manka m. varghese associate professor university of washington college of education
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Teacher education for language minority teachers in the United States: Perspectives in preparing teachers. Manka M. Varghese Associate Professor University of Washington College of Education Seattle, Washington [email protected] MOSAIC Centre, University of Birmingham June 11, 2012. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Teacher education for language minority
teachers in the United States: Perspectives in
preparing teachersManka M. VargheseAssociate Professor
University of WashingtonCollege of EducationSeattle, Washington
[email protected] 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?