Abstract
This chapter analyzes in-service teachers' critical reflections of their cultural and linguistic identities as represented in multimodal discourses. Designed to inform teaching-learning with multilingual students, while disrupting notions of White English and academic discourses, practicing teachers created collages at the start and end of a graduate course. Collages were analyzed using approaches from systemic functional linguistics, multimodal discourse analysis, and with attention to sociocultural aspects. Analyses were triangulated with teachers' written reflections. Major themes show how teachers positioned themselves as learners and caring educators, respected cultural and linguistic diversity, and recognized a need to challenge dominant ideologies. At the end of the course, teachers revised their collages and contemplated pedagogical shifts they could make to advocate adopting multilingual and multimodal practices in their classrooms to challenge prevailing norms and power structures.
TopIntroduction
For bilingual education to be strong, it cannot be aimed at just promoting English monolingualism. . . . Weak forms of bilingual education do not allow for conversations and content delivery in a different language. They promote speaking and learning in English, while not giving opportunities or support for the native language. (In-service Teacher Reflection)
By 2025 one in every four children in K-12 schools across the United States will be an English learner from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, English Language Learner enrollment in K-12 schools increased by more than 1 million students since the year 2000, and some states experienced increases as large as 200% among English learners. Notwithstanding the fact that English Language Learners (ELLs) are the nation’s fastest growing student population, these students continue to be disproportionately underserved and underachieving (Olsen, 2014; National Center for Educational Statistics, 2022). This situation is further compounded by the predominately White English norms and expectations that continue to prevail in schools and classrooms. These include a dominant White culture and English only academic discourses, comprising standardized high stakes testing that serve as measures of educational success and that contrast considerably from the linguistic repertoires and competencies that culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) English language learners bring to the classroom (Bartolomé, 2019; Duff, 2010; Huang, 2004). Accordingly, the diverse voices, languages, and sociocultural identities of CLD students are increasingly disempowered, and the educational achievement gap continues to widen between dominant mainly white students and their culturally and linguistically diverse peers. As the student population diversifies, the need for teachers who are knowledgeable and equipped to deliver culturally responsive instruction increases.
In recent years teacher preparation programs have placed a greater focus on CLD pedagogy making it a priority for all teachers. Extant research shows that preparing teachers with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that will position them to design, deliver, and meaningfully engage in culturally responsive teaching is essential if we are to alter the status quo (Fickel et al., 2017). Therefore, teacher preparation needs to focus on theoretical and practical knowledge about what counts as language and academic discourses and develop teachers’ ability to support CLD students’ academic success. To this end, this chapter contributes to the book’s theme, Empowering and Engaging Students Through Academic Discourse, by illustrating how practicing teachers in a post graduate teacher education course expanded their understandings of academic discourse by engaging in multimodal practices as part of their professional development and self-reflection.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Multimodality: Refers to both a process and a product that simultaneously uses more than mode or channel (e.g., spoken, written, visual images, gestural, musical) to represent and interpret a given communicative act or message.
Academic Discourse: Refers to the language (e.g., spoken, written, visual images), often used in school or higher education contexts, involves both content specific terminology, registers, and representations as well as cross-disciplinary lexico-grammatical structures and systems.
In-Service or Practicing Teachers: Professionals who have usually completed a bachelor’s degree and earned a teaching license that qualifies them to work with K-12 students in a given grade and or content area.
Culturally Responsive Teaching: A critical and reflective approach to teaching and learning that acknowledges students’ culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and practices as assets that can support curriculum and instruction, while also helping students and teachers to reject systemic bias and societal discrimination.