Challenging Inquiry and Building Community: Analyzing ESL and Bilingual Teachers’ Narratives

ABSTRACT

The study explores English as a second language (ESL) and bilingual teachers’ narratives within a learning community as they collectively engage in reflecting on practices to more effectively support English learners. This longitudinal qualitative study integrates narrative inquiry approach and critical incident methodology. Participants were seven ESL and bilingual teachers involved in a collaborative professional development project. First, the study explores a critical incident around defining inquiry-based instruction in the ESL/bilingual classroom illustrating the productive role of conflict and contrasting perspectives on inquiry to collectively construct knowledge amidst a learning community. Second, the study shows the possibilities of team teaching as a productive space for reflection on practice and a key element of ESL/bilingual learning communities. Ultimately, the study contributes to the understanding of teacher professional learning communities as a place and a process in which teachers are active agents of their development, collectively and individually inquiring about students’ needs, and generating new practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Learning communities
• teacher professional development
• collaboration
• ESL and bilingual teachers

Acknowledgment

I would like to express my gratitude to the program coordinators and participating teachers who invited the researcher to be part of their journey and who so generously shared their stories. I am also very grateful to the three anonymous reviewers, and the Editors for their invaluable comments and suggestions on earlier versions of the manuscript. Any errors remain solely my own.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sandra I. Musanti

Sandra I. Musanti is associate professor in the Bilingual and Literacy Studies Department at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and researches bilingual preservice and inservice teacher development in relation to collaboration, learning communities, language, culture, and identity.