Tapping Into Our Transnational and Translingual Assets: A Collaborative Autoethnography of Asian International Teaching Assistants

• In Event: Crossing Borders: Immigrant, Migrant, and Transnational Teacher Identities

Abstract

In this study, we, three Asian international teaching assistants (ITAs) and teacher educators, used collaborative autoethnography to explore our experiences of preparing predominantly white preservice teachers (PSTs) in an English as a Second Language (ESL) course at a large public midwestern university. We analyzed our teaching journals, curricular materials, and discussions using raciolinguistic ideologies as the theoretical framework. We found ourselves feeling frustrated with white-listening PSTs, battling with monolingual and monocultural ideologies, and unwillingly reproducing deficit ideologies, often embedded in the curriculum. However, we realized we could tap into our transnational and translingual assets to disrupt such monolingual, monocultural, and deficit ideologies. We provide implications for teacher educators and higher education institutions in preparing PSTs and supporting racialized ITAs.

Authors

• Yangyang Zhu, Purdue University

• Woongsik Choi, Illinois State University

• Tirtha Karki, Purdue University