Teachers are facing increased linguistic demands in the classroom. Curricular shifts prompted by the Common Core State Standards place a premium on the use of more complex texts and on the features of language these texts contain (referred to as ‘academic language’), which is a significant change in emphasis from prior curricular expectations (Bunch, Kibler, Pimentel, & Walqui, 2013; “Key Shifts in Language Arts,” 2016).  However, academic language is not clearly defined in the standards, and the ways teachers conceptualize academic language and effective academic language instruction are likely related to their language ideologies—the socially shared “attitudes, opinions, beliefs, or theories that we all have about language” (Ahearn, 2012, p. 20)—that can set expectations about who is capable of using the language and what language is appropriate for school contexts. In addition to shaping their interpretations and classroom practice, teacher language ideologies are also shaped by policy and curriculum demands, which act as contextual incentives (Bacon, 2018; Henderson, 2017). Awareness of language ideology is especially important for teachers who work with language minoritized (LM) learners—that is, students who speak socially stigmatized languages or dialects (Flores, 2016). Because language and race are co-naturalized in U.S. settings (Alim, Rickford, & Ball, 2016), LM learners often mirror minoritized racial and ethnic groups, which now make up the majority of the student population in U.S. K-12 public schools (NCES, 2019). Some have argued that increased attention to academic language under the CCSS promotes deficit orientations toward the language resources LM learners bring with them to school (Flores & Rosa, 2015; Macswan, 2018), however, there is scant research that systematically explores teachers’ systems of belief and knowledge, or pedagogical linguistic orientations, toward academic language. Thus, my work seeks to fill this gap in the literature. As someone who sees myself primarily as a teacher educator, I believe a deeper understanding of teachers’ pedagogical linguistic orientations will help me and my colleagues better prepare teachers to meet the language demands of their work.

Summary of Current Research

The study of teachers’ pedagogical linguistic orientations warrants a mixed-methods approach. On the one hand, statistical analysis of quantitative data collected through surveys can provide broad understanding about how systems of knowledge and belief are distributed across teacher populations, as well as identify the sociodemographic and school-based factors that are significantly correlated with teacher knowledge and beliefs. On the other hand, qualitative exploration of interview data, teachers’ written artifacts, and observations of teachers in their classrooms can be used to gain deeper understanding of how systems of belief and knowledge are socially constructed and performed in the context of classroom constraints. Over the course of my studies, I have made sure to explore a breadth of research methods that could be beneficial for exploring pedagogical linguistic orientations, including an introduction to qualitative methods, qualitative language analysis, and historiography, as well as introduction to statistical analysis, correlation and regression, and structural equation modeling. In addition, I have had the opportunity to engage in research from the beginning of my doctoral studies, both in partnership with faculty and in establishing my own line of research. In the following paragraphs, I will limit my discussion to research projects in which I have taken the role of primary investigator.

In my first year at Vanderbilt, I relied on qualitative methods to explore teachers’ pedagogical linguistic orientations. I analyzed the conversations teachers had about LM learners’ writing during professional development sessions, connecting teachers’ beliefs about students and knowledge about language to the quality of instructional feedback they give. I have presented my findings at regional and national conferences for both research and practitioner audiences, and am currently working on a practitioner-focused manuscript that utilizes this analysis. In my second year, I piloted a survey of teacher language ideologies about academic language, and my mixed-methods analysis suggests that while teachers in my sample are generally supportive of both academic language instruction and sustaining language diversity, they lack depth in their understanding of the various linguistic dimensions of academic language as well as awareness of the sociopolitical dimensions of academic language use in classrooms. I have presented these findings at a national conference, and a manuscript based on this analysis is currently under review at research journal whose audience is primarily teacher educators.

My dissertation adopts a methodologically innovative approach for exploring intermediate grades (grades 3-8) teachers’ pedagogical linguistic orientations: a sequential exploratory mixed method analysis using interview and survey data.  First, I am using interview data to explore how intermediate grades teachers conceptualize the language demands of their classroom and relate these demands to their interpretation of curricular guidelines regarding academic language instruction. Then, I will draw upon findings from the qualitative analysis to modify the survey I piloted as part of my earlier research. Next, I will collect survey data from a nationally representative sample of intermediate grades teachers and psychometrically validate the survey. Finally, I will use latent profile analysis to establish empirical profiles of pedagogical linguistic orientation. Based on my written proposal describing my dissertation research, I received a Bonsal Award to fund research related expenses for the 2019-2020 academic year. Only two doctoral students across all departments at the Peabody College of Education at Vanderbilt University received this award for 2019-2020. My dissertation is currently in progress, and will result in three academic manuscripts suitable for publication in academic journals by its completion, which is anticipated in May 2020.

Future Directions

In addition to extending existing theory, my dissertation research will result in a psychometrically validated survey of teacher pedagogical linguistic orientation that can be adopted in future educational research to explore the relationships between teachers’ pedagogical linguistic orientation, teacher practice, and student social and academic outcomes. In particular, following the completion of my dissertation, I plan to play a supporting role in collaboration with the Core Academic Language Skills (CALS) research team to connect data we will collect from teachers through this survey with data on student academic language and reading comprehension outcomes as part of a large scale, IES funded study with approximately 4,300 intermediate grades participants drawn from Texas, Massachusetts, New York, and Tennessee.

In terms of my individual research agenda for the immediate future, I hope to delve more deeply into qualitative explorations of how pedagogical linguistic orientation develops in pre-service and in-service teachers, looking specifically at how coursework can be designed to promote teachers’ self-reflexive inquiry about language and pedagogy (Athanases, Banes, Wong, & Martinez, 2018). Additional future directions for this work may include local research practitioner partnerships, in which teacher survey data could be triangulated with classroom observations, teacher and student interviews, and student outcome data to further uncover how language ideology plays out in localized contexts to shape teaching and learning in intermediate grades classrooms. Central to my research agenda is a commitment to teacher education, and I am seeking a position that encourages the synthesis of research and teaching in my personal development as a faculty member.

References

Ahearn, L. M. (2012). Living language: An introduction to linguistic anthropology. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Alim, H. S., Rickford, J. R., & Ball, A. F. (2016). Raciolinguistics: How language shapes our ideas about race. New York: Oxford University Press.

Athanases, S. Z., Banes, L. C., Wong, J. W., & Martinez, D. C. (2018). Exploring linguistic diversity from the inside out: Implications of self-reflexive inquiry for teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487118778838

Bacon, C. K. (2018). “It’s not really my job”: A mixed methods framework for language ideologies, monolingualism, and teaching emergent bilingual learners. Journal of Teacher Education, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487118783188

Bunch, G. C., Kibler, A., Pimentel, S., & Walqui, A. (2013). Realizing opportunities for English Learners in the Common Core English Language Arts and Disciplinary Literacy Standards. American Educational Research Association, 151. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004

Flores, N. (2016). Combatting Marginalized Spaces in Education through Language Architecture. Penn GSE Perspectives on Urban Education, 13(1), 1–3.

Flores, N., & Rosa, J. (2015). Undoing appropriateness: Raciolinguistic ideologies and language diversity in education. Harvard Educational Review, 85(2), 149–172. https://doi.org/10.17763/0017-8055.85.2.149

Henderson, K. I. (2017). Teacher language ideologies mediating classroom-level language policy in the implementation of dual language bilingual education. Linguistics and Education, 42, 21–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2017.08.003

Key Shifts in Language Arts. (2016). Retrieved March 28, 2019, from http://www.corestandards.org/other-resources/key-shifts-in-english-language-arts/

Macswan, J. (2018). Academic English as standard language ideology: A renewed research agenda for asset-based language education. Language Teaching Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168818777540

Reaser, J., Adger, C. T., Wolfram, W., & Christian, D. (2017). Dialects at school: Educating linguistically diverse students. New York, NY: Routledge.