Teacher Preparation and Policy Implications for Emergent Bilingual Students in the United States

• In Event: Preparing the Teachers We Need for the “Students We Share” Between the United States and Mexico

Abstract

Social connections in the U.S. and Mexico facilitate and serve to maintain transnational migration (Massey & Espinosa, 1997; Zuñiga & Hamann, 2009). As a result, both countries have a population of transnational students some have referred to as sojourners to reflect the continuous migration that is not fully captured by terms such as migrant and immigrant (Zuñiga & Hamann, 2009). To wit, the largest share of Hispanic students in US classrooms are of Mexican descent (Schneider, Martinez, & Ownes, 2006); between 2009 and 2014, approximately “1 million Mexican immigrants and their U.S.-born children moved from the U.S. to Mexico” (Krogstad, 2016); and there are a number of “twin cities” along the border “where deep economic, social, political and family ties belie the idea that the border should be a fortress” (Branson-Potts, 2017).

Transnational students in the U.S. who speak Spanish at home are currently most often referred to as English language learners (ELLs), a term that has mostly replaced the more deficiency-oriented Limited English Proficient. These terms, however, much like immigrant and migrant, fail to capture the more nuanced realities of transnational students. For example, scholars have argued that our shared transnational students are more accurately emergent bilinguals (EBs) (e.g., García, 2009) who have “potential in developing their bilingualism” (p. 322). Unfortunately, this potential is most often undermined by U.S. policies (e.g., López, McEneaney, & Nieswandt, 2015), as well as “inadequate resources,” and a lack of “institutional will” (Garcia, Jensen, & Scribner, 2009, p. 12).

Failure to adequately prepare teachers of emergent bilingual (EB) students could have devastating consequences for student achievement, EB reclassification, and eventually, high school and college completion. To enhance the policy discourse to serve all youth—regardless of whether there is the chance that the students return to Mexico, have just arrived from Mexico, or have fluid ties across the two countries—we explore how teacher certification requirements relate to both EB student achievement and teacher self-efficacy in three states with similar EB student populations but disparate policies on ways to meet EBs' needs: Arizona, California, and Texas. To do this we ask: (1) How well do states prepare their teachers to meet the needs of EBs? (2) What knowledge specific to meeting EBs’ needs do states require their teachers to demonstrate? (3) How are these requirements related to teacher perceptions of their preparedness to effectively teach EBs? We find that there are marked differences across the three states in terms of how well they prepare teachers for EBs, and these patterns can be discerned from their teacher preparation requirements. Although teachers’ self-efficacy does not appear to be related to teacher training in the first three years of teaching, there is an advantage to more rigorous training over time. Implications for policy are discussed.

Authors

• Francesca Lopez, The University of Arizona

• Lucrecia Santibanez, Claremont Graduate University