Manka M. Varghese

Theorizing Language Teacher Identity: Three Perspectives and Beyond

Language teacher identity is an emerging subject of interest in research on language teacher education and teacher development. Yet relatively little attention has been paid to the ways in which teacher identity is theorized. The present article explores ways of theorizing language teacher identity by presenting three data-based studies of teacher identity and juxtaposing the three different theoretical frameworks that they use: Tajfels (1978) social identity theory, Lave and Wengers (1991) theory of situated learning, and Simons (1995) concept of the image-text. It is seen that each theoretical perspective allows us to investigate different substantive and theoretical aspects of language teacher identity and that there are strong conceptual resonances among the different approaches. While in isolation each theory has its limitations, an openness to multiple theoretical approaches allows a richer and more useful understanding of the processes and contexts of teacher identity.

“Nadie Me Dijó [Nobody Told Me]” Language Policy Negotiation and Implications for Teacher Education

Nationwide and statewide shifts and ambiguity in language education policy have created substantial instability for teachers. Through a cross-case study and analysis of bilingual teachers in two states, this article shows how these teachers participate in responding to and making decisions regarding language policy. This article shows how and why an understanding of language policy and the decision making involved with it is a crucial dimension of the professional roles of teachers who have second-language learners in their classrooms. Thus, the authors broaden the discussion on the teacher preparation for the instruction of English-language-learner students, which has narrowly focused on an awareness of language and methods, to include the dimension of policy making.

Bilingual Teachers-in-the-making in Urbantown

This study, based on ethnographic methods, explores how the professional identities of a group of bilingual (Spanish/English) Latino/a teachers-in-the-making in an urban public school district in the USA are formed and enacted. It illustrates the national and local discourses that influence novice bilingual teachers in their professional identities. But it also focuses on the structural influences and the ways that teachers respond to such influences. The study found that teachers developed a complex, sometimes conflicted, sense of their professional identities and these were mediated by their responses to their marginalisation, their professional development, local setting(s) and their personal histories. Another important finding of this study was the resulting variation of professional identities the teachers enacted due to a host of influences, causing some to leave the profession and others to stay. This research suggests viewing professional development for bilingual teachers as a place where discussion and dissent is encouraged, and a process of what teachers may become rather than solely what they should know. It also underscores the importance of viewing professional development and the making of bilingual teachers as an interaction of structural and agentive influences.

Going Global: Can Dual-Language Programs Save Bilingual Education?

In this commentary, we extend the cautionary tales regarding dual-language programs raised by several scholars by considering the interface of such programs with global education. We consider the possible pitfalls of uncritically framing dual-language programs within the global education movement in the United States, especially in light of how this new framing will affect the educational opportunities and experiences of Latino/a students throughout the country.

Using Cultural Models to Unravel How Bilingual Teachers Enact Language Policies

There have been calls to examine how language policy is mediated at the local level. Although there have been studies that have foregrounded the local, there have yet to be those that look at how language policies become adopted by individual teachers through a process of their personal and professional socialisation. Through the framework of cultural models and using ethnographic methods, I examine how four novice bilingual Latino/a teachers in three different schools in the United States come to share a cultural model of dual language education. At the same time, I highlight how the differences in their adoption of a particular policy are constituted by both their personal and professional experiences as well as the organisational structures in which they find themselves in. This study contributes to the understanding of how language policies are adopted by bilingual classroom teachers as well as to the discussion of the future of bilingual education in the United States.

Linguistic Minority Students in Higher Education: Using, Resisting, and Negotiating Multiple Labels.

Linguistic minority students have been both under-researched and underserved in the context of research on minority students’ access to and retention in higher education. The labels ascribed to them have typically failed to capture the complexity of their identities. Additionally, much of the literature in higher education on minority students’ access and retention has focused on structural barriers rather than on how students negotiate these barriers. By bringing linguistic minority students into the forefront of this conversation, we show how four linguistic minority female students draw on their community cultural wealth and different forms of capital (Yosso, 2005) to access and navigate college while experiencing differing advantages and disadvantages based on institutional labeling. By employing critical race theory and its conceptualization of capital, we illustrate how students use, resist, and negotiate labels in attempts to access resources and services at a four-year institution. We conclude by calling for more research on this population as well as additive university practices and policies that reflect the richness of linguistic minority student identities.

Professional Development for Bilingual Teachers in the United States: A Site for Articulating and Contesting Professional Roles.

Professional development for bilingual teachers has traditionally been viewed as a neutral site for training teachers. In the present study, a professional development for bilingual teachers in the United States is explored through ethnographic methods, specifically focusing on both the content delivery, and the interactions between teacher educators and teachers. The present study shows how professional development can become a site for the articulation and contestation of bilingual teacher professional roles. Specifically, it demonstrates how conceptualisations of the roles of bilingual teachers are often mired with differences and lack uniformity, especially because of the different backgrounds and settings teacher educators and teachers operate within. It points to the need to understand the different perspectives within the bilingual educational community. This research places bilingual teacher education within current understandings of learning and professional development, emphasising the situated nature of teaching and learning. Bilingual teachers and their development must be understood as agents who make choices and have differentiated understandings of their profession, rather than as individuals who replicate the content and way they have been trained. This is especially important when we understand the multifaceted roles of bilingual teachers such as language policy agents and advocates.

Teachers as Intellectuals and Advocates: Professional Development for Bilingual Education Teachers

Bilingual education continues to be one of the most controversial educational programs worldwide. In several US states, it has even been put to a vote in general elections. Internationally, nations that have long promoted multilingualism are debating whether the languages of new, working-class immigrants deserve to be taught in schools. Consequently, bilingual educators now find themselves in a newly charged and precarious political position. We argue that bilingual educators are now beholden to a single professional development goal: reappraising their efforts at saving this important instructional program in the interest of immigrant youth. We first explore the demise of bilingual education across the United States, address the condition of bilingual education worldwide, point to promising teacher development projects, and end by asking bilingual educators to consider who is left to join them in promoting the marginalized languages—and communities who speak them—in the context of a new world order.

Neo-imperialism, Evangelism, and ELT: Modernist Missions and a Postmodern Profession

The military, political, and cultural aspects of American neo-imperialism are well documented; whatever one thinks of them, they are familiar to most Westerners who take an interest in such things. Less widely discussed, yet scarcely less important, is the religious dimension of US neo-imperial policy. Yet this has been a major arena in which the field of TESOL has been in direct contact with the creation of new empire, through the work of evangelical Christian English teachers involved in mission efforts around the world, and especially in those countries that feature prominently in American foreign policy. The present chapter examines the link between TESOL and evangelical Christianity, looking in particular at the way this link plays out in the lives and work of actual teachers.

Reconsidering the novice/expert dichotomy in the K-12 mentor-mentee relationship

Abstract Traditionally, the mentor-mentee relationship has been defined in terms of the inexperienced mentee and the experienced mentor. This study explores mentee-mentor relationships, which illustrate the tensions and difficulties that arise when this simplistic dichotomy breaks down, a situation that is becoming more and more prevalent when teachers pursue secondary certifications, validations or endorsements. The context of the study is a practica, where experienced teachers were going through a mentoring experience, while pursuing their TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) endorsement in a mid-western university in the United States. The study finds that the mentoring relationship was mainly coloured by the discourse used by the mentors, the specific backgrounds and goals of the mentees, as well as the different understandings each mentor and mentee had of the TESL profession and their roles in the practica. Time and opportunities need to be allowed for these factors to be discussed and negotiated