Teacher education for language minority

teachers in the United States: Perspectives in

preparing teachers

Manka M. VargheseAssociate Professor

University of WashingtonCollege of EducationSeattle, Washington

mankav@uw.eduMOSAIC Centre, University of Birmingham

June 11, 2012

Overview Background

Working definition of language minority students Context: Educational and language policy in the US/ Teacher

certification

Pursuits as a teacher educator & researcher

Highlighted literature in language minority teacher education

Current issues/dilemmas/discussion points in U.S. teacher preparation Definitions and applications of language Changing teacher role and knowledge base Social justice/advocacy

My ongoing work

Discussion questions

Working definition Language minorities:

immigrants (not international students),who speak a primary language other than English at home, and who can be discriminated against on the basis of being a nonnative/outer circle speaker of English (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 1992)

often racialized minorities, from immigrant communities and from low-income backgrounds (Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco, 2003)

studies & theories of Globalization (Block & Cameron, 2005), Immigration (Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco, 2003; Suárez-Orozo, Suárez-Orozco & Todorova, 2008), Multilingualism, Critical Race Theory (Yosso, 2005) are weaved into this understanding

Context: Language and educational policy in the US/

Teacher preparation No Child Left Behind (NCLB) & Title III

Mainstreaming

Restrictive language environments/ Dual language programs

Endorsement – primary or secondary

In pairs:

What do you see as the most critical challenges and ways forward in preparing teachers of language minority students?

Pursuits as a teacher educator &

researcher Moving away from prescriptive knowledge base of language minority teaching

Focusing on teacher knowledge, skills, AND TEACHER IDENTITY (Varghese, 2010)

Using various conceptual frameworks (Alsup, 2006; Bourdieu, 1986; Giddens, 1984; Morgan, 2004; Varghese et.al, 2005)

Making links between different disciplines

Engaging in various research settings/pursuing different questions (Motha & Varghese, in preparation; Varghese et al., in preparation; Varghese, 2006, 2008, 2010; Varghese & Johnston, 2007)

Highlighted literature in

language minority teachers’

classrooms/work Research studies on language minority teachers’ professions & daily practice(Creese, 2005; Kanno & Stuart, 2011; Varghese 2006, 2008; Tsui, 2003 Skilton-Sylvester, 2003)

Classroom discourse, academic language development, & instructional moves in language minority classrooms(Fang & Schleppegrell, 2008; Gibbons, 2002, 2006; Moshkovitch, 2000, 2007)

Social justice language minority teacher education(Althanases & de Oliveira, 2010; Hawkins, 2011)

Salient issues/dilemmas/dis

cussion points in language minority

teacher preparation

1) Definitions and applications of academic language Definitions of academic language (Gutiérrez,

2002; Valdés, 2004)

Applications to teacher preparation Task-related (Bunch et al., 2001) Discipline-specific (Barwell, 2005; Fang &

Schleppegrell, 2008; Moshkovitch, 2000, 2007) Scaffolding (Gibbons, 2002, 2006; Walqui & van

Lier, 2010)

2) Changing teacher roles and

knowledge base Collaborative teaching

Grade level/mainstream teachers

Language minority teachers

(Creese, 2005; English, 2012; English & Varghese, 2010)

3) Social justice/advocacy

Personal backgrounds and experiences of teachers

Teacher preparation

(Cochran-Smith et al., 2009; Dubetz & deJong,2011; Telléz & Varghese, in press; Varghese et al., in preparation)

My ongoing work as a teacher

educator/researcher How can we re-frame teacher education to be also

focusing on the project of developing teacher identity? (Kanno & Stuart, 2011; Varghese, 2006, 2008, 2010)

How do we create ‘social justice pedagogies’ in our teacher preparation programs and for our student teachers to enact? (Hawkins, 2011, Varghese & Motha, in preparation)

What types of expertise count and how do we develop these for novice language minority teachers? How are these different for grade-level/mainstream teachers?

Discussion questions

What aspects of the presentation resonated with you as a teacher educator, especially when thinking about the context(s) in which you are teaching? What other issues were not brought up that are relevant about your context(s)?

What expertise does your program help novice language minority teachers develop and how does it do that?

What types of experiences and reshaping would need to be made to make teacher identity a central aspect of your program? To what extent would this be useful or not?