Teacher Education Students’ Perceptions About Bilingualism and Emergent Bilingual Students

ABSTRACT

Teachers’ perceptions guide their instructional decisions and interactions with their students. Given the increasing number of Emergent Bilingual (EB) students and the more acceptance of multilingual language ideologies in the social and political contexts, there is an urgency to examine teachers’ beliefs about EB students and to train teachers to teach students from the pluralist perspective. This paper examines the language ideologies of teacher education students and how their language ideologies are related to their backgrounds, their attitudes about the engagement of the EB students and their families, and their perceived responsibility to teach EB students. The survey responses of 235 teacher education students were analyzed using descriptive statistics, regression, and correlation. The participants held more multilingual and heteroglossic beliefs about bilingualism. Their language ideologies were significantly related to their attitudes toward EBs and their families and their perceived teacher responsibility. Race was the only variable that demonstrated a statistically significant relationship with monoglossic or heteroglossic beliefs. We discuss how teacher educators address heteroglossic language ideologies in their programs to help teacher education students create inclusive and asset-oriented learning environments.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher attitudes
• teacher education
• language ideology
• English learners
• emergent bilingual

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The term “Emergent Bilingual” is used in this article to refer to multilingual students who are learning English as a second or additional language because we acknowledge the term “English Learner” which is more frequently used does not recognize their multilingual ability. However, we used the term “English Learner” in our survey because it has been more commonly used in policy and practice.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hyonsuk Cho

Hyonsuk Cho is an Associate Professor of TESOL in the Department of Teaching, Leadership & Professional Practice at the University of North Dakota. Her scholarship explores emergent bilingual students’ language, academic and social-emotional development and culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogies for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Annie Chou

Annie Chou is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her scholarship explores the nature of content teachers’ attitudes and practices in relation to support culturally and linguistically diverse students.

Peter D. Wiens

Peter D. Wiens is an Associate Professor of Teacher Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His scholarship focuses on Teacher Leadership as well as the learning outcomes of preservice teachers related to aspects of program design and educational policy.