On Becoming a Bilingual Teacher: A Transformative Process for Preservice and Novice Teachers

This study explores the personal transformation process experienced by future bilingual educators enrolled in a graduate school of education that is committed to rigorous, collaborative, innovative, and transformational research. The majority of these preservice (PST) and novice teachers (NT), largely White, monolingual women, has little direct knowledge about or experience with teaching culturally, linguistically and ability diverse students. Educational researchers have long emphasized the importance of providing PST and NT graduate students with opportunities to analyze and reflect on their personal theoretical beliefs concerning teaching standards and methods of student learning. Additionally, it has been determined that teacher educators must communicate the necessary theoretical foundations to provide their students with a starting point for analyzing their emerging teaching philosophies, the goal being the development of their new visions of reform-minded practices and innovative techniques of teaching. Data indicated that all the PSTs entered the program with images of teaching that were related to their earlier classroom experiences as students, and that, during their 2-year tenure in the graduate school of education, teaching internship, and master's-level coursework, most experienced professional and personal epiphanies.