Learning to know, be, do, and live together with in the cross-cultural experiences of immigrant teacher educators

Making Visible Awareness in Practice: Literacy Educators in Diverse Classrooms

“…On the one hand, there is a likelihood that the immigrant and multilingual status of these educators, as well as being new to the school district and context, influenced the degree to which they were able to demonstrate critical elements of awareness by challenging monolingual norms in literacy, relying on pluralistic practices, and creating social change. Because they lacked familiarity with the culturally, linguistically, and racially heterogenous context of the U.S., they could be challenged to view linguistic practices in ways that they had not done before, a finding that is also supported by other studies of immigrant multilingual educators (Smith, ; Smith, Warrican, Kumi‐Yeboah, & Richards, ). In fact, research conducted about the language and cultural experiences of immigrant educators shows that they typically reflect ideologies about language that prioritise the use of standardised English practices over home language varieties (Smith et al , ).…”

“…Despite its potential to address the needs of diverse students (Nieto, ; García, , ; Rorrer & Furr, ; Karadeniz, & Incirci, ), awareness of culture and language often tends to be touted primarily as an expectation for teachers like John, who work in K‐12 schools and classrooms, and for pre‐service teachers who will eventually become teachers in schools. It is less visible as a requirement for teacher‐educators, despite the ever‐increasing need for them to have the relevant skills and expertise as they guide teachers who work with CLDs in underperforming 1 schools (Smith, Warrican, & Kumi‐Yeboah, ; Smith, ). This study was therefore developed to show the ways in which literacy teacher‐educators demonstrated awareness of language and culture while supporting the instructional literacy practices of in‐service teachers and the literacy learning of culturally and linguistically diverse students.…”

“How Does a Black Person Speak English?” Beyond American Language Norms

“…In response to the challenges to English legitimacy that extended beyond cultural mechanisms deployed by other immigrant educators in previous studies (Louis et al, 2017; Smith, 2018; Smith et al, 2018), participants described the ways in which they were affected, how they coped, and how they developed mechanisms for consolidating the doubts about their legitimate use of their standardized Englishes as they maintained the use of these Englishes in the United States.…”

“…Though limited, recent studies confirm the opposition faced by some Black Caribbean faculty to their ways of using standardized and nonstandardized Englishes, much of which has been attributed to their communication and interaction styles based on Caribbean culture, language varieties, accents, positioning, and English ideologies in the United States (Smith, 2018; Smith et al, 2018). This subtle form of discrimination against their ways of using Englishes despite the power and privilege typically associated with standardized English—“linguicism”—often takes the form of microaggression as it did with Pierre Orelus (2012), occurring verbally, nonverbally, behaviorally, and environmentally, resulting in negative experiences for these faculty in academia in ways that affect their physical and psychological well-being.…”

“…Department of Education, 2014). Given that immigrant faculty account for approximately 9% of those who prepare teachers for English-dominated K–12 schools (Kim, Twombly, & Wolf-Wendel, 2012), recent research increasingly calls for scholarship that allows the field of education to better understand how educators across locales learn from their experiences in ways that allow them to leverage linguistic diversity in classrooms (Louis, Thompson, Smith, Williams, & Watson, 2017; Smith, 2018). The intended goal is to become aware of how educators use language in ways that help them effectively influence those whom they prepare for linguistic diversity in spaces different from their own.…”