ESOL Teachers as Critical Teacher-Leaders

• In Event: Teacher-Leaders as Critical Researchers: Exploring Critical Teacher Leadership in Practice

Abstract

The third presenter is a teacher-leader who serves as an ESOL teacher at the elementary school where the study takes place. The purpose of the study is to explore general education teachers’ perceptions and attitudes toward teaching English Learners (EL) in their classrooms. As a Haitian-American and former ESOL student, the teacher-researcher personally connects to the impact teacher attitudes and perceptions have on students’ academic performance and their overall social and emotional well-being. Thus, the following research questions guide the project: 1) What perceptions and attitudes do general elementary education teachers have regarding teaching ESOL students? And, what perceptions and attitudes do general elementary education teachers have regarding their preparation for working with English Learners?

The literature on ESOL teacher leadership discusses ESOL teachers’ influence and ability to advocate for more culturally responsive practices for ELs through their ESOL leadership positions (Ford, 2021). To be able to leverage the influence and expertise ESOL teachers potentially have, the teacher-researcher begins with exploring colleagues’ baseline feelings about EL students to identify the next steps for cultivating school-wide culturally responsive and culturally sustaining practices.

In this qualitative study, the teacher-researcher will interview a group of general education teachers about their experiences teaching English Learners at Joy Elementary School (pseudonym) and the quality of EL training they received. The teacher-researcher will use a combination of two existing interview instruments to create the interview protocol: the first instrument targets the teachers’ attitudes towards their training for their ELs; and, the second includes questions from Ladson-Billings (1995) culturally responsive frameworks. Preliminary findings indicate that teachers at Joy Elementary are not engaging in culturally responsive practices when working with EL students; and, in some cases are unfamiliar with cultural responsiveness as a pedagogical approach in general. Additionally, their training appears to reinforce normative teaching practices (Yazan, 2018), with only surface and antiquated opportunities to critically engage how to best serve EL students and families.

As a project that closely resembles Bradley-Levine’s (2018) research on Franklin Elementary School’s EL teachers, the study points to the blurred lines between CTL and culturally responsive teacher leadership (Ford, 2021). In both theory-building manuscripts, the authors focus on teacher-leaders’ advocacy in the context of their expertise and the role of collaboration in designing and implementing school-wide change. As a result, the study is significant because it provides an empirical opportunity to flesh out each theory’s essential elements and introduce a more comprehensive framework for critical and culturally responsive teacher leadership.

Author

• Joanne Gauthier, Clayton County Public Schools
  Presenting Author