Reimagining Teacher Education for Emergent Bilinguals

Abstract

This chapter examines transformations in teacher education that came about when two teacher educator-researchers participated in statewide coordinated efforts to foster translanguaging practices and pedagogies in K-12 schools. Experiences promoting and supporting teacher learning through the CUNY-NYSIEB (City University of New York-New York State Initiative on Emergent Bilinguals) translanguaging project had cascading effects, ultimately reshaping teacher education practices in their institutions and transforming the teacher educators themselves. Several examples of how work in schools and with teachers provoked epistemological, discursive and pedagogical changes in teacher education practices inform broader questions about the essential nature of teacher change and the role of university-based researchers and teacher educators in supporting teacher learning and transformation. Ultimately, the chapter argues that teacher change toward deeper engagement with translanguaging practices, for experienced teachers and novices alike, hinges on substantial shifts in mindset, conscious adjustment in professional discourse and terminology and a process of gaining critical perspectives on instructional practice. Furthermore, teacher education programs must be consciously designed to nurture novices as future teacher-leaders. The role of the university-based teacher educator-researcher is to embrace the complex and dynamic nature of teacher change, to pose challenging questions, to engage in regular and critical self-reflection and to help hold spaces in teacher education for criticality and empowerment.

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