A Vision for Building Expertise for Teachers of English Language Learners in the 21st Century

• In Event: 49.081 - Building Expertise for Teachers of English Language Learners in the 21st Century

Abstract

Realizing the potential that English Language Learners take to school requires teachers who have affirmative dispositions toward their students (Villegas & Lucas, 2011) and view them prolepically (van Lier, 2004). That is, teachers must see their students for who they are at the moment, full of resources and immense potential, but also for who they will be at the end of a unit of teaching, at the end of a course, at the end of their school studies, in productive and responsible life in their communities (Walqui & van Lier, 2010). It also requires that teachers develop deep knowledge and be able to translate those dispositions and knowledge into action that builds students’ academic and linguistic strengths while fostering their agency and autonomy (van Lier, 2008, 2013). The connection between knowledge, action, and impact—that is, between teaching and learning—is one that has not been problematized enough, although it has been reflected upon by a few language teaching scholars (e.g., Allwright, 2006; Stevick, 1980; van Lier, 2000, 2008, 2013; Freeman, 2013).

This paper unpacks the notion of teacher expertise to work with English Language Learners in very high-expectation contexts in which students are simultaneously learning subject matter practices and the language needed to express them. The 21st century requires deeper learning focusing on key disciplinary ideas and processes and builds the skills to make life-long learning possible (Valdés, Kibler, & Walqui, 2014). The paper argues that in the same manner as students need to be considered legitimate participants (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and provided with deliberate support during their apprenticeship (Walqui & van Lier, 2010), teachers also need to be considered capable and be provided with on-going opportunities to develop their expertise—in other words, what they know and what they can enact in concrete situations informed by that knowledge.

Building on Shulman’s (1997) account of teacher understanding, which was initially proposed to guide his project on the development of communities of practice among students and teachers in Oakland, Walqui (2011) adapted the current model of teacher expertise through multiple implementations, readings, and discussions with colleagues within the Quality Teaching for English Learners (QTEL) initiative and with colleagues in the larger professional community (Walqui, 1997, 2005; Bunch, 2013; Galguera, 2011). It considers six dimensions: vision, motivation, knowledge, reflection, context and action.

Applicable across disciplinary fields represented in the school curriculum, the model of teacher expertise presented considers a process that takes teachers from newcomers to novices to experts in their understanding and action as they work in linguistically diverse environments (Walqui, 2011). It intends to develop teachers’ ability to offer their students quality, appropriate, and generative opportunities to engage in deep academic practices in their family languages and in English. The paper argues that to trace developmental paths for teachers, and realize them across multiple contexts in coherent ways, it is important to understand the what that needs to be developed as well as the multiple, successful hows, and their intermediate versions that implementations may shape into as they are situated in the particulars of professional development and enacted in classes contingently.

Author

• Aida Walqui, WestEd