This qualitative study explored Spanish-speaking teacher credential students' beliefs about academic language that might promote or inhibit their decision to become bilingual teachers. Data includes interviews with 11 bilingual teacher candidates who were heritage Spanish speakers. Findings show that most were only aware of English-only educational contexts and did not know that bilingual teaching, and the bilingual authorization pathway, were options. Their schooling experience fostered English hegemony; even their Spanish classes were pervaded by linguistic purism and elitism. Schools taught them that their registers of Spanish, which they learned at home, were insufficient, inappropriate or incorrect. Consequently, they questioned their ability to become bilingual teachers. Language register and social class were intimately connected in the data. Participants viewed bilingual education as a pathway toward more equitable educational opportunities for Latinx students. Implications include the need for bilingual teacher preparation to address critical sociolinguistics concepts that explore the relationships between language, race and ethnicity in education. Future research is needed to explore how heritage Spanish speaking bilingual teachers enact their beliefs about equity through bilingual education, the challenges they face, and the ways that teacher education programs and professional development providers could support their work.
Using running records as a lens to facilitate multilingual students’ language and literacy development can help teachers recognize and build on students’ linguistic capital. The authors analyzed 123 running records of Spanish‐speaking first graders to begin to identify the types of language‐related errors they made when reading. Using an assets orientation, the authors ask teachers to shift from the concept of reading errors to language‐related approximations when a student's reading and rereading differ from the text because of linguistic differences. The authors consistently found five types of language‐related approximations in the data: teachers’ use of tolds, verbs, contractions, prepositions, and use of the plural ‐s for nouns. The possible impact on comprehension for each of these language‐related approximations is explored and practical instructional recommendations provided, as well as a tool to help teachers analyze language‐related approximations.
How can teachers align sentence stems to their content and language objectives to ensure that students are developing both language and literacy? S entence stems are widely used by teachers, but what do we know about developing sentence stems and using them effectively? Sentence stems are intended to facilitate students' participation in academic conversations and writing and to support students to develop the language expected of them in school, but sometimes the stems do not provide the support intended. This teaching tip explains how to develop supportive sentence stems.
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