following elements of Design: reference, dialogue, structure, situations, and intention (Kalantzis, Cope, Chan et al., 2016). Research findings suggest the positive impact of that experience, both as a source of professional knowledge and as a fruitful opportunity for teachers to change preconceptions about ELT.
Introduction: Identity, Transdisciplinarity, and the Good Language Teacher
What constitutes a “good teacher” and “good teaching” has come under much scrutiny in an age of globalization, transnationalism, and increased demands for accountability. It is against this evolving landscape and the pathbreaking work of the Douglas Fir Group (DFG, 2016) that this special issue engages the following two broad questions: (a) In what ways is language teaching “identity work”? and (b) To what extent does a transdisciplinary approach to language learning and teaching offer insight into language teacher identity? We begin this Introduction with a discussion on identity research in second language acquisition and applied linguistics, and then address innovations in language teacher identity research, exploring how this work has been advanced methodologically through narratives, discourse analysis, and an ethical consideration of research practices. We then consider how the transdisciplinary framework of the DFG, and its focus on macro, meso, and micro dimensions of language learning at the ideological, institutional, and classroom levels, respectively, might contribute to our understanding of language teacher identity. In the final section, we argue that the host of complementary theories adopted by the six contributors supports the view that a transdisciplinary approach to language teacher identity is both productive and desirable. Further, the contributors advance the language teacher identity research agenda by taking into consideration (a) how teacher identity intersects with the multilingual (Higgins and Ponte) and translingual (Zheng) realities of contemporary classrooms, (b) the investment of teach- ers in developing the semiotic repertoires of learners (Stranger–Johannessen and Norton) and a socially inclusive learning environment (Barkhuizen), and (c) the emotions (Wolff and De Costa) and ethical practices (Miller, Morgan, and Medina) of teachers. Central to all articles in this special issue is the need to recognize the rich linguistic and personal histories that language teachers bring into the classroom in order to promote effective language learning.
Translinguistic Identity-As-Pedagogy: Implications for Language Teacher Education
In this article, we argue that the pedagogical practices of teachers who have translinguistic histories, and indeed of all teachers, should be reconceptualized as solidly embedded within the context of their linguistic and social identities, and we explore the implications of such embeddedness for teacher educators. Pushing beyond the potentially over-simplistic dichotomy between native and non-native speaking English teachers (NEST/NNEST) (Higgins, 2003; Moussu and Llurda, 2008), we draw on identity as pedagogy (Morgan, 2004) in the context of multilingualism and global situatedness. We call for TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) teacher educators to explicitly and deliberately support teacher candidates’ understandings of the ways in which their lives interact with their teaching. In acknowledging that our teaching practices are informed by our life histories and that our identities impact our pedagogies, we as educators can strategically position ourselves to tap into identities as a pedagogical resource. In the following piece, we draw from the traditions of narrative inquiry and practitioner inquiry to share our collaborative reflections on our own pedagogical practice in order to create a space of support for multilingual, transnational teachers and teacher educators developing their pedagogical practice. We offer three narrativized examples from our own lives in classrooms to illustrate how the embodied identities that teachers perform, in these cases multilingual and globally situated identities, can be read and deployed in different ways.
This article explores the transformative potential of a teacher’s identity in the context of bilingual and second language education (SLE) programmes. The rst section examines several theoretical options by which this potential might be conceptual- ised. Drawing on post-structural notions of discourse, subjectivity and performa- tivity, the author emphasises the contingent and relational processes through which teachers and students come to understand themselves and negotiate their varying roles in language classrooms. Simon’s (1995) notion of an ‘image-text’ further develops this dynamic, co-constructed understanding and shifts it more specifically towards pedagogical applications: the strategic performance of a teacher’s identity in ways that counteract stereotypes held by a particular group of students. These post-structural ideas on teachers’ identities are then evaluated in reference to the knowledge base of bilingual and SLE. The author then proposes a ‘field-internal’ conceptualization by which such theories might be rooted in the types of practices characteristic of language education programmes. The next section of the article describes the author’s personal efforts to realize these concepts in practice. ‘Gong Li – Brian’s Imaginary Lover’ is a story of how the author’s identity became a classroom resource, a text to be performed in ways that challenged group assumptions around culture, gender, and family roles in a community, adult ESL programme serving mostly Chinese seniors in Toronto.
Multilingua, 2018
In this article, we investigate second/foreign language teachers’ translingual identity development through a narrative approach to their life histories. While several studies have investigated how teachers’ intercultural experiences shape their identity formation and pedagogies (Menard-Warwick 2008, 2014; Ortaçtepe 2013; Varghese et al. 2005), we explore not only the impact of teachers’ identity on their practice but also highlight the influences of language teaching itself on teacher identity development. In this process, an emergent theoretical framework of translingual practice becomes particularly useful in interpreting our participants’ “sociocultural in-betweenness,” that is, the capacity and disposition to co-construct meaning across languages and language varieties (Canagarajah 2013: 3). We aim to contribute to a deeper understanding of this framework by capturing how our two focal participants’ translingual practice emerged, developed, and changed in relation to their identities through a range of intercultural experiences in their life time. As they eventually became language teachers, we also explore their perspectives on language and culture, especially in terms of how they see their interculturality manifesting in their classroom practices, as well as how their pedagogies simultaneously shaped their teacher identities. Our findings have pedagogical implications in regards to narrative knowledge construction in language teacher education.
I Teach the Way I Am: A Mainstream Teacher Candidate's Professional Identity and Multilingual Stance
The fast-growing number of emergent bilingual students (EBs) has been increasing the linguistic and cultural diversity in the U.S. public education (Heineke & Giatsou, 2020). However, the EBs tend to be underserved in the classrooms with their diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds untended (Zoeller & Briceño, 2022). Therefore, it becomes imperative for the teacher education programs to prepare teacher candidates to meet this multilingual trend in public education (Garci?a & Kleyn, 2013) and help the EBs prosper linguistically and academically.
International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 2004
This article explores the transformative potential of a teacher's identity in the context of bilingual and second language education (SLE) programmes. The rst section examines several theoretical options by which this potential might be conceptualised. Drawing on post-structural notions of discourse, subjectivity and performativity, the author emphasises the contingent and relational processes through which teachers and students come to understand themselves and negotiate their varying roles in language classrooms. Simon's (1995) notion of an 'image-text' further develops this dynamic, co-constructed understanding and shifts it more speci cally towards pedagogical applications: the strategic performance of a teacher's identity in ways that counteract stereotypes held by a particular group of students. These post-structural ideas on teachers' identities are then evaluated in reference to the knowledge base of bilingual and SLE. The author then proposes a ' eldinternal' conceptualisation by which such theories might be rooted in the types of practices characteristic of language education programmes. The next section of the article describes the author's personal efforts to realise these concepts in practice. 'Gong Li-Brian's Imaginary Lover' is a story of how the author's identity became a classroom resource, a text to be performed in ways that challenged group assumptions around culture, gender, and family roles in a community, adult ESL programme serving mostly Chinese seniors in Toronto.
In This Issue [of TESOL Quarterly , on Language Teacher Identity]
2016
If the commitment to identity is not just a metaphysical proposition but a serious recognition that our work as teachers shapes and is shaped by the very mode of our being, then thinking about the formation of our identities is crucial for all of us in education. (Clarke, 2009, p. 186) Our decision to propose a special issue of TESOL Quarterly on language teacher identity (LTI) grew out of our growing recognition of the profound embeddedness of LTI within the research, teaching, and policy practices of (multi)lingual professionals and the immense interest generated by LTI work within the disciplines that engage with language education. We use (multi) in (multi)lingual to underscore our desire to move beyond a monolingual lens in TESOL and to highlight potential extensions to the notion of multilingualism, such as (pluri), (trans), (ethno), and (racio). This allows us to complicate the digitalcommons.unl.edu