Borderlands identities and translanguaging stance in language teacher education

• In Event: Decolonial Approaches to the Teaching of English and World Languages

Abstract

Objectives
This paper addresses how teacher educators and candidates leverage their bilingual/bicultural experiences, viewed as shaping their Borderlands identities, in a translanguaging pedagogical innovation. It examines how teacher educators modeled translanguaging and Borderlands ways of knowing, and the impact on candidate learning. In exploring this modeling as an incipient decolonizing pedagogy in language teacher education, our objective is to illuminate how teacher educators and candidates leverage translanguaging pedagogies to disrupt educational inequities facing minoritized bilingual learners.

Theoretical Framework
The study employs Borderlands theory to understand translanguaging from a cultural perspective (Anzaldúa, 1987; Calderón et al., 2012; Delgado Bernal, 1998). Viewing bilingualism as a borderland (Hamilton, 2018), we highlight how navigating linguistic and cultural worlds through translanguaging fosters linguistic ideological clarity (Venegas-Weber & Martinez Negrette, 2023). The concept of translanguaging, which defines bilingualism as a dynamic and flexible use of linguistic repertoires, foregrounds language as a tool for decolonizing education (Wei & García, 2022).

Methods
This empirical study of translanguaging in bilingual teacher education at a Midwest Hispanic-Serving Institution employed a design-based research approach (Reinking & Bradley, 2008) featuring iterative design, implementation, and analysis of a pedagogical innovation (Fall 2021-Spring 2022). Two Latine bilingual teacher educators codesigned the pedagogical innovation with researchers and implemented it in their bilingual methods courses (asynchronous online and synchronous virtual; 22 candidates total). Decolonizing research methods included teacher educator testimonio interviews and cultural intuition collaborative analysis of classroom observations and student learning artifacts (Calderón et al., 2012; Delgado Bernal, 1998).

Data Sources
Data sources included fieldnotes and transcripts of classroom observations (5); participant language autobiographies; participant open-ended survey responses on attitudes about bilingualism and bilingual learners; participant learning artifacts; and design process artifacts.

Findings
Findings highlight the importance of the modeling relationship between teacher educator and candidate. First, teacher educators drew on the sensitivities arising from their lived experiences of bilingual borderlands to model fluid language identities and practices for teacher candidates navigating the in-betweenness of their own linguistic, cultural, educational, and professional identities. Second, teacher educators both enacted linguistic ideological clarity (Venegas-Weber & Martinez Negrette, 2023) and modeled it for candidates, preparing aspiring teachers to carry these practices into their future classrooms.

Significance
The study makes significant contributions to the field of language teacher education by demonstrating the transformative potential of bilingual/bicultural teacher educators enacting a translanguaging pedagogical innovation. The findings underscore the necessity of incorporating bilingual educators’ lived experiences and linguistic repertoires into teacher education programs in order to disrupt linguicism and promote educational equity. Furthermore, the study offers insights for designing and implementing pedagogical innovations that support the development of critical, linguistically inclusive teaching practices. This research has broader implications for language teacher education, advocating for a paradigm shift towards fostering linguistic ideological clarity in addition to language proficiency. Bilingual teacher educators, with life-long experiences of navigating bilingual/bicultural worlds, are uniquely positioned to model these sustaining and critical strategies for future bilingual educators.

Authors

• Colleen Hamilton, National Louis University

• Wendy Mendez, National Louis University

• Joao Goebel, National-Louis University

• Ryan McCarty, Niles Township D219