Toward Reflexive Engagement in Language Teacher Education: Critical Ethnography's Challenge to Theory and Political Binary Relationships

• In Event: Talking Back: The Intersection of Multilingualism and Racism Through a Critical Ethnographic Lens

Abstract

In Canada, as elsewhere, the conceptualizations of how language, identity, and community are experienced have been continually undergoing transformation. This has been particularly evident at the tertiary level, namely in urban to suburban French language teacher education programs, comprising youth with increasingly complex linguistic repertoires and complex social backgrounds (Author 1, 2008, 2011, 2012). However, one of biggest challenges perceived in some of the Canadian provinces (e.g. British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario) that provide French language teaching and learning programs (historically referred to as French as a Second Language/FSL programs), has been a lack of support for the integration of and engagement with social variation and diversities. Despite the increased value of multilingualism as a practical norm in competitive national and international markets, educational policies and curriculum in French as a Second Language (FSL), particularly French Immersion (FI), are just beginning to contemplate what it might mean to include the explicit development of multilingual repertoires or societal multilingualism in classrooms (Author 1, 2012, 2016; Author, 2018).
As more diversity is present in French language education classrooms, we can no longer look at bi/multilingualism in the same way nor can we continue to view linguistic identities as static (Author 1, 2012). Furthermore, in order to develop an openness to social variation, and to be able to thrive in different contexts, contemporary professional language teachers need to be both reflexive and mindful of their own social and linguistic practices as well as other's interactions and ways of communicating (Author 1, 2020). In transnational times, we need the “critical ability to question the implicit and explicit assumptions behind cultural claims and the power dynamics that they may be concealing” (Breidenbach & Nyíri’s, 2009: 343-345), specifically language ideologies.
Drawing upon critical ethnographic research (Author 1, 2009, 2011, 2014), I investigate the potential of developing critical intercultural language awareness or what I refer to as “reflexive engagement” for future language teachers and researchers (Author, 2020). In doing so, I explore some of the experiences and complex positionings of bi/multilingual teacher education students who took part in a two-year intensive Bachelor of Education (BEd) program in Ontario, Canada and who likewise participated in a virtual international exchange in French as part of their coursework. With the continued rise of neoliberal discourses and the marketization of education along with processes of globalization, transnational mobility, immigration, and rapid change, the need for critically aware professional language educators, open and supportive of diversities, remains paramount. Such processes and discourses have brought about an increased importance for language (student) teachers in today’s world to develop and refine their linguistic and intercultural practices as concerns the inclusivity of diversities (Author 1, 2012; Roy, 2015) in varied contexts, and for overall communicative effectiveness.

Author

• Julie S Byrd Clark, The University of Western Ontario