“The best way to get to know a student is to know their community”: fostering pre-service teachers’ critical multilingual language awareness through linguistic community walks

ABSTRACT

This study sought to investigate the impact of an English as a second language methodology course in which we asked pre-service teachers (PSTs) to visit the communities served by their field placement schools for their mentored teaching practices in a linguistic community walk project. We aimed to understand the impact of a linguistic community walk project on PSTs’ understanding of the existing disparities in access to community resources for people from different linguistic backgrounds, and how this experience impacts their pedagogical orientations to support the teaching and learning of emergent multilingual learners. Drawing on the theory of critical multilingual language awareness, we observed the impact of the linguistic community walk project on PSTs’ language ideologies and envisioned pedagogy. Findings suggest that PSTs’ involvement in the project heightened their awareness of the importance of utilization of authentic and culturally relevant materials and resources in their classrooms. Additionally, the project helped PSTs move away from monolingual ideologies by critically reflecting on the marginalization of minoritized communities in community spaces, indicating a wider potential of the approach for teacher education programs.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical multilingual language awareness
• emergent multilingual learners
• teacher education
• community-based field experiences
• pre-service teachers

Acknowledgement

Lucía Cárdenas Curiel offers gratitude to Dr. Haydeé Rodríguez for sharing her wisdom in engaging with Latinx communities through neighborhood walks, “caminatas,” during her teaching assistanship in the Spanish methods course at the University of Texas at Austin.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).