Illuminating Academic Language Through Discussions of Videotaped English Language Arts Lessons

• In Event: Video Analysis for Pedagogical Sense-Making Among Teacher Learners Across Disciplines

Abstract

Teacher educators recognize that if novice “teachers are to be successful, they must wrestle simultaneously with issues of pedagogical content (or knowledge) as well as general pedagogy (or generic teaching principles)" (Grossman, as cited in Ornstein, Thomas, & Lasley, 2000, p. 508). One question for teacher educators is how to scaffold and develop pre-service teachers’ disciplinary language learning so that the wrestling novices do helps them develop appropriate disciplinary teaching practices. The purpose of this study was to understand 1) how engagement with specific disciplinary literacy practices challenge and support pre-service English/Language Arts teachers’ disciplinary and pedagogical understanding, and 2) how a focus on academic language development supports novices’ disciplinary and pedagogical learning.

Much of the complexity of teaching is wrapped up in language and language structures that must be made visible. Novice teachers must develop the capacity to recognize the complex language demands implicit in their teaching so attending to such demands is integral to their planning, teaching and assessment. Video, as a tool for learning and analysis, provides opportunities for novices to develop their understanding of the content, classrooms, and pedagogy. Video analysis of their own and their peers’ teaching challenges novices to develop an analytical gaze, to slow down practices, and to engage in disciplinary and pedagogical discussions around a shared text (the video). This inquiry is guided by the question: How do novice teachers develop a rich and nuanced understanding of disciplinary and pedagogical language through video analysis?

Video analysis occurred six times across two semesters. Data sources included class discussions, video commentary, and narrative reflections. I used thematic analysis (Patton, 2002, Ezzy, 2002) of discussion transcripts, exit slips, and reflections to identify disciplinary language use including the struggles, adaptations, or resistance to disciplinary or pedagogical language use.

Initial findings included three themes: 1) Required visibility, 2) Modeled practice, and 3) Explicit language structures. Required visibility explored the explicit use of disciplinary language evident in the early videos only when there was a stated requirement that novices had to address and support academic language. After the initial requirement of disciplinary language use, novices developed an increasingly accomplished use of disciplinary language as a tool for learning evidenced in the clips they chose to represent their use of language and in their identification and analysis of the language use in other candidates’ video clips. Modeled practice explored the ways novices took up and used disciplinary language practices modeled for them. Initially, instructional modeling consisted almost entirely of examples of candidate modeling, but later uses began to incorporate student modeling. Explicit language structures became evident as candidates talked about content and pedagogy. Video clips showed that learning to talk about the discipline or about pedagogy as teachers rather than students required a significant shift in language use.

The significance of this work, described in more depth in the paper, is in the potential to develop sophisticated teacher preparation programs.

Author

• Melanie Hundley, Vanderbilt University