“Am I Doing This Right?”: Teacher Candidates’ Experiences Navigating Ideological Tensions and Barriers to Translanguaging

• In Event: Tensions and Opportunities in the Preparation of Teachers of Multilingual Learners: Countering Dominant Language Perspectives

Abstract

Translanguaging (Garcia & Wei, 2014), conceptualized as a “practical theory of language” (Wei, 2017) and a pedagogical approach, foregrounds the strengths and integrated nature of bilinguals’ language practices, while aiming to disrupt inequities produced by raciolinguistic ideologies (Flores & Rosa, 2015) that are pervasive in education institutions and the broader society. Although a substantial and growing body of research has demonstrated the benefits of teachers embracing and leveraging their students’ dynamic linguistic repertoires (e.g., García-Mateus, S., & Palmer, D., 2017; Sayer, 2013), there is limited research on preservice teachers' experiences implementing translanguaging in bilingual programs, where norms around language separation (e.g., Hamman-Ortiz, 2019) and overarching ideologies of “linguistic purism” (Martínez, Hikida, & Durán, 2015) can place them at odds with existing language policies and practices (Henderson 2017). Given this context and the need for teacher education programs that both challenge dominant language ideologies and prepare teachers for real world bilingual settings, this study aims to shed light on teacher candidates’ experiences implementing translanguaging during their student teaching and first year as novice teachers.

This paper draws from a larger qualitative study conducted in collaboration with a teacher education program at a public university in Southern California, which focuses on training bilingual educators to adopt a “translanguaging stance” (García, Johnson, & Seltzer, 2017). Informed by a raciolinguistic perspective, we present a discourse analysis of interview and focus group data from two cohorts of teacher candidates pursuing a Bilingual Authorization certificate in Spanish as part of their Master’s program. Findings demonstrate that teacher candidates, who were predominantly from Latinx backgrounds, navigated a number of ideological tensions including how to bridge and implement the theoretical perspectives taught in their training with expectations for instruction communicated to them by their administrators and colleagues, both during their student teaching and first year as teachers. Candidates noted a lack of authentic examples of how to implement translanguaging during their training and a strong emphasis on standardized testing and assessments in bilingual programs, which reinforced monoglossic ideologies and deficit-oriented discourses about students’ linguistic competencies. Participants also identified struggles and insecurities around teaching in Spanish, particularly their lack of confidence in their ability to effectively teach “academic Spanish,” which was often reinforced through the monitoring of their language practices in schools. Strategies to mitigate these tensions included being intentional about creating opportunities to use translanguaging for specific purposes, such as when building relationships with students, and positioning themselves as language learners with their students. Implications for teacher education include addressing preservice teachers’ need for skills and tools to challenge raciolinguistic ideologies in their coursework, while recognizing the types of constraints and opposition they may face around implementing translanguaging pedagogy.

Authors

• Maria Jose Aragon, University of California - San Diego

• Richelle Jurasek-Kumar, University of California - San Diego