Critical Language Education for Preservice Teachers: A Longitudinal Study of Teacher Development

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 31
  In Roundtable Session: Exploring Bilingual Teacher Education

Abstract

This study explores the long-term impact of a mandated critical language education course on secondary pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) ability to support multilingual learners’ disciplinary literacy development. Such courses have sometimes been shown to have impressive short-term results, but few studies have documented long-term impacts. We use a longitudinal mixed-method approach to analyze changes in PSTs’ beliefs about language and language learning, and changes in PSTs’ instructional practices, specifically the manner in which they respond to student writing. Preliminary findings suggest changes in PSTs’ beliefs remained relatively stable over time, but that positive short-term changes in PSTs’ written feedback practices diminished significantly over time. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for policy and teacher preparation program design.

Authors

• Kathryn Accurso, University of Massachusetts - Amherst

• Meg Gebhard, University of Massachusetts - Amherst