Bilingual Preservice Teachers Research Articles

Supporting expansive learning in preservice bilingual teachers’ zone of proximal development of the activity system: an analysis of a four-field model trajectory

ABSTRACT The Change Laboratory methodology offers the potential to support expansive learning in preservice bilingual teacher education. This qualitative case study examines how ten preservice Chinese and Korean bilingual teachers, who participated in a Change Laboratory intervention, engaged one of the major Change Laboratory instruments, the four-field model, to make changes in their lesson implementation. By recognising the structural barriers in their bilingual teacher learning and praxis, they were able to take future-oriented actions. Findings from the thematic analysis illustrate how, as the preservice bilingual teachers embraced ambiguity in their teaching, they became increasingly cognisant of the non-linear and complex nature of teaching and learning. In doing so, they explored their collective reflective practices and gained confidence in using their judgement to generate expressions of transformative agency that have the potential to disrupt the status quo in US bilingual education.

The manifestation of chinese preservice bilingual teachers’ relational agency in a change laboratory intervention

ABSTRACT This qualitative case study is an examination of the relational agency manifested by three Chinese preservice bilingual teachers as they participated in a semester-long Change Laboratory (CL) intervention, during which they were placed in bilingual classrooms to work with their cooperating teachers. The bilingual teacher educators (i.e., the authors in this article) adapted and applied the CL methodology in the student teaching seminar course to support preservice bilingual teachers’ learning. Provoked by double stimulation, four different types of relational agency were manifested while the preservice teachers worked toward the goal of promoting equitable learning for bilingual children in the classroom with their cooperating teachers’ guidance. Implications for using CL methods in teacher education and new possibilities for bilingual education are also discussed.

“This is What My Kids See Every Day”: Bilingual Pre-service Teachers Embracing Funds of Knowledge through Border Thinking Pedagogy

ABSTRACT The present qualitative case study examines how community-based lessons impacted the practices, perspectives, and internship placement experiences of 16 bilingual pre-service teachers. Grounded in the concepts of funds of knowledge and border thinking pedagogy, the findings revealed that bilingual pre-service teachers drew on local knowledge to create community-based lessons; these lessons supported student engagement and participation, and they helped pre-service teachers develop a sense of belonging and connection. We end with important implications for the field of teacher education regarding the (re)framing of teacher preparation programs so that they center on learning with and from students’ and communities’ funds of knowledge.

Spanish Language Development and Support in a Bilingual Teacher Preparation Program

ABSTRACT This is a case study of supplementary support sessions for Spanish proficiency offered in a bilingual teacher preparation program in Texas throughout an academic year. The support sessions were created to assist pre-service bilingual teachers in further developing their command of Spanish through extra practice, feedback, and test preparation in Spanish. The tutorial sessions stimulated pre-service bilingual teachers to make sense of their own bilingualism in connection to their emergent professional identity, as well as their perceptions of their own preparation/preparedness to teach bilingually. The case study analyzes the effectiveness of the support sessions as evidenced in written and oral samples excerpted from the recorded sessions. This research calls for rethinking how bilingual teacher preparation programs can provide explicit and systematic language support to meet the needs of bilingual educators preparing for their future professional practice.

Bilingual Pre-service Teachers and Their Opportunities to Learn

ABSTRACT We worked to identify how the availability of two languages, Spanish and English, facilitates the teaching of mathematics when instruction is centered on students’ mathematical thinking. We present results of interactions between seven bilingual pre-service teachers and seven bilingual 5th-graders working on fractions. Using a theoretical framework focused on the use of one-on-one interviews, translanguaging, and responsive teaching, we identified two aspects of language in teaching mathematics in the bilingual classroom: (a) language as a hidden resource that bilingual teachers possess and (b) language as a resource not isolated from teaching mathematics. We argue that these two aspects are situated in, and integrated into, the practice of teaching and in this way should be part of the preparation of bilingual teachers.

The Boal-Freire Nexus: Rehearsing Praxis, Imagining Liberation in Bilingual Teacher Education

Author(s): Caldas, Blanca | Abstract: Freire (2005) encourages people to take “critical ownership of the formation of ourselves” (p. 44) in order to be able to act upon the world in what he (1993) calls “praxis.” This praxis consists of the development of critical consciousness leading to transformative action. Critical consciousness and praxis should be conceived as an ongoing and creative process through the actual doing within spaces of authoring (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, a Cain, 2003). Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed might provide Freire’s ideas with a stage where liberation and praxis can be concretized, rehearsed and imagined. A discussion of this Freire-Boal complementation is offered by providing examples of two studies I conducted among Mexican-American/Latinx bilingual pre-service teachers to 1) prepare them linguistically after years of subtractive anglo-centric schooling, 2) to develop political and ideological clarity (Bartolome a Balderrama, 2001), and 3) to encourage them to engage in leadership and advocacy inside and outside of the classroom.

Sustaining Bilingual–Biliterate Identities: Latinx Preservice Teachers’ Narrative Representations of Bilingualism and Biliteracy Across Time and Space

The present study is a narrative analysis of 14 self-created books by Latina/o/x bilingual preservice teachers to describe their biliteracy trajectories. Drawing on the concept of identity and bilingualism, this analysis explores how preservice teachers experienced language and literacy and how these experiences have shaped their bilingual–biliterate identities. The findings of this research study revealed that bilingual preservice teachers (a) narrated Spanish as a significant part of their remembered identities, (b) struggled to maintain their bilingualism and biliteracy, and (c) reconnected and reclaimed their bilingual–biliterate identities through their experiences in their teacher preparation program.

Prácticas altamente efectivas de tres programas bilingües de preparación de maestros en instituciones de servicio hispano en los Estados Unidos

Bilingual teacher preparation programs are opportunities for aspiring teachers or Bilingual Pre-Service Teachers (BPSTs) who have linguistic proficiency and cultural knowledge in two languages that are seen as assets to address the needs for bilingual and multilingual populations in the US. However, there is an evident shortage that has been documented to attest to the high need of hiring bilingual and dual language educators (USDE, 2015). In this article, three bilingual teacher preparation programs housed in Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) explore their practices and present highly effective examples for bilingual and dual language teacher preparation. The findings include the process of bilingual teacher identity formation that calls for critical consciousness that includes an awareness of the sociopolitical and sociocultural connections for learning. Other significant findings include support for highly effective pedagogical practices and attention to the socioemotional process that leads to advocacy and agency resulting in a social justice orientation and perspective. A cyclical model is presented as a framework for successful bilingual teacher preparation and the implications provide a future direction in exploring the cyclical model as a recruitment and retention strategy for successful bilingual teacher preparation.

Sociocultural approaches to mobile learning in bilingual teacher preparation: The benefits of SAML as both a strategy and belief

ABSTRACT This article presents a cooperative inquiry into how teacher educators prepare bilingual teacher candidates to adopt sociocultural approaches to mobile learning in their field-based courses as a platform for engaging their culturally and linguistically diverse learner populations. A sociocultural approach to mobile learning (SAML) uses mobile devices to bridge students’ home and school lives in meaningful and relevant learning experiences. This study provides insight into how and why teacher educators should prepare bilingual preservice teachers to use mobile learning to address the cultural and linguistic needs of diverse learner populations. The authors posit that adopting sociocultural approaches to mobile learning is not just a strategy but a belief that teaching is about empowering students, being responsive to their cultural and linguistic needs, valuing their diversity, creating equitable access to technology, and making learning relevant and authentic – all of which can be facilitated through mobile learning. These beliefs that are facilitated by SAML are extended to the bilingual teacher candidates and ultimately onto their future students.

STEM access for Latina bilingual teacher candidates: Discrimination en la educación How do informal programs motivate women to pursue STEM related

The lack of proper representation of women of color in the field of bilingual science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) is a crucial matter when addressing the needs of the US as a country moving toward diversity and inclusion. The research project represented in this paper investigates and addresses the need for teacher preparation courses that will adequately set up their bilingual preservice teachers to enter into the field with the proper background experiences to engage their future students in STEM related lessons. Findings reveal the negative ideologies related to gender bias found in teacher education, the importance of STEM related women empowerment, and how those vested in STEM education must continue to debunk the impostor syndrome felt by students in STEM related fields. Despite the challenges present for women in bilingual teacher preparation programs in STEM, we must continue to create sanctuaries where students of color can thrive in environments that are conducive to their unique experiences and fulfill their learning needs in STEM.

Struggling to-be or not-to-be a bilingual teacher: Identity formation in a Change Laboratory intervention

While the methodology of formative intervention research has long been established, the aspect of new instrumentality of Change Laboratory is fragmentally documented. Therefore, in this study, we modified two major Change Laboratory mediating tools used in bilingual student-teaching seminars, namely the disturbance diary and four-field model. These two empirically investigated Change Laboratory tools have mediated transformative agency within the collective movement toward identity formation as the Change Laboratory participants (bilingual preservice teachers) conveyed their dilemma of to-be or not-to-be a bilingual teacher. We provide evidence on the relationship between the bilingual preservice teachers’ identity formation and their participation in the Change Laboratory intervention. The analysis made salient the role of two new Change Laboratory mediating tools, the adapted disturbance diary and individually generated four-field models, for the bilingual preservice teachers’ collective transformation in bilingual teaching. It also crystallized the importance of deepening the bilingual preservice teachers’ analysis of multiple languages and pedagogy as understood in the new bilingual teaching model in the Change Laboratory intervention.

Experiencing critical language awareness as a collective struggle: methodological innovations in language awareness workshops

ABSTRACTThe demographic change of Chinese bilingual preservice teachers (herein referred to as trainees) has caused a shift in the practitioner populations in the US This qualitative case study reports on how six female trainees experienced critical language awareness (CLA) as a collective struggle in the language awareness training sessions and in the implementation sessions of the language awareness workshops (LAWs) by expressing their transformative agency. LAWs were designed in two phases; in Phase 1, the trainees first experienced CLA by struggling collectively in the language awareness training sessions held at a higher education institution. In Phase 2, they acted as facilitators of the implementation sessions organised for schoolteachers. Effectiveness surveys and fieldnotes were collected, whilst video recordings of LAWs, debriefing sessions, and pre-and post-interviews were transcribed. The findings suggest that LAWs offered the trainees meaningful contexts for mediating their understanding of CLA during the bilingual teacher preparation programme.

To switch or not to switch: Bilingual preservice teachers and translanguaging in teaching and learning

This ethnographic study examines the language ideology shifts among a group of 20 Mexican American/Latinx preservice bilingual teachers within a translanguaging space (Wei, 2011). This article explores how understanding different language ideological approaches to bilingualism and bilingual education through the use of translanguaging as the language of instruction push participants to examine their bilingual identities, linguistic trajectories and ideologies, and their own future approach to language and content teaching. Findings show that all the participants agreed they would use translanguaging as a language policy in their future classrooms as they experienced its benefits first‐hand during this study. At the same time, the participants proposed a combination of approaches depending on students' linguistic needs, placing more emphasis on the language that requires more development. This quest for ideological coexistence stemmed from the participants' reflections of the socio‐cultural‐historical‐political contexts of the schooling of emergent bilinguals in the United States combined with their own linguistic and educational trajectories, which promoted a new awareness and commitment to avoid a new cycle of language marginalization in their future classrooms.

The role of language on the reversal error. A study with bilingual Basque-Spanish students

ABSTRACT The reversal error is a prevalent phenomenon that consists of reversing the relationship between two variables when writing equations from comparison in verbal language. A study with 169 Basque/Spanish bilingual pre-service teachers examined whether this error is mainly due to the students’ tendency to employ a direct-translation strategy based on the syntax of statements. By using Basque and Spanish the factor of syntax was studied since in Basque, unlike Spanish (or English), the natural way of expressing comparisons prevents students from using direct-translations strategies. Results show a significantly lower number of reversal errors in sentences written in Basque compared with those in Spanish. This finding confirms the importance of syntax statement in the translation from words into equations and suggests that teachers should have awareness of this fact and should design lesson plans devoted to work on word problems accordingly.

The role of language ideologies in the self-efficacy of preservice bilingual education teachers

ABSTRACTThis article examines the language ideologies associated with the sense of self-efficacy of bilingual preservice teachers about their Spanish-language skills. Current teacher shortages in the field of bilingual education and increased professional demands placed over pre- and in-service bilingual teachers compel teacher education programs to adapt their designs to the needs of future teachers. These needs are determined, to a great extent, by the perceptions that bilinguals have over their own ability to use Spanish as a medium of instruction and to teach Spanish as a subject. Using grounded theory, the study sought to analyze how language ideologies impact the self-efficacy of bilingual preservice teachers. Results show that ideologies connected to the hegemonic position of English in society had a strong effect on the sense of self-efficacy of the preservice teachers about the Spanish language. Consequently, teacher education programs preparing bilingual educators need to oppose and counteract ideologies affirming the hegemony of the English language, proposing instead perspectives favorable to linguistic pluralism.

“More meaningful to do it than just reading it:” rehearsing praxis among Mexican-American/Latinx pre-service teachers

ABSTRACTThis paper explores the potential use of drama-based pedagogical tools to prepare future bilingual teachers to respond to the need for advocacy inside and outside the classroom. Using their lived experiences and class material, 20 Mexican-American/Latinx bilingual pre-service teachers performed real-life narratives of conflict experienced by local seasoned bilingual teachers during a foundational class in a preparation program in the Southwest. Using Boal’s Forum Theater, these reenactments provided bilingual pre-service teachers with a context to develop assertiveness and positionality as a means to co-construct emergent bilingual advocate-teacher identities. This paper uses critical ethnography and critical discourse analysis of video-recorded reenactments of bilingual pre-service teachers, as well as interviews and reflections.

Speaking educación in Spanish: linguistic and professional development in a bilingual teacher education program in the US-Mexico Borderlands

ABSTRACTThis case study examines the pedagogical measures taken for Spanish development for a group of bilingual preservice teachers in a university-based teacher education program in Texas. Classroom language policies were developed collaboratively and deliberately throughout the semester, which included discussion and negotiation between instructor and students about the language demands and expectations. Following the language development of four bilingual pre-service teachers in their quest to speak educación using discourse analysis, complexity and accuracy analysis, and critical narrative analysis, this study aims to highlight explicit experiences integrating content mastery and language development in a translanguaging university classroom. Implications include the need for horizontal language policies that foster effective cross-linguistic and pedagogical choices.

Evaluating SLA Textbook Comprehensibility : Comparing Coh-Metrix Results With EFL Teachers’ Ratings

Target language textbooks are widely used in English teacher preparation programs, but the decision to use them is commonly made with minimal consideration of their difficultly level for the teacher candidates. The purpose of this study was to assess their readability for bilingual pre-service teachers. To accomplish this task, the Coh-Metrix linguistic analysis software was used to analyze the readability and easability of five widely-used SLA textbooks. Additionally, a class of pre-service teachers provided readability ratings of these texts. Coh-Metrix readability indicators showed many of the texts to be at the postsecondary level for L1 speakers. Easability results revealed that texts often lacked many of the features that would make them easier to comprehend. Human readability ratings suggested that many pre-service teachers found them to be moderately challenging revealing somewhat of a mismatch with Coh-Metrix results. EFL teacher educators should consider readability when selecting textbooks for teacher education programs as they may need to provide teacher candidates with access to materials to scaffold their comprehension of these textbooks.

Bilingual pre-service teachers’ initial experiences: Language ideologies in practice

ABSTRACTTo address the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse student population in our U.S. schools, teacher preparation programs need to prepare bilingual pre-service teachers to view and implement languages in supportive ways. This study demonstrates how a cohort of 16 bilingual pre-service teachers are beginning to think about language(s) and the impact it has on their practice within their internship experience. Findings reveal that when supportive practices and policies are implemented in the classroom, pre-service teachers adopt similar practices. However, when there are negative language policies and practices, they become practicing language arbiters who make decisions that challenge normative practices.

Exploring Possible Selves Through Sharing Stories Online: Case Studies of Preservice Teachers in Bilingual Classrooms

We examined how narrative was used in online classroom discussion as preservice bilingual teachers experimented with possible future selves. Considering associations between narrative and identity construction, we explored the complementary roles of stories from personal past experiences and backgrounds, experience as teacher interns, and imagined experiences of possible future selves as four preservice teachers endeavored to understand what it means to be a teacher of bilingual children. Data came from transcripts of nine computer-mediated discussions (CMDs) incorporated as a classroom activity in a theory-into-practice teacher preparation course. Findings suggest that preservice teachers’ diverse trajectories to becoming bilingual and their motivations for becoming teachers as expressed in narratives during CMD have the potential to increase the specificity and diversity of possible selves for all discussion participants. Narratives shared in discussion allow all preservice teachers to borrow from a library of lived experiences to inform their imagined future teaching selves.