Fostering Equitable Language Learning Through Bilingual Community Art Gallery Lessons

• In Event: Decolonizing Bilingual Teacher Education: Reimagining Possibilities for Transformation

Abstract

This paper explores a case study of a bilingual co-teaching model in an art museum as a key component of a field experience in a Spanish-English bilingual teacher education program. In particular, we observed the ways pre-service teachers language when co-teaching bilingual art gallery lessons. Using a culturally sustaining linguistic frame, we found the ways in which the positionality of the co-teachers influences languaging in dynamic and flexible ways, and the role of culturally sustaining art objects as mediators of metalinguistic awareness, depth of understanding, criticality, and the interrogation of linguistic inequality. Furthermore, co-teaching bilingual art gallery lessons provides an opportunity for opening community educational spaces to culturally and linguistically diverse populations.

Authors

• Lucia Cardenas Curiel, Michigan State University

• Lindsay M. McHolme, Michigan State University