Growing Critical Bilingual Literacies in a Bilingual Teacher Residency Program

ABSTRACT

This qualitative case study seeks to understand teacher residents’ journeys as they develop culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogies and grow a translanguaging stance in a bilingual teacher residency program in California, U.S. This study is situated within university coursework that prepares teacher residents to support their future students’ dynamic language use through a teaching practice anchored in translanguaging theory and pedagogy. I examine how teacher residents negotiate the creation of translanguaging spaces in their clinical placements in a dual language bilingual classroom to support and nourish children’s bilingual identities and language practices. I also analyze the challenges and opportunities that teacher residents experience in their dual language bilingual education student-teaching placements as they engage in the theories and pedagogies in their university coursework and grow their critical bilingual literacies.

KEYWORDS:

• Bilingual education
• bilingualism
• critical bilingual literacies
• culturally sustaining pedagogies
• teacher residency
• translanguaging

Disclosure statement

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

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2022.2058859.

Notes

1. Transitional Kindergarten (TK) is a primary grade in California schools specifically for children who turn 5 years old between September 2nd and December 2nd on the year they begin school. The purpose is to better prepare children for kindergarten.

2. All names are pseudonyms to protect anonymity.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Luz Yadira Herrera

Luz Yadira Herrera, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Bilingual Education at California State University, Channel Islands. Dr. Herrera's teaching and research are in culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogy, translanguaging, critical pedagogies, and bilingual education policy. She is the author of En Comunidad: Lessons for Centering the Voices and Experiences of Bilingual Latinx Students with Dr. Carla España.