A Situated Language Learner Experience: Stimulating Emotional Understandings of Preservice Teachers to Improve English Language Learner Instruction

• In Event: Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: Overcoming Fear, Fostering Understanding: Preservice Teacher Identity

Abstract

Using a situated language learning experience, this study sought to develop pre-service elementary teachers’ (PSETs’) perceptions and foster the development of educational responsiveness in their teaching of ELLs. With a focus on the content of science, the participants encountered that teaching requires there to be an awareness of the social responsibilities associated with meeting the learning needs of each child. From this experience, PSETs realized and better understood the gatekeeping role of emotions and the affective filter (Krashen, 1982, 2003) in learning and second language acquisition. Without such an empathetic lens, PSETs would be uninformed about and ill-prepared to work with the full experiences of language learners in science.

Authors

• Estanislado S. Barrera, Louisiana State University

• Angela W. Webb, Louisiana State University - Baton Rouge

• Paula Summers Calderon, Louisiana State University - Baton Rouge