Supporting Language Teachers Through Mentoring as Pedagogy

• In Event: Developing Excellent Teachers in Rural and Remote Communities: Challenges and Efforts in Rural Alaska

Abstract

Native language education faces many challenges in Alaska. Central among these are insufficient funding, lack of teacher training, inadequate classroom materials, and pressure (external and internal) to abandon heritage languages for English.
In 2006, in an effort to address some of these issues, a grant was secured to create a graduate program in Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education (SLATE). Eighteen certified teachers (fifteen Alaska Native and three white) and four Alaska Native PhD candidates were recruited to conduct research in one of four areas: language pedagogy, language assessment, multiliteracies, language policy and planning. By 2010, sixteen masters and three PhD candidates earned their degrees with this program’s support.
A central goal of the SLATE project was to foster Alaska Native leadership in language programming at all levels (K-12, community, university). As of 2007, UAF had graduated only four Alaska Native PhDs in its history; none were focused on second language acquisition. Thus, the question for the faculty became “As white faculty, how do we foster Alaska Native leadership in language programming?” To help achieve this, we established formal mentoring structures called “Graduate Research Collaboratives.” Each collaborative was headed by a white faculty member and included up to seven masters candidates and an Alaska Native PhD candidate as near peer mentor.
In 2013, SLATE faculty members and former PhD candidates (now faculty) sought to continue the work started by SLATE by applying for a new federal grant to support teachers and researchers in Alaska. The Alaska Native Language Computer Assisted Language Learning project (ANE-CALL) seeks to develop Computer Assisted Language Learning materials for teaching Alaska Native languages and English. To achieve this, the project seeks to a) graduate 4 Alaska Native Ph.D. candidates conducting research on CALL in Alaska Native language settings, b) graduate 20 M.A. candidates completing CALL curriculum and materials development projects for K-12 Alaska Native (15 candidates) and English (5 candidates) language learning contexts.
In this paper we will look at whether and how SLATE and ANE-CALL have integrated mentoring as part of their graduate pedagogy. Specific questions asked include: What lessons were learned within SLATE about inter-/intracultural mentoring? How have these lessons informed mentoring within the ANE-CALL project? How do these lessons either rise to the level of pedagogy or remain ‘add-ons’ typical of western academic graduate student mentoring?
Our conceptual framework for mentoring draws on the theory of intersubjectivity as discussed by Vygotsky (1978) and developed by Wertch (1985) and Habermas (1987). We include the notion of collaborative activity, also referred to as joint activity (Rogoff 1990, 1993), which has also been described as a socially mediated process of coparticipation and colearning (Gutierrez, Baquedano-Lopez, Alvarez, & Chiu, 1999).
Data points include a technology-use survey, focus groups, individual interviews, classroom artifacts, and observations of face-to-face and distance-delivered university courses as well as observations of elementary classrooms in rural Alaska.

Authors

• Patrick E. Marlow, The University of Alaska - Fairbanks

• Theresa John, University of Alaska Fairbanks

• Hishinlai' Kathy Sikorski, University of Alaska Fairbanks

• Joan Parker-Webster, University of Alaska Fairbanks

• Walkie Charles, Holmes Scholar

• Marilee Coles-Ritchie, Westminster College

• April L Counceller

• Sabine Siekmann