Preparing to teach emergent bilinguals

Abstract

Our ethnographic action research case study addresses the unique concerns that arise when expanding bilingual education methods within teacher education for non-ESL preservice teachers concerning ideological and practice-based shifts in pedagogy. The conceptual framework connects language ideologies and pedagogical practices. The qualitative analyses of three key assignments document preservice teachers’ ideological leanings as tending toward heteroglossia, tending toward monoglossia, or ideologies in flux. Our findings illustrate the attempts by preservice teachers to engage in practices along continua of heteroglossic and monoglossic language ideologies and the importance of defining concrete practices that value bilingual community knowledge.