Becoming a teacher of language and literacy (original) (raw)
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Language and Literacy Practices in Teacher Education: Contributions from a Local Agenda
HOW Journal, 2021
Language and literacy practices in teacher education are decisive in the education of future language teachers. In this article, I share my beliefs as a teacher educator about language and literacy practices constructed with teachers in Bogota. Thus, my intention is to weave my professional narrative through the connections I can make from theory and praxis to explain teachers´ understandings of language and literacy through their life and literacy experiences and the way they organize their practice as language teachers. My research trajectory of thirty years documenting the local literacy practices within the research area of literacy studies and local pedagogies for social transformation has significantly informed my practice. University-school partnerships and international collaborations for research and teaching in Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Manchester, in the USA, and Dundee, in the UK, have nurtured me personally and professionally. My understanding of literacy as a social practice evolved to critical literacies and I developed knowledge in community pedagogies and city semiotic landscapes through reflections and collaborations via working with teachers. Community-based pedagogies (CBPs) invite teachers to see their life and work in relation to places they live and teach as meaningful content for linguistic, social, cultural, ecological, and economic resources to inspire students´ inquiries and teachers´ transformative practices. The city semiotic landscapes are powerful literacies for language learning; therefore, they currently adhere to the research group´s agenda (2019-2021). I describe my understandings, contributions, and suggestions as concerns in the field of teacher education in Colombia. My conclusions raise awareness about the need to address these topics in teacher education programs in Colombia.
New roles for literacy teachers in the age of multiliteracies: A sociocultural perspective
The classical definition of literacy ‘the ability to read and write’ presupposes that literacy is something individual, static, universal, and solely cognitive. However, the new literacy approach of the post-structuralism underscores the significance of texts in context, differing values, meanings and the notion of multiliteracies. Traditional conception of literacy privileges some and marginalizes some others in the society and in the classroom which is a social space. This study aims at redefining the term literacy and multiliteracies in the postmodern world and presenting new roles for literacy teachers for the practice in Turkish literacy classrooms.
Investigating student teachers’ presentations of literacy and literacy pedagogy in a complex context
Teacher Development, 2015
The field of literacy and primary literacy education is patterned by multiple discourses and this raises challenges for those educating the next generation of primary literacy teachers. In England, the last 15 years have seen considerable levels of prescription in the primary literacy curriculum and compliance by the school and teacher education sectors has been enforced through demanding accountability regimes. In this paper, we draw on findings of a small-scale interview study to consider how understandings of literacies associated with different contexts may or may not inflect student-teachers' orientations towards literacy provision in school. We explore how five student-teachers presented their experiences of literacy within and beyond the classroom and how they seemed to position themselves in relation to literacy pedagogy. We focus particularly on continuities and discontinuities between literacies in their personal and professional lives, and on tensions they identified between the teachers they felt they wanted to, and were expected to, become. Reflecting on this work, we consider how we can best equip pre-service primary and early years teachers to develop as critical reflective literacy practitioners in the current context.
Teachers Thinking, Teachers Knowing: Reflections on Literacy and Language Education
College Composition and Communication, 1995
Growing out of a 1992 conference that attracted teachers and educators from around the world, this book presents 13 essays which share the insights of 16 leading university scholars and teacher-researchers regarding the re-emergence of teacher education as a central focus in the field of English education. The book explores what teachers of the English language arts must know to be effective, how such knowledge can best be assessed, and the impact of cultural differences in the classroom, as well as preservice and inservice training and the roles of the university and the teacher-researcher. The book discusses methods of supporting teacher development such as the study of cases, teacher groups, ethnographic research in the classroom and community, and teacher lore. After some sort of "How can I operate on teachers more effectively?" mode. The imbalance of power between school and university, teacher and professor, is palpable, as well as unnerving and potentially destructive. This collection was assembled from a somewhat different vantage point: Within this text it is
with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds learned to participate in reading, writing, and talking about books in a literature-based instructional program. Our analyses revealed a gradual release of responsibility from the teacher to students as they developed the knowledge and skills needed to respond to books and explore personal meanings collaboratively through guided participation. Accompanying these changes in participation structures and practices were exceptional gains in student performance on both related (metacognitive control) and unrelated (reading and unfamiliar sight words) measures of reading ability. A pattern of three distinguishable but overlapping stages emerged from our analyses of student-teacher interaction patterns: (1) teaching by telling, (2) teaching by modeling and scaffolding, and (3) teaching from behind. Five features of the focal teachers instruction were pivotal in promoting this transformation of responsibility. First, the teacher created a classroom learning community in which students felt respected and their experiences and knowledge were valued. Second, the teacher allowed time to build opportunities to engage students in reading, writing, and talking about age-appropriate and quality literature. Third, the teacher challenged students to think critically and reflectively about what they read by asking open-ended but pointed questions. Fourth, the teacher employed multiple modes of teaching-telling, modeling, scaffolding, facilitating, and participating. Finally, the teacher persisted in maintaining high expectations for all of her students.
Living and Learning in the Here-and-Now: Critical Inquiry in Literacy Teacher Education
Living and Learning in the Here and Now
In this paper, we utilize practitioner research to consider what happened in two literacy methods courses when we positioned students as human beings in the present rather than solely as future teachers. We first situate our work within the current sociopolitical context of the U.S., making the argument that critical literacy education is more urgent now than ever. We then consider the ways in which a "here and now" positioning afforded deep engagements into two localized inquiries-one on migrant labor and immigration and the other on racial justice past and present-and illustrate that these experiences offered our students opportunities to view the world from a multiplicity of perspectives and to develop sociopolitical awareness. We conclude by arguing that literacy teacher education must undergo a dramatic shift, one that positions pre-service teachers as critically-conscious human beings and emphasizes inquiries that attend to the lived reality of the moment.
English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 2011
School-age populations in many nations are becoming increasingly diverse (in terms of languages, countries of origin, ethnicity, faith traditions and so on) especially in low socioeconomic communities where recent arrivals tend to be accommodated. In Australian classrooms, it is not unusual for a single classroom to include children who speak many different languages. Their family trajectories to their current dwellings and lifeworlds may be very different from each other. Catastrophic weather events and other disasters change the very landscapes in which families and teachers work. At the same time, what constitutes literacy continues to evolve as new technologies and communication media enable different forms of meaningmaking. Yet simultaneously, what counts as literacy is increasingly "fixed" by the normative demands of high-stakes, standardised tests. This paper employs Hilary Janks' (2010) synthesis model of critical literacy to explore some of the risk and possibilities for innovative and equitable pedagogy inherent in this contemporary demographic, policy and practice mix.
Collaborative Voices Exploring Culturally and Socially Responsive Literacies
Ivonne: Luego de haber pasado por la experiencia de este trabajo, puedo decir que partir de los intereses del niño va más allá [de lo que pensaba] anteriormente. Es investigar, analizar el trasfondo de cada estudiante, entrevistar a los padres, involucrar a la familia en el aprendizaje. Es conocer la cultura y sociedad donde se mueve ese alumno, estudiar los textos, cuestionarlos, crear estrategias que promuevan la refl exión. Eso si es realmente partir de los intereses de nuestros estudiantes.
Enacting a pedagogy of multiliteracies: A study of six literacy teacher educators
2017
This study examined the knowledge, dispositions, beliefs, experiences, and educational practices of six literacy teacher educators, from three countries, who enacted a multiliteracies approach to teaching. In this qualitative study, three semi-structured interviews were conducted of each participant over a three year period. Four significant findings emerged. First, these literacy teacher educators held a broad, holistic, and evolving conceptualization of literacy that was not limited to a notion of literacy as a set of autonomous skills (e.g., reading and writing). This conceptualization included a range of multimodal communications: print-based literacies, artsbased experiences, and digital practices. Second, all of the literacy teacher educators designed coherent courses that were driven by a single overarching purpose (e.g., developing a broad and inclusive understanding of literacy and literacy practices). The overarching purpose was realized through17 specific goals and purpos...