Embracing Our Bilingualism: Examining Latinx Teachers' Language Ideologies in a Teacher Preparation Course

• In Event: Latinx Youth, Teachers in Schools, and Families

Abstract

This qualitative research study examines the language ideologies of Latinx teachers as they prepare to transition into bilingual classrooms after the reversal of Proposition 227 (1998) in recent years. The expansion of bilingual education programming throughout the state led a major school district in California to seek support from local university faculty to design and teach a Bilingual Teacher Academy (BTA). The BTA aimed to ensure that teachers were equipped with up-to-date sociolinguistic understandings of language and current pedagogical frameworks and practices in bilingual education. The findings discussed in this paper examine the Spanish language ideologies teachers expressed throughout the course, which reveals important implications about the internalized purist notions of language that are pervasive in bilingual education.

Author

• Luz Yadira Herrera, California State University - Channel Islands