Academic Literacies for K–12 Multilingual Learners: Critical Perspectives in Teacher Education and Professional Learning

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

There have been multiple calls for the development of teachers’ academic language to apprentice multilingual learners’ use and knowledge of academic literacies (reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing) for school-based purposes. This symposium brings together efforts in teacher education and professional learning opportunities for teachers of multilingual learners that have focused on a social semiotic conceptualization of academic literacies. Papers provide different critical perspectives and theoretical and pedagogical tenets on language and learning in the context of U.S. schools. Taken together, the four papers deepen our understanding of the affordances of social semiotics for improving academic literacy processes and outcomes for multilingual learners.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Second Language Research

Chair

• Luciana C. de Oliveira, Virginia Commonwealth University

Papers

• Social Semiotics, Teacher Education, and Student Learning in Hard Times: A Critical Literature Review - Kathryn Accurso, The University of British Columbia; Meg Gebhard, University of Massachusetts - Amherst

• Graduate-Level Courses for Developing Secondary Content Teachers' Knowledge and Pedagogical Practices for Academic Language Instruction - Mary A. Avalos, University of Miami; Alissa Anne Blair, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville

• Preservice to Mentor Teacher: Learning to Teach Disciplinary Literacy Skills of History to Multilingual Learners - Laura Schall-Leckrone, Lesley University

• Culturally Sustaining Systemic Functional Linguistic Praxis in Teacher Education - Ruth Harman, University of Georgia - Athens

Discussant

• Luciana C. de Oliveira, Virginia Commonwealth University