Common Language, Common Practice: Core Practices as a Guiding Framework for Novice Teacher English Learner Pedagogy

• In Event: 30.070 - Knowledge to Action: Articulating and Enacting a Practice-Based Pedagogy for Teaching English Learners

Abstract

Purpose
This paper builds upon our ongoing work to identify core practices (CPs) for teaching ELs (Authors, 2014, 2015, 2016, in press), and to use them as a framework to guide instruction and support novice teacher (NT) development of practice in our M.Ed. in TESOL program. Drawing upon our research team’s recently developed Core Practice Enactment Statements (CPES; see Appendix A), we explore the deployment of the CPES as a guiding framework by both NTs and teacher educators (TEs), as well as considerations for utilizing the CPES program-wide within our teacher education program. We use this exploratory investigation as an opportunity to identify the ways in which the CPES were enacted in our preservice, in-service, and teacher education settings, and to further refine the CPES based upon our findings. Future work will include data collection from additional stakeholders (e.g., mentor teachers, ELs in NT classrooms) regarding instruction and learning guided by the CPES, and expansion of the CPES as a guiding framework throughout our program’s coursework and field experiences.
Perspective
This study is aligned with practice-based approaches to teacher education, which view the enactment of teaching practices as central to teacher preparation (e.g. Grossman, Hammerness, & McDonald, 2009). Building upon the importance of teachers’ experiences and voices in understanding their learning and practice (e.g., Clandinin, 1986; Olson & Craig, 2001), we use a sociocultural theoretical frame (e.g., Johnson, 2009; Vygotsky, 1978) to investigate how NT learning around CPs, through the use of the CPES, unfolded within our M.Ed. in TESOL teacher education program.
Methods and Data Sources
Building upon multi-year collaborative work in our research team of TEs and NTs, we use qualitative methods to examine the ways in which the CPES provided a framework for instruction, and to identify refinements needed. We draw upon observation, interview, and focus group data to examine our use of and challenges with the CPES. The data set includes: 48 observations and post-observation debriefing interviews (four per participant, including four preservice teachers, six in-service teachers, and two TEs); four quarterly team meetings (with TEs and university supervisors); and six stakeholder conversations (with all participants).
Results
Initial findings indicate that although we struggled to determine the best way to utilize the CPES in our NT and TE practice, they provided an important common language for us to examine and reframe our pedagogy. Further refinement of how to name and enact CPs will help us to create shared understanding that we believe will go far in supporting both our program’s work with ELs and in informing the field.
Significance
The identification and use of CPs to teach ELs is thus far missing in the CP literature. It is our hope that through describing and detailing our CPES, and our experiences using the CPES, that this work might provide a model for other teacher education faculty and programs seeking to incorporate a more practice-based framework in their preparation of NTs of ELs.

Authors

• Megan Madigan Peercy, University of Maryland - College Park

• Tabitha Kidwell, University of Maryland - College Park

• Megan DeStefano, University of Maryland - College Park

• Johanna M. Tigert, University of Massachusetts - Lowell

• Daisy Fredricks, Grand Valley State University