From "Academic Language" to Scaffolding: Preservice Teachers' Shifting Conceptions of Language and Pedagogy

• In Event: Dismantling Language Dichotomies in Teacher Education

Abstract

Objectives
This paper describes efforts to challenge prescriptivist notions of “academic language” in one PST preparation course and reports on data from an instructional sequence on scaffolding. We argue that a focus on scaffolding is a productive way to help teacher candidates understand language as a resource for disciplinary practice rather than as a prescriptive set of linguistic features.

Framework
Teacher preparation programs have persistently privileged the distinction between “academic language” and its putative “interpersonal” counterpart as an explanation for challenges facing linguistically minoritized students in U.S. schools (e.g., Cummins, 1984, 2000). However, this distinction has been critiqued as conflating language and literacy; privileging White, middle-class norms of language; ignoring the contexts in which all language is used; and obscuring academic contributions youth make with nondominant and developing linguistic resources (e.g., Flores & Rosa, 2015; MacSwan, 2018; Rivera, 1984; Schleppegrell, 2004). Alternative conceptions of language (Valdés et al., 2014) focus teachers’ attention on how students can productively use all the linguistic resources at their disposal to engage in disciplinary practices (AUTHOR, XXXX; AUTHOR, XXXX).

We argue that examining academic tasks, participant structures, and scaffolding helps teachers see beyond “academic language” as the sine qua non of productive participation in academic settings (AUTHOR, XXXX; Galguera, 2011). We draw on a sociocultural approach to define scaffolding as opportunities to engage as agents in activities that promote the development of language, literacy, and disciplinary practices and lead to autonomy over time (Walqui & van Lier, 2010).

Methods/Modes of inquiry
We reviewed instructional materials and examined candidates’ work in a course designed to prepare secondary teachers for students classified by their schools as “English Learners.” We analyzed candidates’ written work using deductive codes based on the approach to scaffolding we were teaching (e.g. agency/autonomy; contingency) and inductive codes that emerged from the data (e.g. disciplinary practices; building on prior knowledge and interests). We then searched for comments related explicitly to students’ views of language.

Data
Data include course materials used to introduce and challenge the concepts of “academic language” and “scaffolding,” student quickwrites, drafts of groups’ demonstration plans, final presentation materials, written feedback from the instructor, and individual candidates’ reflections. Study participants included 26 PSTs (80% of the total enrollees in the course).

Results/Arguments
In their final reflections, candidates conveyed an understanding of language as a meaning-making resource for engaging with others in learning tasks, the importance of recognizing students’ use of their existing linguistic resources (rather than the forms of “academic language” their students were missing), and the need for intentional planning of pedagogical structures to promote equitable interaction with peers. Themes included opportunities for engagement in disciplinary practices, meaningful interaction among students, communicating through multiple modalities, and promoting student agency and autonomy.

Significance
The findings suggest that, after engaging with critical perspectives of “academic language,” it is productive to shift the focus of PSTs to conceptual and pedagogical guidance for maximizing their students’ opportunities to use and develop their existing linguistic resources in interactionally and disciplinarily engaging ways.

Authors

• George C. Bunch, University of California - Santa Cruz

• Nora W Lang, San Jose State University