1) CBLT prioritizes language work in the classroom. It is informed by a knowledge of linguistics and an understanding of language as a complex communicative action analyzable at the phonetic, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic leve.

2) CBLT recognizes the need for pedagogic and linguistic intervention in content-focused classrooms to improve the context for second language learners.

Going back to teaching, I envision myself practicing CBLT, but I realize that all of the language work that is required will need to come from me.  Almost all of the accommodations that text books and curricular materials provide are either visuals or ‘just good teaching’ strategies. Textbooks currently offer teachers no guidance on what kind of actual linguistic demands are in the lesson.  This colleague and I have tried to teach a number of classes to teachers that helps them shine light on the linguistic demands.  But, so often the required amount of linguistic background knowledge is not there. I believe that I have the necessary linguistic background knowledge, what I wonder is whether I have the commitment to actually planning all or most of my lessons through this framework. It angers me that so many teachers and educational leaders are satisfied with the ‘just good teaching’ myth.  Because of this, many English language learners never receive specific language instruction and are left to figure out the English language all on their own.

In one classroom, the teacher sets the expectations that all the students have the same answers and help each other get those answers. This was during a social studies activity. In the group I was observing with an English language learner, the group members just told him word for word what to write. When I sat down and tried to talk to the boy about what they were learning, he was completely clueless. In another class, the teacher usually informally announces that students should work in pairs or with someone at their table. The two english language learners in that class are usually completely left out of this process. People chose their friends to work with, or someone they know will be able to help them finish the assignment quickly. Both times I’ve observed one of the ELL girls ( the student who really needs the most support and interaction) has worked completely by herself. The boy I observed was a marginal participant in the group, receiving but not negotiating information.

So, I need to think about how to structure group work so that students are engaged with the content as opposed to concerned with completing an assignment. The kind of negotiation that is required for language learners to figure out language and content needs sympathetic interlocutors. Part of what I would like to do is really model what these content based conversations should look like, and then also model how to be an effective ‘mentor’ for someone who needs help negotiating the language or content. So often we assume students have these skills and they don’t.

“First, all students need an education that is intellectually rich and rigorous and that instills a sense of personal, cultural, and social agency – an education that helps them to think critically and ethically about the inequalities enveloping our lives while it prepares them for a wide range of academic and vocational choices.” (pp. 411)

All personnel will commit to their own life long learning and will provide a school environment where: Every child will learn; Everyone will feel safe, included, and respected; Students, staff, and parents share responsibility for creating an atmosphere of safety, community, and respect at our school.

Striking difference, no. There’s no acknowldgement of inequality or even agency. It’s all very passive and intangible. What exactly is an ‘atmosphere of safety, community, and respect?’ I’m not sure. But, for three years I apparently was working to make that vision a reality. Lipman’s vision obviously draws from her critical perspective and resonates with a great deal of multicultural education that advocates for going beyond respect, tolerance, and acceptance to interrogating the social construction of race and the historical economic, social, political inequities it has created and continues to sustain. Critical educators believe that we have a ‘false consciousness’ or a story that we tell ourselves about how the world is that does not allow us to engage with the true forces of oppression that are operating upon us. A critical educator would intentionally challenge students’ assumptions about the way the world works and help them see the structural inequalities that produce their reality.

This is all fascinating as an academic exercise. I have written many papers with conclusions similar to the one Lipman comes up with. But, can I actually do this in the classroom? When I am teaching, I want to come back to this post and think about whether I am actually providing a rigorous and rich eduction that recognizes individual agency while also acknowledging the structural and historical oppression of certain groups in our society. And, if I’m not… why not. If this is something I believe in, and something that as an academic I can discuss so fluently, why is it so difficult to translate into practice.?

Now, I’m facing a different identity crisis. I am finishing my final year of grad school. This means doing, speaking, acting, and performing a particular academic identity. The graduate student identity I have constructed for myself is much more self-assured than my teacher self. I am confident in my theoretical knowledge, my research, and my familiarity with the research in my field. Even though I am a graduate student in a college of education, my graduate student identity is only tangentally related to my teacher identity. In my research setting and when I facilitate professional development in schools, I assume the role of ‘the knowledgable other.’ I position myself as being one of them (a sympathic insider), while also positioning myself as someone from the University with knowledge and expertise for them to draw upon (useful outsider). I am the person that teachers come to complain about what’s not working or to ask my opinion about a particular lesson I observed. My opinion is valued because ‘I know what it’s like’ having spent time in the classroom,’ and because I am now a representative of a university. Teachers come and talk to me in ways that they don’t talk to their principal, their co-workers, or anybody on the school staff.

Now that I am returning to teach elementary school I am finding that I am repositioning myself again. I have had the strange experience of applying for an academic position (a summer teacher education position) and an elementary teaching job during the same week. The way I positioned myself in the two cover letters shone some light on the tensions between grad and grade school. My academic cover letter boasted my accomplishments in research and in teaching in other university settings. On the other hand, I feel like I have been minimizing my PhD in my application for teaching elementary school. Part of this, I realize, is to position myself in a way that is not threatening to the principal or whoever is reading my job application. I will have more education than most of the administration in the district, and I realize this makes some people uneasy. But, I think what i’m really trying to do is reclaim my ‘just one of you’ identity. I am trying to become a full time insider, no longer straddling the border as I do now. And to do that, I feel like I need to diminish my accomplishments in graduate school.

T his worries me. I have taught and written about being an advocate for English language learners. And, if I’m so concerned about being ‘just one of you’ then how am I going to disrupt the status quo and advocate for students. I feel like my graduate degree marks me as being an idealist and will keep me on the periphery of the school unable to make real changes. In my mind I already hear my co-workers saying ‘oh she thinks she knows everything because she has a PhD. So this is a real dillema. How do I take advantage of the knowledge I have gained through the process of earning a PhD in a way that still allows me to be recognized by teachers as an insider.

Tellez, K. & Waxman, H.C. (2006). Preparing quality teachers for English language learners: An overview of critical issues. In K.Tellez & H.C. Waxman (Eds.), Preparing quality educators for English language learners: Research, policies and practices (pp. 1-22). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

• The authors criticize teachers who see language as disconnected from culture and don’t help student negotiate the tension between their home and new cultures.
• Seven instructional strategies associated with high academic achievement for ELLs
  • collaborative learning and community building
  • multiple representations
  • assess and build on prior knowledge
  • instructional conversations
  • culturally responsive instruction
  • cognitively guided instruction
  • technology rich instruction

I recognize that I was not a perfect teacher, not even close. There are some teachers I have observed who are absolutely marvelous at what they do. I envy their clean and organized classrooms, the way in which they engage students, and the sense of calm that fills the room. My classroom was always trashed, I never could get a handle on all the paperwork that came my way. The secretary at my second school would call my room at least twice a day to remind me to send in my attendance. Often times two reminders wasn’t enough and I would still forget to send down my attendance folder. While I look back fondly on most of my teaching, there are times that I definately regret. I bribed or threatened students to complete learning activities. I think I was much more focused on whether the student did the work than whether they actually learned. I kept track of students’ missing assignments and held them over their heads until they actually submitted something. What did they learn from this – that it’s important to turn in a piece of paper whether or not you actually understood what to do on it. Finally, I admire these teachers’ sense of calm. They focus on one thing at a time, giving complete attention to whatever lesson they are currently teaching. I was the teacher who was permanently attached to my timer because I couldn’t figure out how to squeeze enough minutes in the day to do all the things I felt I needed to do. I write this entry now, before I jump back into teaching because this is the classroom I want to create. There are a number of other values and principles that I will articulate about teaching, but really it boils down to a calm classroom in which the teacher is organized and focused on student learning.