“We’re Here to Learn to Speak French”: An Exploration of World Language Teachers’ Beliefs About Students and Teaching

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore five world language teachers’ beliefs about their students, their attributions about student enrollment, and their reported teaching practices. Findings represent a continuum of critical practice in that three teachers appeared to espouse deficit thinking and stereotypes about students of color, and color-evasiveness or colorblindness as an approach to teaching. Two teachers appeared to espouse beliefs that may be more representative of inclusive classrooms, and these teachers reported advocacy work for certain student groups and efforts to develop students’ critical consciousness in their classrooms. Findings are contextualized via critical lenses, and implications for language teacher education and policy are discussed.

Notes

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank Heather Davis and Jessica DeCuir-Gunby for their support and guidance during all phases of this study.

Notes

1 World language is used throughout the article to remain congruous to the language used in the context where the study took place; however, foreign language is used when citing research reports and/or authors whose work includes it.

2 See Muirhead (2009) for a discussion of terminology.

3 Enrollment reports included students’ ethnoracial and gender status, as well as year in school (i.e., sophomore), and general counts for students enrolled at each level of language (i.e., Spanish 1).

4 Pseudonym.

5 It is not my intent in this representation of findings to assert that the burden of education around sexual orientation and identity should be placed on LGBTQ people, or that any education around identities is the burden of those who embody those identities.