Preservice English Teachers' Development of Critical Language Pedagogy

• In Event: 75.036 - Critical Perspectives on Pedagogy Across Content Areas

Abstract

Literacy scholars have long called for English Language Arts teachers to develop more critical approaches to teaching about language and dialect diversity, an approach we call Critical Language Pedagogy. We report on a study of secondary English pre-service teachers’ development of Critical Language Pedagogy over the course of a four-week, online “mini-course” on language variation. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, we found that the pre-service teachers developed more critical perspectives on dialect diversity and linguistic prejudices during the course. However, the pre-service teachers found it difficult to address how linguistic prejudices uphold broader systems of privilege and prejudice. We analyze the learning trajectories of two focal teachers to suggest ways to support diverse teachers’ development of Critical Language Pedagogy.

Authors

• Amanda J. Godley, University of Pittsburgh

• Jeffrey Reaser, North Carolina State University

• Kaylan Moore, University of Pittsburgh

• Jessica Hatcher, North Carolina State University