Growing Critical Bilingual Literacies in a Bilingual Teacher Residency Program

Abstract

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.