"I Had a Linguistic Oppressor Mindset!" Teachers Building on the Linguistic Assets of Multilingual Writers

• In Event: Changing Paradigms and Practices in Teacher Preparation in Support of Emergent Bilinguals

Abstract

Purpose and Theoretical Framework

The purpose of this study was to support pre-service and in-service bilingual teachers in developing holistic biliteracy (Escamilla et al., 2014) ideologies and pedagogy and to value Emergent Bilinguals’ (EBs’) linguistic and cultural assets (Yosso, 2005). Teachers implemented a structured, holistic biliteracy approach to writing instruction that purposefully built on what students already knew in one language to support writing development in another language. This involved shifting teachers’ paradigms and practice toward an asset-based, multilingual approach that views language as practice (García & Kleifgen, 2020). Teachers had to navigate the ideological and pedagogical differences in schools that support a monolingual paradigm. This study asked, how does this specific practice shape teachers’ biliteracy ideology and pedagogy? This study connects to AERA’s theme, “Cultivating Equitable Education Systems,” by exploring a concrete instructional practice for teachers to build on EBs’ assets to advance their writing.

Methods and Data Sources

This qualitative study occurred in a master’s program for in-service bilingual teachers in a mid-western state, and in a pre-service bilingual teacher preparation program in a western state. We provided teachers with concrete steps for observing and analyzing the holistic multilingualism of children’s writing, and a prompting model to enact a metalinguistic lesson to explicitly build on and honor students’ multilingual assets. Data included semi-structured interviews with nine participants, coursework, and assignments.

Data analysis was iterative. Interviews were first analyzed deductively, using codes for ideological clarity (e.g., Alfaro, 2019; Kibler et al, 2021) and biliteracy (e.g., Butvilofsky et al, 2020). A second round of inductive coding (Merriam, 2009) deepened the connection between ideologies and pedagogy. Course assignments were coded using the same coding system. Each author was the first coder for half the data and the second coder for the other half. Both authors coded all the data, discussing any differences that arose until conclusions were reached.

Results and Scholarly Significance

Findings showed that ideological and pedagogical clarity co-developed as teachers read about, discussed, and implemented cycles of practice that included observing and analyzing students’ biliterate strengths, and subsequently planning and enacting a biliteracy lesson across languages designed to explicitly build on those strengths. In varying ways and to different degrees, teachers defied schools’ existing cultural norms and instructional practices to enact a holistic biliteracy approach. Implications for bilingual teacher education include explicit integration of instructional practices intentionally designed to support teachers in adopting a holistic biliteracy orientation even when the schools’ systems in which they work maintain instructional practices rooted in the preservation of traditional, monolingual practices. We suggest bilingual teacher education include intentional development of ideological and pedagogical clarity for teachers to: (1) practice assets-oriented formative assessment and resulting instruction to build on students’ cultural and linguistic assets; (2) employ a holistic bilingual orientation throughout the school day and across curricula; and (3) promote advocacy and agency for dismantling monolingual paradigms, practices, and norms.

Authors

• Allison Briceno, San José State University

• Emily Zoeller, Edgewood College