Professional Development for Practicing Teachers of Emergent Bilinguals: A Focus on Inquiry and Agency

• In Event: 18.040 - Translanguaging Pedagogies Shaping Language Policy and Program Design Toward Educational Opportunity for Emergent Bilinguals

Abstract

The literature on professional development (PD) for teachers who work with emergent bilinguals, both as English as a New Language (ENL) and bilingual teachers, offers a dire landscape about the quality of learning experiences they receive (Franco-Fuenmayor, Padrón, & Waxman, 2015; Kibler & Roman, 2013). Franco-Fuenmayor et al. (2015), state that half of the bilingual and ENL teachers sampled in their study, reported not receiving PD at all. The majority of teachers who do receive PD, state that these do not address research on second language acquisition nor bilingual programming (Franco-Fuenmayor et al., 2015). The need to provide teachers who work with emergent bilinguals with strong PD is unquestionable. However, the nature and goals of this professional development must be clearly defined and connected to a larger framework of educational opportunity for emergent bilingual students. In this work, we follow Molle (2013) in advocating that PD for practicing teachers must “embrace the complexities” of teacher’s learning history and preferences, school context and culture, emergent bilingual student diversity as well as conceptual shifts in how the fields of Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL) and bilingual education view language learning, rather than the more common PD that resides solely residing on technical or practical points.

We offer an in-depth case study of two ENL teachers who were engaged in PD with university-based educators over one academic year. Both teachers taught at a secondary school in a diverse suburban area, home to a large number of newcomer students from Central and South America. During this period, we observed teachers, co-planned and co-taught a lesson, and met formally six times. Each of the sessions lasted about forty-five minutes and consisted of examining student work, discussion translanguaging strategies, as well as the study of Fu’s (2009) text, Writing between Languages. The goal of these multiple activities was to engage the group in exploring a larger framework of how translanguaging pedagogies could support the writing development of newcomers. Lastly, we conducted interviews with each teacher.

Data sources included observational notes, digital recordings and fieldnotes of each meeting session and interviews. Data was analyzed through multiple re-readings, in which the data was coded axially. Themes were generated through these codes and lead to findings. Results indicate that changes in teacher attitudes included both pedagogical practices as well as attitudes towards the linguistic resources that emergent bilinguals brought to the classroom. We also found that translanguaging served as an important tool for teachers to understand the role of writing in assisting newcomer students to become writers (English and Spanish). Furthermore, ENL teachers who integrated and embraced home language instruction into their ENL class, were also agents in developing local flexible language policy in their classrooms. We believe that these results were inextricably tied to the nature of a professional development work grounded in inquiry. We advocate for more models of PD for practicing teachers of emergent bilinguals that is marked by collaboration and inquiry in order to foster flexible language policies to best serve the needs of students.

Authors

• Laura Ascenzi Moreno, Brooklyn College - CUNY

• Cecilia M. Espinosa, Lehman College/CUNY