Teacher education has increasingly integrated diversity-focused pedagogical approaches into their programs in order to better prepare future teachers for increasingly linguistically diverse student populations (Shepard-Carey & Gopalakrishnan, 2021). One such approach, Critical Multilingual Language Awareness, or CMLA, offers a promising avenue forward to cultivate pre-service teachers' critical awareness of the various dimensions of language. Recently developed by Prasad and Lory (2020), CMLA represents an adaptation of James and Garret's (1992) models, which identifies five domains involved in cultivating pre-service teachers' language awareness: the cognitive, social, affective, performance and power domain. Building on these domains and rather than focusing only on languages, Prasad and Lory's CMLA framework reconceptualizes and extends the body of LA work in Europe and Canada by focusing on language users and their communicative repertoires (García, 2017). Crucially, power is placed at the center of their framework. As it has the potential to problematize power in different ways – along the lines of race, social class, gender, language hierarchies, etc. – CMLA can open new paths for multilingual, anti-racist and culturally-and-linguistically sustaining pedagogies.
This study explores the impact of CMLA course work on the pedagogical beliefs and practices of preservice teachers at a large Midwestern U.S. university. A survey gauging students' evolving awareness of the five aforementioned CMLA domains was administered at the beginning (n = 40) and end (n = 26) of the semester-long course work. Additionally, lesson artifacts (e.g., lesson plans, language portraits, reflections) were collected across adjacent courses and, at the end of the semester, in-depth student (n = 4) and instructor (n = 3) interviews were conducted to contextualize the data. Based on a quantitative analysis of the survey data, and an iterative and recursive analysis of the qualitative data through the five CMLA domains, this paper addresses preservice teachers' developing awareness of language ideologies that impact English learners' equitable access to educational opportunities. Our findings point to a clear tension between the acceptance of a multilingual ideology and an evolving understanding of how to apply CMLA to their teaching practice. We will discuss how our findings can lead to a more effective implementation of CMLA in teacher education coursework and thus help pre-service teachers become 'moral agents of change' (Kubanyiova & Crookes, 2016, p. 119).
García, O. (2017). Critical multilingual language awareness and teacher education. In J. Cenoz, D. Gorter, & S. May (Eds.), Language awareness and multilingualism (pp. 263-280). Springer.
James, C., & Garrett, P. (Eds.). (1992). Language awareness in the classroom. Longman.
Kubanyiova, M., & Crookes, G. (2016). Re‐envisioning the roles, tasks, and contributions of language teachers in the multilingual era of language education research and practice. The Modern Language Journal, 100(S1), 117-132.
Prasad, G., & Lory, M. P. (2020). Linguistic and Cultural Collaboration in Schools: Reconciling Majority and Minoritized Language Users. TESOL Quarterly, 54(4), 797-822.
Shepard-Carey, L., & Gopalakrishnan, A. (2021). Developing critical language awareness in future English language educators across institutions and courses, Language Awareness, 1-18. Published online November 15.
