Learning to Teach Bilingual Students via Simulated Teacher Learning Environments: An issue of Equity

• In Event: Immersive Learning: Navigating Extended Education

Abstract

This paper explores what a group of pre-service student teachers at the elementary level experience while steering discussion in a virtual simulated teacher learning environment (TeachLivE™) about students’ understanding of the text, Pet Show by Ezra Jack Keats. The study employed a practice-based approach to providing student teachers with the opportunity to practice the work of steering discussion about a text within the TeachLivE™. The student teachers’ live performances were recorded and they were interviewed post task administration. Analysis of video transcripts and interview data shows that student teachers find it difficult to adjust linguistic complexity level of their questions to elicit responses from the bilingual student. Implications for teacher education are shared.

Authors

• Sultan Turkan, Queen's University - Belfast

• Joyce Watson Nutta, University of Central Florida