Abstract:

Teacher educators struggle to effectively prepare new teachers for the diverse children in schools, including English learners (Liu & Ball, 2019). Preparing new teachers to teach mathematics and science to English learners in culturally sustaining ways is particularly difficult (Aronson & Laughter, 2016; Paris & Alim, 2017).

The Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Pedagogical Content Knowledge (CLD-PCK) Model is successful in preparing elementary level pre-service teachers to teach mathematics and science to English learners. Twenty-seven pre-service teachers significantly improved their teaching practice of Els over three years of the project as measured by lesson observation ratings on 42 criteria organized in five domains (Enriquez & Olmos, 2016). Descriptive data indicated that the pre-service teachers improved from their first lesson to their fifth lesson in teaching academic language and discourse, inquiry-based lessons, instructional sheltering strategies, and ways to support student thinking. Based on descriptive data, however, there was substantially less improvement in culturally sustaining teaching practices.

Three case studies were completed to better understand the developmental trajectories of individual pre-service teachers as well as to identify weaknesses in teaching practices. Five lessons for each of the three case study pre-service teachers were transcribed. Of the fifteen lessons, six were in science and nine in math. Five lessons were taught in kindergarten, four in third grade, five in fourth grade and one in fifth grade. One of the pre-service teachers was Latina and two were Anglo women.

578 lesson minutes were transcribed and analyzed qualitatively. Data from transcripts were read and coded according to four domains of the observation rating rubric:
1) pedagogy and assessment,
2) academic language and discourse,
3) content knowledge and curriculum in mathematics and science, and
4) student thinking. Culturally sustaining practice items were embedded in three of the domains.

The results indicated that all three pre-service teachers consistently used pedagogical scaffolding strategies in their lessons, particularly through the incorporation of real objects, pictures and photos and the use of simulations and demonstrations. Data analysis also indicated that pre-service teachers understood their content objectives and partnered students for discussion. Adaptations were not made for differences in English language proficiency level.

With respect to academic language and discourse, all three teachers taught academic vocabulary, primarily in a contextualized, meaningful way. Teachers also modeled language use and consistently asked higher order questions. In the majority of lessons, pre-service teachers asked students to explain their responses. Pre-service teachers typically used both oral and written language functions in their lessons; however, more complex language use was not modeled effectively.

Pre-service teachers were accurate in their understanding of content and typically used inquiry methods, moving from concrete to abstract learning. Some lessons incorporated multicultural texts and global examples or asked students to think of home examples, but there was relatively no focus on funds of knowledge. Pre-service teachers made efforts to know their students and generally provided opportunities for discussion. They also used student errors to support student thinking.

Keywords:

Culturally Sustaining Practice English Learners Teacher Education.