Post-observation conferences with bilingual pre-service teachers: revoicing and rehearsing
Abstract
Pre-service teachers need support in developing their teacher identities as they navigate the uncertain and complex terrain of student teaching and face the pressures of high-stakes accountability. This support is particularly important for bilingual pre-service teachers as they negotiate the many complexities of the bilingual classroom, and as their emergent bilingual students often encounter hostile and subtractive school environments, brought to the fore in this post-election moment. Previous research has shown that critical reflective spaces like those found in post-observation conferences are helpful, but few studies have examined the nature of these interactions. In this multicase study of three Latinx bilingual pre-service teachers in early childhood student teaching placements in one urban district in Texas, we, in our dual role as researchers and university facilitators, utilized a Bakhtinian framework to conduct a qualitative discourse analysis of post-observation conferences during the Spring 2015 semester. Findings revealed the conferences as dialogic and supportive spaces where bilingual pre-service teachers and their university facilitators revoiced and rehearsed classroom interactions in complex and dynamic ways, contributing to participants’ abilities to author themselves as successful teachers.
Reference
Wall, D. J., & Hurie, A. H. (2017). Post-observation conferences with bilingual pre-service teachers: revoicing and rehearsing. Language and Education, 31(6), 543-560. https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/10.1080/09500782.2017.1417996
Journal
Language and Education
Analysis
Is this article part of a larger project or series of studies?
yes
Does this study draw on a large, preexisting data set?
no
Research Approach
Geographic Setting
Institutional Context
Certification Level
Programatic Focus
Research Location Context
- Practicum experience
- student teaching placement schools
Preservice Participants
- Undergraduates (university based program)
Preservice Sample Size
3
Other Participant Data
Duration of Data Collection
Data Sources
- Audio recordings
- journal entries
- Post-lesson conferences
- Transcriptions
Data Analysis Tools
- Case study analysis
- coding (non-specific)
- Dialogic sense making
Researcher Positionality
- inside (staying their own students)
- Inside (studying their own practices)
Research Questions
What is the role of the facilitating process in supporting a group of maestrxs’ developing pedagogical practices?
More specifically, we asked: Within that facilitating process, what is the nature of interaction occurring between the maestrxs and their university facilitators during post-observation conferences in relation to their pedagogies?
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Yes