Writing involves a series of steps, such as brainstorming, drafting, revising, and editing. At each step, teacher assessment on student work is different. In second/foreign language classrooms, this writing process should include allowing students to use their home language in drafting to facilitate idea and content creation.
Published in Chapter:
Teacher Agency in Creating Multilingual and Multicultural Pedagogies in College Classrooms
Zhenjie Weng (The Ohio State University, USA) and Susan Ataei (The Ohio State University, USA)
Copyright: © 2022
|Pages: 23
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-8888-8.ch011
Abstract
This chapter explores one ESL composition instructor's agency in creating a multilingual and multicultural classroom as well as promoting translanguaging pedagogies in a mid-western U.S. university. Data for this ethnographic case study include classroom fieldnotes, audio recordings, interviews, and artifacts. Adopting three bodies of literature—Funds of Knowledge, translanguaging, and teacher agency—data analyses highlight three major themes: (1) the teacher's agentive display of his own multilingual and multicultural identity, (2) his encouragement on students' use of their full linguistic repertoires for learning, and (3) his utilization of students' cultural funds of knowledge in classroom discussions and writing. His agentic instructional decisions in teaching reflect his valuation of students' linguistic and cultural backgrounds and also indicate his cultivation of students' multilingual and multicultural writer identity. As few studies have explored language teacher agency and Funds of Knowledge in higher education contexts, this chapter further enriches current literature.