This volume provides a state-of-the-art snapshot of language and education research and demonstrates ways in which local and global processes are intertwined with language learning, use, and policies. Reflecting but also expanding on Nancy Hornberger’s ground-breaking contributions to educational linguistics, this book brings together leading international scholars. Chapters present new research and cutting-edge syntheses addressing current theoretical and methodological issues in researching equity, access, and multilingual education. Organized around three central themes --- bilingual education and bilingualism, the continua of biliteracy, and policy and planning for linguistic diversity in education --- the volume reflects the holistic and dynamic perspective on language (in) education that is the hallmark of educational linguistics as a field.
This volume provides a state-of-the-art snapshot of language and education research and demonstrates ways in which local and global processes are intertwined with language learning, use, and policies. Reflecting but also expanding on Nancy Hornberger’s ground-breaking contributions to educational linguistics, this book brings together leading international scholars. Chapters present new research and cutting-edge syntheses addressing current theoretical and methodological issues in researching equity, access, and multilingual education. Organized around three central themes --- bilingual education and bilingualism, the continua of biliteracy, and policy and planning for linguistic diversity in education --- the volume reflects the holistic and dynamic perspective on language (in) education that is the hallmark of educational linguistics as a field.
Educational Linguistics in Practice: Applying the Local Globally and the Global Locally
216
Educational Linguistics in Practice: Applying the Local Globally and the Global Locally
216eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
This volume provides a state-of-the-art snapshot of language and education research and demonstrates ways in which local and global processes are intertwined with language learning, use, and policies. Reflecting but also expanding on Nancy Hornberger’s ground-breaking contributions to educational linguistics, this book brings together leading international scholars. Chapters present new research and cutting-edge syntheses addressing current theoretical and methodological issues in researching equity, access, and multilingual education. Organized around three central themes --- bilingual education and bilingualism, the continua of biliteracy, and policy and planning for linguistic diversity in education --- the volume reflects the holistic and dynamic perspective on language (in) education that is the hallmark of educational linguistics as a field.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781847694959 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Multilingual Matters Ltd. |
| Publication date: | 02/23/2011 |
| Series: | Bilingual Education & Bilingualism , #78 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 216 |
| File size: | 387 KB |
About the Author
Francis M. Hult is Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics in the Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio. His research examines the globalization of English as it relates to language planning and multilingualism, with a particular focus on Sweden. He is the founder and manager of the Educational Linguistics List. His work appears in journals such as the International Journal of the Sociology of Language, Language Problems and Language Planning, and Language Policy. He is co-editor (with Bernard Spolsky) of the Handbook of Educational Linguistics (Blackwell, 2008) and editor of Directions and Prospects for Educational Linguistics (Springer, 2010).
Kendall A. King is Associate Professor of Second Languages and Cultures at the University of Minnesota, where she teaches about and conducts research on language policy, sociolinguistics and bilingualism. Recent projects have examined transmigration, parenting practices, and Spanish-Quichua-English language learning and use in Washington D.C., Minneapolis, and Saraguro, Ecuador, and the relationship across (im)migration status, second language learning, and school engagement for Latino youth. Her recent work appears in the Modern Language Journal, Discourse Studies, Applied Linguistics, and the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. She is an editor of the journal Language Policy.
Dr. Francis M. Hult is Professor of Education at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). His research explores multilingualism in policy and practice drawing upon ethnographic and discourse analytic approaches. He has published widely on educational linguistics, language policy, and linguistic landscapes. Recent books include Language Policy and Language Acquisition Planning (with Siiner and Kupisch) and Research Methods in Language Policy and Planning (with Johnson), with a second edition of the Handbook of Educational Linguistics (with Spolsky) forthcoming.
Kendall A. King is Professor of Multilingual Education and Associate Dean for Graduate Education and Faculty Development at the University of Minnesota, USA. She received the AAAL Distinguished Scholarship and Service Award for her work, which focuses on the educational and familial practices impacting language use, language learning and equity.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Language Teacher Education and Teacher Identity
MANKA VARGHESE
Language teacher education (LTE) and Language teacher identity (LTI) have become a significant topic in Educational/Applied Linguistics in the last 25 years. The early work of Freeman and Richards (1993, 1996) and Johnson (1992) placed this squarely as an important topic of scholarship in the discipline. Their scholarship helped move the notion of language teaching pedagogy as a set of behaviors and practices to a more complex and holistic understanding of language teaching (see Varghese, 2007). This new conception included teachers' prior belief and practices; professional socialization; and the classroom, school and policy context. Currently, the work in LTE and LTI spans at least the study of the following: language teachers' lives and professional work (Cahnmann, 2005; Creese, 2005; Johnston, 1997; Varghese, 2007); language teachers' decision-making processes (Borg, 2003; Tsui, 2003; Woods, 1998); language teachers as language policy-makers (Menken & García, 2010; Skilton-Sylvester, 2003; Varghese, 2008); language teachers in terms of their professional, racial, ethnic, linguistic, religious differences (Allexsaht-Snider, 1996; Benson, 2004; Cahnmann & Varghese, 2006; Galindo, 1996; Lemberger, 1997; Liu, 1996; Monzó & Rueda, 2003; Varghese & Johnston, 2007); language teachers and their professional development (Cahnmann-Taylor & De Souto Manning, 2010; Edge, 2001; Johnson & Golombek, 2002) as well as theoretical insights into language teacher education and identity (Johnson, 2009; Morgan, 2004; Varghese et al., 2005).
Although the topic of language teacher education and identity is not explicitly in the purview of Nancy Hornberger's scholarship, her work in different areas has been influential to my (and others') work on the topic. I will illustrate this here through discussion of Hornberger's application of her continua of biliteracy to bilingual educators' roles and practices. In the continua of biliteracy (see Cahnman-Taylor; Martin-Jones; Skilton-Sylvester; and others this volume), Hornberger describes biliteracy in terms of four aspects, which are nested within the other and exist in the form of a continua rather than fixed points: the media, contexts, development and content of biliteracy. Hornberger and others after her have used it as a framework to examine teaching, research and students' literacy practices. Hornberger has raised questions, produced data and discussed issues specific to teacher education and teacher education in this piece as well as in several other manuscripts (e.g. Ricento & Hornberger, 1996). In this chapter, I bring to the forefront the essential points she has raised and also discuss how my work and that of my students on the topic of LTE and LTI relates to these three which are listed here. Of course, other aspects of Hornberger's scholarship, such as her work on intercultural education, ethnography and linguistic minority rights are also relevant to the research in language teacher education and identity, and that influence is also apparent in this chapter. Furthermore, as Creese expresses in the prelude of her chapter in this book, Hornberger's approach of being open and inclusive of different perspectives (theoretically and methodologically); her commitment to multilingual education both locally and globally; and her attention to vivid detail to make her case permeate the way I have carried out and documented my research in language teacher education and identity. These focii on inclusiveness, multilingualism and details in research are thus present throughout this chapter.
In a paper on the applications of the continua of biliteracy for bilingual educators and bilingual teaching, Hornberger (2004) uses vignettes to provide examples of the different aspects of the continua. Each of these aspects illuminates various dilemmas as Hornberger frames them, that are experienced by bilingual educators: the context aspect is used to explore the global/local dilemma; the media aspect to examine the standard/non-standard dilemma; the development of biliteracy to look at the language/content dilemma; and finally, the content of the continua to illuminate the language/culture/identity dilemma. In this chapter, I explore three of these dilemmas (all except the standard/non-standard dilemma) through examples from my past studies or those of my graduate students in a similar way that Hornberger (2004) did in her original chapter. Within the last dilemma, I discuss in detail how her work on language policy has shaped the understanding of language educators as policy-makers. The aim of presenting all of these as dilemmas is to show how Hornberger approaches the practice of language teaching as a set of dilemmas for teachers that depend deeply on their contexts of teaching as well as their professional identities.
The Global/Local Dilemma
The global/local dilemma is one where language educators experience how their local learning and teaching environments as well as their pedagogical goals are connected with the forces of globalization. Hornberger writes that 'the global/local dilemma ... is how we as bilingual educators can respond adequately and fully to both global and local pressures on our students' (2004: 69). In discussing this dilemma, I bring forth examples frommy work on bilingual teachers in an international dual language school (Varghese & Park, 2010), my work on Evangelical Christians teachers (Johnston & Varghese, 2006; Varghese & Johnston, 2007), and my graduate student's dissertation work on non-native-speaker teachers (Huang, 2009). All of these studies show how local and global discourses simultaneously push on language educators in their work.
In both my dissertation study of bilingual teachers in Urbantown (Varghese, 2006) and my work on a dual language program in the Northwest of the US (Varghese & Park, 2010), bilingual teachers were caught in the middle of a discourse for bilingualism to serve their immigrant students locally and one to serve all students in terms of global cross-cultural understanding and the global economy. These discourses were sometimes compatible and at other times not. The literature on globalization and language teaching has identified three clear themes, mostly with regards to the spread of English but also in relation to the teaching of multiple languages. One is the tension between cultural and linguistic homogenization and heterogenization (Block, 2002; Cameron, 2002); the second is the neoliberal rationale for language teaching that positions it within a 'deregulated, hyper-competitive, post-industrial, globalized economy' (Cameron, 2002: 72), and the last is the tension between the communicative use of a language versus an academic emphasis on a language.
The dual language school with an international emphasis had an English-Japanese program as well as an English-Spanish program. At the time of the study, 27.3% of students received free or reduced-price meals and the student body's ethnicity was 47% Anglo, 24% and Latino/a with the remaining 30% from various other groups. The teachers we interviewed felt that overall the program did benefit Latino/a students although they also expressed concern about potential inequalities in the program. In one interview, the teacher noted, 'Being an international school has been a magnet for a lot of students who want to maintain their home language, Japanese or Spanish. But partly it's to keep the rich Anglo families in the public schools instead of sending their kids to private schools, so that's part of it too ... So the families here value the diversity and like the diversity, like the opportunity the school provides'. Yet while diversity was valued for some students, one of the teachers noted that it was rare to find a Latino/a student who had a strong sense of self and pride in his or her home culture: 'I mostly see people being pressured to assimilate.' The critical questions of which languages serve which communities and how to approach this are one that teachers who are teaching in bilingual schools wrestle with, and are clearly related to the global and local demands of the languages and the communities. In this case, Spanish may be serving the global demands of Anglo students but the local usage of it as a heritage language and as the language of a group that has been positioned locally and nationally in a marginalized way has to be also be accounted for.
The intersections of religion and language teaching also raise profound questions related to how language educators respond to local and global pressures and demands. As we make clear in our study of Evangelical Christianity and English language teaching (Johnston & Varghese, 2006), there is a connection between the two that needs to be understood at a global scale and is significantly dependent on how it is put into practice locally by language educators. The Christian Evangelical English teachers we interviewed (Varghese & Johnston, 2007) displayed a range in terms of how they perceived the use of English to promote their religion.
We contrasted two teachers, Elizabeth and David. David, as we describe, expressed great sensitivity about the impact the push and demand for English was having on linguistic diversity around the world and the need to integrate the perspectives of local communities. Elizabeth, on the other hand, saw English language teaching as an excellent 'platform' to promote and spread her religious views. The teaching of English in conjunction with spreading Christianity globally has been regarded as a contentious practice in many contexts. However, as our work has sought to show, some Christian English language teachers are more aware and concerned than others about this controversy and the need to integrate local perspectives.
The last example that elucidates the global/local dilemma of language educators is the study of four non-native-speaker English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers in two US high schools (Huang, 2009). In this study, Huang argues that although these teachers would be framed as non-native-speaker teachers of English in the global context, the extent they ascribe to this membership or affiliation depends on the way they are framed at the local level. For instance, in one school and school district, these teachers were highly valued and their non-native status was 20 Section I: Bilingual Education and Bilingualism not emphasized by the other staff, administrators or families; thus, these teachers did not see this particular membership as preeminent for them.
This example shows that the local and global characterizations of these teachers need to be simultaneously studied to understand how they view their roles.
The examples from these studies not only show that the decisions language educators make with regards to language pedagogy must be framed with a sense of global and local understandings and consequences for their students. The roles of language teachers need to be characterized globally and locally. It is clear that the teaching of languages, and especially of English, is a profession perhaps more so than others (e.g.
teaching Math) where the global and local needs and demands must more immediately be held together. The global perspectives of bilingual teaching as being primarily useful for the global workforce; Evangelical Christianity's nefarious relationship with English language teaching; and the deficit framing of non-inner circle English language teachers as non-native-speaker teachers are widely circulating discourses which are altogether too simplistic. The study of language teachers' everyday practices and contexts at the local level add complexity to such blanket assumptions. They also reveal the decisions that language teachers need to wrestle with, amidst competing demands on themselves, their students and their families.
The Language/Content Dilemma
The language/content dilemma of how biliteracy develops asks language educators to focus on both the teaching of language and content. This dilemma is becoming the most pressing question for English language teachers and bilingual teachers across the globe and in many countries where English is the dominant language of academics (Evans, 2000; Wannagat, 2007; Yoon, 2001). Much has been written about how the teaching of language and content simultaneously is 'more than just good teaching' (DeJong & Harper, 2005; Gibbons, 2002, 2006; Lucas et al., 2008); specifically, what must be central to the practice of a language educator is how language is taught (within content) and not only how content is modified. At the same time, the importance for students to be able to access the content cannot be overlooked. In my teacher education classes where I help to prepare future elementary school teachers in teaching emerging bilinguals, we focus on modifying the content so that it can be accessible to emerging bilinguals, as well as finding ways to scaffold their development of academic language. This is no small feat for teachers who have multiple demands on their time and their practice as well as limited pre-service and in-service teacher preparation. Kaje (2009) examined the practices of two mainstream fourth-grade teachers who were viewed as exemplary teachers of their emerging bilingual students. She found that one significant feature that both teachers shared was the way they explicitly addressed language and its use in their classes; in addition, their content was not diluted but rather scaffolded for the students. For instance, Mrs. Hutchins (one of the teachers) in almost every class would ask students to come in front of the class and explain their thinking and why they did what they did. As the teacher explained in subsequent interviews, this exercise was not only about having the students explain the content of what they had learned and how they did so, but about compelling them to use more formal language for an audience. As Kaje (2009: 118) describes:
In her first lesson, Mrs. Hutchins spent the class session introducing the concept of area by having students act out the difference between area and perimeter..... and discuss different applications for using area in real lie. ... at the end of this first lesson as a formative assessment, Mrs. Hutchins had students write in their math journals to a third grader to explain area....
However, Mrs. Hutchins, as Kaje explains, was still not convinced that several of her emerging bilinguals had secured the concept and the language and decided to have the students write their explanations to their fifth-grade teacher. Mrs. Hutchins explained her rationale in the following way:
I changed the plan just a little bit, as far as having them explain. What I did was to have them explain in their journals to a third grader how you find area. So, now I've changed it a bit. Because now I want them to describe it to an adult. So, that I can bring that language up just a little bit more, just to see if they've really got it. (Kaje, 2009: 119)
Essential questions that I along with several of my graduate students are currently pursuing are the following: (1) what can different models of effective professional development for language educators that need to address language and content look like, (2) what institutional contexts can be supportive for these teachers, and (3) what professional identities should we be envisioning for these language educators? The simultaneous focus on language and content seems to be an exigent aspect of their professional role for the language educator in a high-stakes environment across the globe.
The Language/Culture/Identity Dilemma
This dilemma is described by Hornberger (2004: 75) as: 'how we as bilingual educators can respond adequately and fully to dynamic negotiations of cultures and identities and of overlapping language affiliations not necessarily linked to expertise or inheritance'. This approach frames the work of the language educator to be one of negotiating students' culture and linguistic identities and affiliations and that this process of negotiation is connected to language educators' cultural and linguistic identities/affiliations. Rather than being another independent dilemma, I view this dilemma as actually overlapping or embodying all the other dilemmas. This speaks directly to what I have referred to in my work as the professional identity of language teachers (Varghese, 2006, 2008; Varghese et al., 2005) and how these are formed (or in the process of being formed). I also make the direct link between LTI and LTE by calling for the latter to be framed with a vision and the realities of professional identities and roles.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Educational Linguistics in Practice"
by .
Copyright © 2011 Francis M. Hult, Kendall A. King and the authors of individual chapters.
Excerpted by permission of Multilingual Matters.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword - Colin Baker and Mike Grover
Introduction: Global and Local Connections in Educational Linguistics - Francis M. Hult and Kendall A. King
Section I: Bilingual Education and Bilingualism Thematic Overview: Language policies, multilingual classrooms: Resonances across continents - Marilyn Martin-Jones
1 Language Teacher Education and Teacher Identity - Manka Varghese
2 Terrorism, Nationalism and Westernization: Code Switching and Identity in Bollywood - Viniti Vaish
3 Making Local Practices Globally Relevant in Researching Multilingual Education - Angela Creese
Section II: Continua of Biliteracy Thematic Overview: The Continua of Biliteracy and New Literacy Studies - Brian Street
4 Continuing the Continua: Why Content Matters in Biliterate Citizenship Education - Ellen Skilton-Sylvester
5 Literacy in Two Lands: Refugee Women’s Shifting Practices of Literacy and Labor - Daryl Gordon
6 Poetic Anthropology and the Lyric Continua between Science and Art - Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor
Section III: Policy and Planning for Linguistic Diversity in Education Thematic Overview: Unpeeling, Slicing, and Stirring the Onion - Questions and Certitudes in Policy and Planning for Linguistic Diversity in Education - Teresa L. McCarty
7 Implementational and Ideological Spaces in Bilingual Education Policy, Practice, and Research - David Cassels Johnson
8 Quechua Language and Education Policy in the Peruvian Highlands - Serafín Coronel-Molina
9 An Ecological Perspective for Planning Chinese Language in the United States - Shuhan Wang
Afterword: Cooking with Nancy - Richard Ruiz