Learning to Teach as Perceived Outsiders: Understanding the Lived Experience of International Student Teachers

• In Event: Understanding the Role of Teachers' Experience and Identity and Motivations

Abstract

To disrupt the prevailing sense of normality of the homogenous teaching force, teacher education programs need to take active initiatives to build a support system for preparing and sustaining student teachers who share similar backgrounds with the increasing number of immigrant students in K-12 classrooms and who are linguistically and culturally knowledgeable and responsive. The current study informs those initiatives through presenting the complex learning-to-teach stories of six international student teachers, one of the most “othered” and under-researched groups entering the teaching profession. Through unveiling the challenges that they experienced and their sensemaking of learning to teach through metaphors, the study aims to inform teacher education programs of ways to support student teachers from culturally and linguistically minoritized backgrounds.

Author

• Yue Bian, University of Washington - Bothell