Some Persevering Dualities That Stand in the Way of Deepening Teacher Expertise

• In Event: Dismantling Language Dichotomies in Teacher Education

Abstract

Objectives
Deep and generative teacher expertise is required to offer students equitable and substantive learning opportunities. This is especially the case when classes are linguistically diverse. Most teachers do not feel prepared to work deeply with English Learners (Gándara, 2017); their teacher education courses were multiple but not productive, and the opportunities to learn during practice are rare and lack pedagogical coherence. More importantly, their knowledge about learning, students, and their role as teachers is superficial and characterized by dualities that need to be reconsidered at theoretical and practical levels. While dualities are simple and thus attractive, they oversimplify the complex and intellectual work teachers need to carry out to develop their students’ potential.

Framework
Using a sociocultural/ecological perspective (van Lier, 2004), this paper explores five dichotomies related to the education of English Learners. They are:
1) The role of teachers is to teach vs their role.is to provide opportunities to learn.
2) Language is acquired vs. language is developed;
3) Students need to be “ready” to participate in ambitious lessons vs. participation in lessons creates readiness;
4) Lessons have two related but separate goals: content and language vs. lessons integrate conceptual, analytic, and language practices; and
5) Assessment is the realm of test makers vs. assessment is part and parcel of teaching.

Unexamined beliefs lead to teachers who lecture because they think language is acquired by listening to input that is one level beyond learners’ ability to understand (Krashen & Terrel, 1983). They simplify texts and tasks they offer their English Learners based on the mistaken belief that English proficiency is a necessary precondition to engage in rigorous grade-level content. They curricularize language (Valdés, 2015, 2018) by centering the structure and lexis of English as the content English Learners need to learn.

Methods
The paper presents case studies of nine teachers as they shift their conceptualizations of unproductive dualities during their work. Four educative curriculum units, intended to be used over a period of 15 weeks were used for the study. Teachers received PD, contingent implementation support, and coaching while they implemented the educative curriculum.

Data
Classroom videos, surveys, interviews, focus groups, and teacher portfolios of work are used to track teachers’ development. Student focus groups and electronic portfolios complement the data.

Results
The study analyzes how the curriculum and accompanying support developed teacher expertise and equipped them with a solid but flexible sociocultural conceptual base to give meaning to pedagogical arrangements. The case studies show that teachers can develop deep expertise to work with quality and equity with linguistically minoritized students. Teachers must be provided with the needed knowledge, and just like their students, with needed supports, both planned and contingent.

Significance
The fastest growing subgroup of English Learners is students who have been bureaucratically categorized as Long Term English Learners, (six years or more as English Learners). It is imperative to challenge deep-seated notions of what is possible and how to achieve it. This paper provides an example of how it may be done.

Author

• Aida Walqui, WestEd