Preparing Teachers for the Plurilingual Class: Autobiographies as Decolonizing Texts in Second Language Teacher Education

This article discusses a pedagogical activity-an autobiographical creation-adopted in a second language teacher education context to support teachers working with plurilingual learners. Using decoloniality to reposition praxis, the article presents a creativity-infused autobiography creation project to help teachers access their cognitive, social, emotional, ideological, and historical lives. Recognizing the power of teachers' life stories in decolonizing English language teaching the autobiographical creation was designed to help teachers move beyond the theoretical toward deeper, more nuanced conceptualizations of their identities and consider how their identities shape their pedagogical practices. This autobiographical creation sought to provide teachers with a space for "critical self-reflexivity" to develop a critical awareness of their language-learning experiences and professional practices. Drawing upon the autobiographies of three plurilingual teachers, the article discusses how autobiographical reflection helped them live language teacher education and create "yet unthought" ways. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the potential of creativity- infused identity projects in helping teacher education confront coloniality by providing a space for teachers to generate knowledge and broaden their conceptions of their teaching selves, praxis, and learners.