Scaffolding Teacher Candidates' Development as Linguistically Responsive Teachers via a Team-Based Rehearsal Process with Structured Talk Tasks

Abstract

To address the need for more research on second language teacher education pedagogies, this qualitative self-study investigates how a team-based rehearsal process scaffolds pre-service and in-service K-12 teacher candidates’ development as linguistically responsive teachers in two English Language Learner (ELL) teaching methods courses. In this rehearsal process, teams of teacher candidates co-plan, co-rehearse, and collectively debrief structured talk tasks with their peers and instructors. These structured talk tasks are intended to be purposeful, interactive tasks that promote meaningful, student-centered talk and intentionally scaffold the development of multilingual learners’ content understanding and disciplinary language practices. Drawing on sociocultural theories of teaching and learning as well as utilizing Lucas & Villegas’ framework for linguistically responsive teaching (2011) to frame the analysis, research findings suggest that collaboratively planning, rehearsing, and debriefing structured talk tasks contributed to teacher candidates’ learning about understanding disciplinary language demands, promoting meaningful student-centered talk, and scaffolding instruction for multilingual learners. Due to the constraint of not having real multilingual learners in the rehearsal process, the author also reflects on the necessity of further supporting teacher candidates’ enactment of structured talk tasks in field placements. These findings have implications for second language teacher educators and other content area methods instructors who wish to support teachers’ experiential learning about pedagogical language knowledge as well as fostering meaningful, collaborative talk and agency with multilingual learners.