Abstract
This chapter illustrates the process through which a community of practice (CoP) was established and maintained by conscious efforts by participants. Personal narratives by both teacher and students were validated as a legitimate form of knowledge. The highly interactive nature of the classroom environment was propitious to community building, which turned out to be conducive to critical reflection on learning. By highlighting the tensions, challenges, and struggles within the community of practice created in the bilingual teacher education program, this chapter demonstrates how critical theory of literacy learning and social identity can contribute to CoP theory building.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
One noticeable example of their high level of motivation is the fact that none of Cohort III scholars missed a single class meeting throughout the three-semester-long program. Mano missed a class once because he attended his aunt’s funeral in American Samoa.
- 2.
See Appendix A for transcription conventions. They are adapted from Locke (2004, pp. 81–82).
- 3.
Interviews were conducted mostly in Korean with the Korean students—Jisun, Kyungmi, and Young. I did not insist on either Korean or English, but all of the three Korean female students chose to talk to me in Korean. I translated the interview data from Korean into English. Note that there was a great amount of codeswitching, which I consider an important linguistic resource for bilingual speakers with a range of semantic and affective functions and purposes. Italicized words or phrases indicate codeswitching from Korean to English.
- 4.
Jisun is the youngest one among the three Korean female students, which regulates her use of honorific forms of Korean to the other two. Both Kyungmi and Young are the same age and have been close friends even before entering the program.
- 5.
See Appendix B for the shared goals and artifacts in CLEAR seminar series.
- 6.
Rubrics are carefully designed ratings chart that contains scoring criteria, criteria descriptors, and scoring levels for a task or project, in this case, an electronic portfolio.
- 7.
Pinyin is the most common standardized Mandarin Romanization system in use.
- 8.
Of course, the negotiation was possible because I had a great level of autonomy to design the curriculum for the seminar series. Without teacher autonomy in the selection of curriculum, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to suggest a process of negotiation with students.
- 9.
Note that the linear construction of this book should not mask the recursive nature of knowledge-making; it is through ongoing participation in discussions with bilingual preservice teachers that particular theorists (e.g., Bakhtin, Wenger) have become more significant for me as I worked to explore and make sense of the students’ experiences of meaning-making in academia.
References
Albright, J. (2002). Being in authority, being an authority: Disrupting students’/teachers’ practices in literacy education. Teaching Education, 13(3), 289–303.
Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination. Austin: University of Texas.
Barab, S. A., & Duffy, T. (2000). From practice fields to communities of practice. In D. Jonassen & S. Land (Eds.), Theoretical foundation of learning environments (pp. 25–56). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Cho, H. (2015). Under co-construction: An online community of practice for bilingual pre-service teachers. Computers and Education, 92(93), 76–89.
Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (1993). Inside/outside: Teacher research and knowledge. New York: Teachers College Press.
Creese, A. (2005). Teacher collaboration and talk in multilingual classrooms. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Cuddapah, J. L., & Clayton, C. D. (2011). Using Wenger’s communities of practice to explore a new teacher cohort. Journal of Teacher Education, 62(1), 62–75.
Dickar, M. (2008). Hearing the silenced dialogue: An examination of the impact of teacher race on their experiences. Race Ethnicity and Education, 11(2), 115–132.
Gee, J. P. (2004). Situated language and learning: A critique of traditional schooling. New York: Routledge.
Gilligan, C., Brown, L., & Rodgers, A. (1990). Psyche imbedded: A place for body, relationships, and culture in personality theory. In A. Rabin, R. Zuker, Remains, & S. Frank (Eds.), Studying persons and lives (pp. 86–147). New York: Springer.
Giroux, H. A. (1988). Teachers as intellectuals: Toward a critical pedagogy of learning. Granby: Bergin and Garvey.
Glesne, C., & Peshkin, A. (1992). Becoming qualitative researchers: An introduction. White Plains: Longman.
Hale, A., Snow-Gerono, J., & Morales, F. (2008). Transformative education for culturally diverse learners through narrative and ethnography. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(6), 1413–1425.
Haneda, M. (2006). Classrooms as communities of practice: A reevaluation. TESOL Quarterly, 40, 807–817.
Hanks, W. (1991). Forward. In J. Lave & E. Wenger (Eds.), Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation (pp. 13–24). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hodges, T. E., & Cady, J. (2013). Blended-format professional development and the emergence of communities of practice. Mathematics Education Research Journal, 25(2), 299–316.
Janks, H. (Ed.). (1993). Critical language awareness series. Johannesburg: Hodder and Stoughton and Wits University Press.
Jimenez-Silva, M., & Olson, K. (2012). A community of practice in teacher education: Insights and perceptions. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 24(3), 335–348.
Kanno, Y., & Norton, B. (2003). Imagined communities and educational possibilities: Introduction. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 2, 241–250.
Kincheloe, J. (2008). Critical pedagogy (2nd ed.). New York: Peter Lang.
Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the new media age. London: Routledge.
Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Multimodal discourse: The modes and media of contemporary communication. London: Arnold.
Kubota, R. (2004). The politics of cultural difference in second language education. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 1(1), 21–39.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York: University of Cambridge Press.
Lea, M. (2008). Academic literacies in theory and practice. In N. Hornberger (Ed.), Encyclopedia of language and education (2nd ed., pp. 227–238). New York: Springer.
Lea, M., & Street, B. (1998). Student writing in higher education: An academic literacies approach. Studies in Higher Education, 23(2), 157–172.
Lee, K., & Clare, B. (2013). What are student in-service teachers talking about in their online communities of practice? Investigating student in-service teachers’ experiences in a double-layered CoP. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 21(1), 89–118.
Lee, C. D., & Smagorinsky, P. (2000). Introduction: Constructing meaning through collaborative inquiry. In C. D. Lee & P. Smagorinsky (Eds.), Vygotskian perspectives on literacy research: Constructing meaning through collaborative inquiry (pp. 1–15). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Leki, I. (2007). Undergraduates in a second language: Challenges and complexities of academic literacy development. New York: Routledge.
Lillis, T. M. (2003). Student writing as ‘academic literacies’: Drawing on Bakhtin to move from critique to design. Language and Education, 17(3), 192–207.
Lin, A. M. Y. (2004). Introducing a critical pedagogical curriculum: A feminist, reflexive account. In B. Norton & K. Toohey (Eds.), Critical pedagogies and language learning (pp. 271–290). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Liu, D. (1999). Training non-native TESOL students: Challenges for TESOL teacher education in the West. In G. Braine (Ed.), Non-native educators in English language teaching (pp. 197–210). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Locke, T. (2004). Critical discourse analysis. London: Continuum.
Moore, E. (2006). ‘You tell all the stories’: Using narrative to explore hierarchy within a community of practice. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 10(5), 611–640.
Morgan, B. (2004). Teacher identity as pedagogy: Towards a field-internal conceptualisation in bilingual and second language education. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism., 7(2/3), 172–188.
Morita, N. (2004). Negotiating participation and identity in second language academic communities. TESOL Quarterly, 38(4), 573–603.
Morton, J. (2012). Communities of practice in higher education: A challenge from the discipline of architecture. Linguistics and Education, 23, 100–111.
Ochs, E., & Capps, L. (2001). Living narrative. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rodriguez, T. L., & Cho, H. (2011). Eliciting critical literacy narratives of bi/multilingual teacher candidates across U.S. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27, 496–594.
Rogers, R., & Fuller, C. (2007). “As if you heard it from your momma”: Redesigning histories of participation with literacy education in an adult education class. In C. Lewis, P. Enciso, & E. Moje (Eds.), Reframing sociocultural research on literacy: Identity, agency, and power. Philadelphia: Erlbaum.
Shor, I. (1996). When students have power: Negotiating authority in critical pedagogy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Toohey, K. (2000). Learning English at school: Identity, social relations, and classroom practices. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Toohey, K., & Waterstone, B. (2005). Negotiating expertise in an action research community. In N. Norton & K. Toohey (Eds.), Critical pedagogies and language learning (pp. 291–310). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Varghese, M. (2006). Bilingual teachers-in-the-making in Urbantown. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 27(3), 211–224.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. M. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Wray, S. (2007). Teaching portfolios, community, and pre-service teachers’ professional development. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23, 1139–1152.
Zamel, V. (1995). Strangers in academia: The experiences of faculty and ESL students across the curriculum. College Composition and Communication, 46, 506–521.
Zembylas, M. (2003). Emotions and teacher identity: A poststructural perspective. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 9(3), 213–238.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Appendices
Appendices
4.1.1 Appendix A: Transcription Conventions
-
[Text] indicates descriptive text added to clarify the context of the transcript.
-
Kinesic signals are italicized inside round brackets.
-
Prosodic and paralinguistic features are italicized inside the square brackets.
-
Stressed words are underlined.
-
Kinesic, prosodic, and paralinguistic features are selectively rather than exhaustively identified.
-
Interrupted or dropped utterance is indicated with a slash (/).
-
Voiced hesitations (e.g., ah, um) are marked where selected.
-
Pauses are marked with dots (…) with the number of dots indicating an estimated length of pause.
4.1.2 Appendix B: Shared Goals and Artifacts in the CLEAR Seminar Series
Semester | First semester | Second semester | Third semester |
---|---|---|---|
Seminar title | L2 academic literacies | Language materials development | Teaching practicum |
Stated goals/joint enterprises | To examine theoretical and practical issues of L2 academic literacies, drawn on a socially situated practice framework | To develop language materials to use in the teaching of linguistic minority students including heritage language (HL) learners; primarily focus on the understanding of the needs of minority learners in the community and create language materials accordingly | To connect their knowledge of theories, methodologies, and practices to teaching experiences |
Major projects and activities/artifacts | Literacy autobiography | Heritage language materials development (e.g., resources for HL educators and students) | Class observation |
Interview with instructors and peers | Field trip to NFLRC | Technology workshops (video recording and editing) | |
Final research paper in a portfolio format (including topic proposal, annotated bibliography, midterm draft) | Technology workshops (e.g., audacity, Windows Movie Maker) | Student teaching | |
Critical reflection journal | A philosophy of teaching | ||
Self-evaluation letter to instructor | Resume |
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Cho, H. (2018). Situated Learning in Seminars from a Community of Practice Perspective. In: Critical Literacy Pedagogy for Bilingual Preservice Teachers. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7935-1_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7935-1_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-7934-4
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-7935-1
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)