Teacher Positionality When Motivating and Engaging Emergent Bilinguals

• In Event: 66.028 - Empowerment and Equitable Education for Emergent Bilinguals

Abstract

The current study investigated teachers’ motivational practices by tending to the ways that identity positioning adopted by teachers shapes their practices with students, who are emergent bilinguals. Findings supported three patterns of teacher practices: (a) culturally relevant and motivational, (b) motivational and not culturally relevant, and (c) neither culturally relevant nor motivational. We argue that the ways teachers enact motivational practices are driven by the teachers’ identity positioning of their students and themselves, thus indicating the importance of teachers’ critical reflection of their positioning in order to enact the culturally relevant practices within a motivation framework. Implications suggest that educators’ motivation alone is not enough--it must be situated within culturally relevant practices to ensure the engagement of all learners.

Authors

• Jung-In Kim, University of Colorado - Denver

• Shauna P de Long, University of Colorado Denver

• Mari C Ortega, University of Colorado Denver

• Larissa A Kelly, University of Colorado Denver

• Barbara J. Dray, Transforming Practices in Education, LLC

• Kara Mitchell Viesca, University of Nebraska - Lincoln