If Not Now, When?: Challenging Language Norms During Preservice Student Teaching

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

Abstract

Preservice teacher candidates are often trained to adopt culturally sustaining pedagogies (CSP), a strengths-based instructional approach that promotes “the linguistic and cultural lifeways of minoritized students in order to achieve positive social transformation” (Alim & Paris, 2017, p.1), as an effective approach. A core component of CSP is the development of sociopolitical consciousness (Ladson-Billings, 2014; Paris, 2012) that can be enacted through critical language awareness (CLA). CLA involves understanding the social, political, and ideological aspects of language, linguistic variation, and discourse practices and challenging the status quo to value all linguistic varieties (Leeman, 2018). Specifically, CLA considers how features of language such as words, grammar, and discourse choices reproduce, reinforce, or challenge certain ideologies and struggles for power and dominance. However, we do not fully understand the implications of CLA adoption in instructional practices among teachers.

This paper presents a comparative case study which explores the experiences of two Spanish-speaking preservice educators during their student teaching in a dual language immersion program. Using observational data of the preservice teachers in the classrooms and semi-structured interviews (Yin, 2018), we were interested in understanding to what extent and how, if at all, these preservice teachers exercised CLA in their instructional practices and what implications it had for their teaching evaluations as well as on their students.

Preliminary findings show that despite being trained in the same teacher education program, Jasmine and Raquel had very different approaches to CLA. Jasmine exercised her CLA by making a conscious choice not to follow prescribed language norms because she believed that the use of “standard” and “academic” language can impede students’ conceptual understanding, whereas Raquel believed that it was best to follow the language norms presented in the lessons because that was what the students would be assessed on. For example, while teaching subtraction, Jasmine used “quitar”, because she felt that students would understand the concept of subtraction better, while Raquel used the prescribed academic word “restar.” However, the use of “quitar”, although it was a deliberate choice by the teacher, was deemed to be incorrect usage and was repeatedly corrected by her supervisors. Moreover, Jasmine challenged language norms in the classroom by code-switching and translanguaging, which was considered to go against the program’s language separation policy. In contrast, Raquel, who followed the prescriptive ways of language use by adhering to the variety of Spanish used in the textbook was deemed to have “better” Spanish proficiency and to be a “better” teacher. The students in Jasmine’s class, however, were more engaged in participating in whole and small group discussions and were observed translanguaging across many varieties of Spanish and English, while Raquel’s class appeared to be more reserved in their language use and often subjected to language policing (e.g.,“dilo en español”).

Although the findings from this pilot study warrant further investigation, this study highlights a contradiction between what is preached as effective practice and what is valued in practice. Implications for teacher training are discussed.

Authors

• Marcela Alvarez, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Jin-Sook Lee, University of California - Santa Barbara