Sustaining Bilingual Teacher Candidates' Bilingualism in a Teacher Education Program

• In Event: 47.096 - MTCC Roundtable Session 20
  In Roundtable Session: 47.096-2 - The Intersectionality of Teacher Education

Abstract

This qualitative comparative case study investigates teacher candidates’ experiences in a Spanish-English bilingual teacher education program in a linguistically diverse urban area in the Northeast U.S. Translanguaging, raciolinguistics, and culturally sustaining pedagogy have been integrated as guiding lenses in the preparation of bilingual teachers in that program. The analysis of interview and course assignments of bilingual teacher candidates highlights three areas of support: deepening their Spanish literacies, building their understanding of dynamic bilingualism and translanguaging as a transformative language practice and teaching approach,, and developing their awareness of inequities faced by bilingual students as well as ways to address these through liberating schooling practices. This study contributes to the important, but incipient, literature on bilingual teacher education.

Authors

• Maria Teresa (Maite) Sanchez, Hunter College, CUNY

• Carla España, Hunter College - CUNY

• Brian A. Collins, Hunter College - CUNY