Autobiographical/Teacher Identity Entry #4

“Language: Whose Voices Get Heard?”

 

   In this assignment you are expected to examine your early and adult language acquisition experiences, including the languages of “school,” “work,” and informal language experiences. Incorporate into your paper:

  1. How has your oral language development helped and/or hindered your written language ability? When has your oral language ability been valued positively? negatively? When has your written language ability been valued positively? negatively?
  2. Rogoff (2003) states that “In middle-class European American families, children learn to participate in school-like conversations before they enter school. They learn to ‘talk like a book’ before they learn to read” (p. 302) and “compared to children who speak only one language, children who are fluent in more than one language have greater flexibility in language use and an awareness of language itself” (p. 331). How has your culture-specific communicative competence played a role in your process of language acquisition and development of language skills used inside and outside of school?In what ways have you experienced a mismatch between your home/community language and the language of schools? How did you overcome any mismatches you experienced?
  3. What conversations do you recall as a K-12 student with any of your teachers? What was the content of those conversations? How did you feel? If you cannot recall having any conversations with any of your teachers, why might that be and how do you feel about that as you recollect your K-12 education?
  4. Based on your responses to these questions, now consider specifically how your language development experiences have affected your identity formation as a teacher.

Due: Tuesday, February 13, 2007 to your seminar leader

 

adapted by Jacque Ensign from prompt written by Michael Vavrus for Evergreen MIT 04-06 cohort.