Abstract:

The dynamics of Latino teachers working with Latino students, particularly in bilingual education contexts, hinge on the ability to find equilibrium---personally and professionally---between the languages and cultures they navigate (Valdés, 2000, 2001; Author, 2004). Key to teacher candidates seeking bilingual education teaching certificates is to model the use of personal practical knowledge (Clandinin & Connelly 1995), reflection (Lyons & LaBoskey, 2002; Schön, 1983) and narrative authority (Olson, 1993) as part and parcel of their teacher preparation program.
Theoretical framework
Lyon’s notion of “nested knowing” (1990, p. 173) is a useful metaphor for Latino teachers because it serves to visualize how teaching and learning involve all the things that are being learned and the feelings that are derived as we are learning them (Freire, 1998; Author, 2004; Schwab, 1977).
Guided instructional conversations (Goldberg, 1992) and guided written reflections or narratives explore being “juxtaposed between their personal practical knowledge of language, teaching and learning and the education of children” (Author, 2004. p. 49). These guided instructional conversations and reflections/narratives permit teacher candidates “…[to] interrogate their teaching…to construct meaning, interpretation, and knowledge of some aspect of teaching or learning through the creation of narrative(s)” (Lyons and LaBoskey, 2002. p. 6).
The overriding element guiding this inquiry is best captured by Craig and Olson:
...the choices teachers and preservice teachers make and the actions they take necessarily continue to come from their individual narrative authority, however unexamined it may be. Unless there are spaces for stories to be brought out into the open and shared with others, they become the unreflective base for professional practice and decision-making (2002. p. 116).
Craig and Olson’s notion of sharing personal stories was also brought up by Kozol in his On being a teacher (1981), and in which he candidly says that,
……schools, by tradition, do all that they can to train us not to speak in the first person…people, however, cannot easily say “we” if they do not first achieve the sense of self-possession to say “I”… (p. 10)
When teacher candidates are able to unpack personal practical knowledge about learning and teaching—languages and cultures, a sense of narrative authority resonates. Narrative authority, according to Olson (1997), “belongs to the one who knows the most or best… [and thus] speaks in a very different voice—the voice of experience…” ( p. 20). Ownership of personal experiences increase the sense of ableness that results in praxis (Friere, 1970. p. 68). Praxis, is the level of awareness that allows for resolution between inconsistencies and incongruences we have experienced which propels us to take a stance and generate changes (Freire, 1998; Olson, 1993, 2000).
This investigation is a narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), which is a human experience method (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999). It serves as a way to delve into what it means to be a Latino teacher; conceptualizes the newness of teaching; appraises what is needed to be reflective and responsive and assesses what they need to become effective and successful teachers of English Language Learners in urban bilingual education contexts.

Keywords:

bilingual teacher preparation, instructional conversations, reflection, narrative.