Toward humanizing SFL praxis: Coconstructing language teachers' understandings of their intersectional identities via language use

• Published in: Foreign language annals 2023-12, Vol.56 (4), p.888-911
• Main Authors: Troyan, Francis John, Fernández, Loretta, Weng, Zhenjie, Ferguson, Daniel Scott, Iswandari, Yuseva Ariyani, Avdakov, Sarah
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bilingualism; Case studies; Code Switching (Language); Collaboration; Content and Language Integrated Learning; Cultural identity; humanizing methodologies; Intersectionality; Language; Language Acquisition; Language Attitudes; Language ideologies; language teacher education; language teacher identity; Language Teachers; Language Usage; language use; Linguistic identity; Linguistics; Metalanguage; Metalinguistics; Multilingualism; Pedagogy; Second Language Instruction; Second Language Learning; Second language teachers; Self Concept; Self instruction; Self study; Spanish; Spanish language; Systemic functional linguistics; Teacher education; Teacher Education Programs; Teacher Educators; Teaching; Translanguaging
• ISSN: 0015-718X; 1944-9720
• DOI: 10.1111/flan.12720

Contextualized within our Projects in Humanization in language teacher education and part of our on‐going collaborative self‐study of our language teacher educator practices, we used multiple case study to examine multimodal representations of cultural and linguistic identities curated by three language teachers—Daniel, Yuseva, and Sarah—and humanizing dialog to engage them in reflection on those identities. The central task, the Language Use Profile—part of the foundations course in our language teacher education programs—guided language teachers in developing their understandings of their bi‐/multilingual language use, language ideologies, and systemic functional linguistics (SFL). In all three cases, examination of language use served as a window for the language teachers to observe their intersectionality or, in some cases, to become aware of it. Each language teacher took up the assignment in different ways, with the task as the context for reflection on language use and identities journeys such as translanguaging to survive, negotiating my identity and being a white woman who learned Spanish. SFL metalanguage served as a tool for the language teachers to make sense of their multidimensional language use. Our findings point to the potential of the Language Use Profile as a means for guiding language teachers in the identity work that is central in humanizing language teacher education. The Challenge Centering language learners' diverse identities in the language classroom calls on language teachers to likewise know themselves deeply. This article—part of our efforts toward humanizing language teacher education—describes the results of a project in which language teachers engaged in reflective dialog around multimodal representations of their intersectional identities.