Defining Linguistic and Communicative Competence: Testimonios from Bilingual Teacher Educators and Dual Language Principals

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

Abstract

The Spanish language competencies of future and current bilingual teachers in dual language education persists as a critical issue in the field (Aquino-Sterling, 2016; Guerrero & Valadez, 2011). Bilingual teacher development requires grappling with one’s own bilingualism in its sociopolitical and sociocultural context, and understanding how one’s own languages and languaging practices are impacted by this context. While the research and practice in bilingual teacher preparation and development tends to focus on teachers’ competencies, the linguistic competencies of those that mentor them is less known. This paper reports on how bilingual teacher educators and bilingual administrators of dual language schools in one southern California region make sense of their own linguistic competencies and ultimately, how this informs their perspectives of the linguistic competencies of the pre-service bilingual teachers they support.

Language competence and/or proficiency is a required area of study in bilingual and language classrooms, and relatedly, the pedagogical Spanish competencies of future and current bilingual teachers. Cognitive and psycholinguistic understandings of language dominate the teacher education literature in this area. This manuscript draws on sociocultural understandings of communicative competence and language use to explore how bilingual teacher educators and bilingual education leaders in PK-12 schools grapple with their own perceived linguistic and communicative competence (Hymes, 1972) in two languages, Spanish and English. Within a Language Socialization framework (Garrett & Baquedano-López, 2002; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986), language competence is understood as much more than the knowledge of linguistic forms, but the ways in which an individual is able to function and be regarded as a competent member of social groups. Specifically, this paper explores how bilingual individuals in leadership roles make sense of their own competencies and apply their language ideologies to the work they do with preservice bilingual teachers.

This paper shares preliminary findings related to bilingual teacher educators’ and dual language school principals’ perspectives on bilingual teachers’ linguistic and cultural competencies. Data sources include interviews, written reflections, and course syllabi. Participants include 5 bilingual teacher educators at one IHE in Southern California that offers a bilingual credential program in Spanish and English and 5 dual language school principals that strategically partner with this IHE through clinical practice opportunities for the pre-service teachers. Interviews elicited testimonios (Latina Feminist Group, 2001) that centered around themes of (1) raciolinguistic ideologies, (2) official and unofficial language policies, (3) translanguaging and (4) border pedagogies.

This research centers the ideologies of the individuals that work alongside bilingual pre-service teachers in a role as professor, mentor, and/or administrator. This paper reports on a study of these leaders’ sense-making around their own experiences as racialized bilinguals in U.S. schools and the influence those experiences have on their ideologies of linguistic and cultural competencies for themselves and other educators. Preliminary findings suggest that the professional and personal experiences of bilingual teacher educators and bilingual school principals shape their ideologies of what constitutes linguistic competence for bilingual educators, but positive and negative experiences with language in schools did not directly correlate to how they perceive linguistic competence.

Author

• Sera Jean Hernandez, San Diego State University