Classrooms across the United States today often include students from multiple different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The teaching force, by contrast, has remained predominantly White and Anglophone with little experience learning additional languages (Athanases & Wong, 2018; Deroo & Ponzio, 2023; Pettit, 2011). When teachers themselves have limited experience with linguistic diversity, how can teacher -educators raise teacher candidates' (TCs) critical multilingual language awareness (CMLA) over the limited duration of the teacher certification process? This article analyzes the implementation of a CMLA project which engaged secondary TCs in becoming language learners themselves to reflect on the experience of being an early language learner. We collected written reflections from 49 TCs about their language learning experiences over 30 h and drew on the five domains of CMLA (Power, Cognitive, Affective, Social and Performance) (Prasad, 2022) to code the data set. We focus on the domain of Power to examine how learning a new language even for a short time can engage TCs practically in attending not only to mechanics of teaching and learning with multilingual students but also more critically to recognize the systemic power relations among languages and language users in schools.ReSUMeAujourd'hui, les salles de classe a travers les etats-Unis comprennent souvent des eleves issus de multiples origines culturelles et linguistiques differentes. Le corps enseignant, en revanche, reste majoritairement blanc et anglophone, avec peu d'experience dans l'apprentissage de langues supplementaires (Athanases & Wong, 2018; Deroo & Ponzio, 2023; Pettit, 2011). Lorsque les enseignants ont eux-memes une experience limitee de la diversite linguistique, comment les formateurs d'enseignants peuvent-ils elever l'eveil aux langues critiques (CMLA en anglais) des stagiaires pendant la duree limitee du processus de certification des enseignants? Cet article analyse la mise en oe uvre d'un projet de CMLA dans le cadre duquel des stagiaires du secondaire ont ete amenes a devenir eux-memes des apprenants de langues afin de reflechir a leur experience d'apprenant precoce de langues. Nous avons recueilli les reflexions ecrites de 49 stagiaires sur leurs experiences d'apprentissage des langues pendant 30 heures et nous nous sommes appuyes sur les cinq domaines du CMLA (pouvoir, cognitif, affectif, social et performance) (Prasad, 2022) pour coder l'ensemble des donnees. Nous nous concentrons sur le domaine du pouvoir pour examiner comment l'apprentissage d'une nouvelle langue, meme pendant une courte periode, peut inciter les stagiaires a s'interesser de maniere pratique non seulement aux mecanismes de l'enseignement et de l'apprentissage avec des etudiants multilingues, mais aussi, de maniere plus critique, a reconnaitre les relations de pouvoir systemiques entre les langues et les apprenants de langues dans les ecoles. Classrooms across the United States today often include students from multiple different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. However, most teachers are white and English-speaking and do not have significant experience learning other languages. In this article, the authors explore the potential impact of individuals who are studying to become teachers spending 30 h learning another language so they can better understand the experience of their future multilingual students. In particular, the study explores how learning another language and reflecting on the experience can help future teachers be more aware of the various power relationships among languages and their speakers within schools. The study can inform other teacher education programs as they consider how to better prepare teachers for culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms.
