32.3472, Review: Applied Linguistics: Barkhuizen (2021)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-32-3472. Thu Nov 04 2021. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 32.3472, Review: Applied Linguistics: Barkhuizen (2021)

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Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2021 01:19:49
From: Laura Dubcovsky [lauradubcovsky at gmail.com]
Subject: Language Teacher Educator Identity

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36725497


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/32/32-1279.html

AUTHOR: Gary  Barkhuizen
TITLE: Language Teacher Educator Identity
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2021

REVIEWER: Laura Dubcovsky, University of California, Davis

SUMMARY

“Language Teacher Educator Identity” is a brief book centered on the
professional identity of teachers’ trainers, based on three major domains:
nature and characteristics of language teacher educators (hereafter LTE),
specific content-knowledge and instructional tools needed for their practice,
and strategies to improve pre-and in-service teachers’ praxis.  Following
these domains, the book starts by addressing, “Who are Language Teacher
Educators?”.  Gary Barkhuizen presents a general overview, stating the aim of
the book, and unfolding the reading in five sections. The author clearly
distinguishes between language teacher education, (continuous) professional
development, and teacher training (Freeman, 2016), and highlights the presence
of an identity continuum that stretches from student-teachers to LTEs.
Moreover, he classifies LTE’s types in fourteen categories, including novice,
experienced, and mentor teachers, university professors and researchers,
graduate-students and teaching assistants, etc. Section one concludes with
broader definitions that embrace teaching and researching roles, formal and
informal educational settings, and multiple modalities and programs under the
umbrella of the LTE identity. 

The second section focuses on “Teacher educators reflecting on their
identity”. Barkhuizen collects teachers’ thoughts from narrative interviews
conducted on seven students enrolled in a doctorate program in Colombia. The
author underlines recurrent themes from these conversations, such as care for
students, dynamism in the instruction, responsible behavior, and continuous
professional development, pointing out common topics of teachers’ qualities,
methodologies, commitment, and engagement. After detailing the interviewees’
personal backgrounds and characteristics, Barkhuizen synthesizes the
participants’ comments by means of a visual aid. Table 1, “Key identity themes
from teacher educators’ reflections” enables the reader to seize the essence
of the interviews at first sight (pp. 31-2). Finally, Section two incorporates
identity keywords in five categories: (1) “pedagogy” includes activities and
interactions in schools and informal settings where languages are taught,
while (2) “research” comprises individual and institutional inquiries to
reflect on teaching practices. (3) “Currency and development” involves
continuous updates of contents, methods, and policies, as well as standing
professional growth. (4) The “context” category embraces both macro levels of
regional, political, economic, and institutional domains, and micro levels of
one-on-one interventions, local partnerships, and more intimate collaborations
(Douglas Fir Group, 2016). Finally, (5) “political and moral stance” relates
to LTEs’ positions as socially responsible agents, who advocate for social
justice pedagogies.

In the third section Barkhuizen formulates the question, “What do language
teacher educators do?”.  He focuses on the construction of a professional
identity rooted in the learning process of “becoming” LTE and “doing” the
corresponding pedagogical work.  The author examines what language teachers
know, when they know how to teach, and how they develop professionally over
time, imbued in teaching practices in and out of the classroom. Clearly, the
transition is never linear or smooth, but rather conflicting and tense.
Schools and universities usually intersect in a “third space” (Williams, 2014)
and attempt to reconcile opposing interests, by building supportive
communities of practice, offering learning opportunities, and promoting
reflective activities. Above all, Barkhuizen underlines that the complex role
of LTEs requires a thorough and situated understanding to gain a more accurate
sense of their mentoring and supervising role, as well as the positive
interactions, learning experiences, and engagement with the community
provided. Section three resumes previous classification and conceptualizations
that help build the LTE professional identity, such as the varied roles and
types, current pedagogical information, professional training, and strong
liaison between theory and practice. Finally, it includes Figure 1 to show
major LTEs’ dimensions of pedagogy, research and scholarship, community
service, and leadership through four uneven sized circles that represent, “The
identity work of language teacher educators” (p. 48). 

Barkhuizen devotes the fourth section to “Further professional development of
language teacher educators.” Drawing from the previous narrative interviews,
the author identifies major reasons expressed by the interviewees for
continuing their professional development. Figure 2 illustrates, “Five types
of identity-related professional developments” (p. 63), based on personal,
academic, practice, research, and student orientations. While the
personal-focused development nurtures individual growth and increases cultural
and social capital, the academic-focused development leads towards theoretical
aspects of teacher education; and while educators who are more interested in
pedagogical aspects and curriculum design are prone to practice-focused
development, those willing to investigate, get published, and pursue
scholastic goals are inclined to research-focused development.  Finally, the
student-focused development specially attracts those who are highly motivated
in improving pre-service teaching preparation. Moreover, the author reminds us
that the various types of identity-professional developments are equally
stained by emotional components and high expectations, as well as economic and
intellectual investment, all of which help strengthen the LTE’s identity
construction (Norton, 2013). 

In the last section Barkhuizen considers, “Future research on language teacher
educator identity”.  Based on the highlighted findings of the previous
sections, the author knowledgeably departs from fixed and universal models and
offers instead a more integral conceptualization of the professional identity.
He formulates specific questions addressing beginning language teacher
educators and more general issues, focusing on pedagogy, research, service,
and leadership at institutional and community levels.  Barkhuizen highlights
the difficult task of defining LTEs identities, as so many factors are at
play. Among them, he considers the broad variability given by the professional
preparation, years of experience, and language proficiency levels. For
example, LTEs with previous classroom experience usually get more easily
involved in teaching strategies and students’ lives, while those who have read
about educational techniques and methods in books are more inclined to further
reflection and theoretical connections. Likewise, some LTEs feel better
prepared to cope with unexpected and sudden curriculum changes, such as moving
to an on-line program or implementing a new assessment regime, while others
are more confident to become managers or hold administrative positions. The
resulting different attitudes, qualities, and behaviors bring about a more
varied composite construction of professional identity, which still demands
more investigation and further empirical and large-scale studies. Among
possible trends of research, the author suggests examining the changing LTE
identity that unfolds over time, in different spaces and languages, as well as
educators’ unique voices, self-perceptions, and sets of beliefs (Barkhuizen,
2017). 

EVALUATION

“Language Teacher Educator Identity” is a succinct book that sheds light on a
less explored continuum, from language teachers to LTEs, and on the consequent
formation of a new professional identity. To accomplish his purpose,
Barkhuizen traces a clear plan, moving from the essence of “being” a language
educator to “doing” the corresponding pedagogical work. Aligned with the
book’s premises, the author shows how the LTE identity is built on complex and
interconnected layers, combining individual and social variables, macro and
micro contexts, and temporal and spatial dimensions. Written in a direct and
unpresumptuous style, the book follows a logical sequence, explains capital
concepts that are repeated throughout the sections and supported by updated
references, and offers vivid examples, all of which make the book accessible
to lay and specialized audiences. Finally, the visuals offered in Table 1
(Section two, pp. 31-33), Figure 1 (Section three, p. 48), and Figure 2
(Section four, p. 63) facilitate the comprehension of abundant and sometimes
compacted information. 

Moreover, Barkhuizen interjects personal narratives to illustrate each
section. For example, he refers to his professional beginnings in “Starting to
teach” (pp. 7-8), and to his experience of teaching in a foreign country in
“Studying abroad” (pp. 16-17). He also recounts his zigzagging path, “From
University to High school to university” (pp. 37-38), and his new roles as
leader and researcher in “Learning about leadership” (pp. 54-55) and
“Developing a researcher identity” (pp. 72-73), respectively.  He also
mentions educational experiences in distant countries, such as Colombia, South
Africa, and New Zealand, which may attract educators from different parts of
the world. Above all, Barkhuizen contributes to the literature by emphasizing
less managed terms, such as investment and currency, which may bring further
discussion about LTEs’ economic benefits and affordability, moving beyond
well-known pedagogical issues, such as teachers’ attitudes, exemplary
behaviors, and social practices, among others.  

Although Barkhuizen clarifies that his booklet is not intended to elaborate on
the several theories and perspectives of identity, sometimes he gets trapped
in unnecessary entanglements, expanding, adding to, or relating two or more
sets of categories in new and redundant subsets. On other occasions, he leaves
substantial terms, such as “social justice” and “decolonial pedagogy”, without
further explanations or deeper conclusions.  It is also suggested that
Sections two and four could have been designed in a consecutive order, since
the two refer to the same LTEs and cover common pedagogical topics. While the
former reproduces parts of the narrative interviews, the latter examines
participants’ motivations.  Overall, the book offers many strengths to the
field and, therefore, it is recommended to researchers and practitioners
interested in deepening the understanding of the “being and doing, feeling and
imagining, and storytelling” (p. 69) of language teacher educators’ identity.

REFERENCES

Barkhuizen, G. (Ed.) (2017). “Reflections on Language Teacher Identity
Research” New York: Routledge.

Douglass Fir Group (2016). A transdisciplinary framework for SLA in a
multilingual world. “The Modern Language Journal”, 1000, 19-47. 

Freeman, D. (2016). “Educating Second Language Teachers”.  Oxford: Oxford
University Press. 

Norton, B. (2013). “Identity and language learning: Extending the
conversation”. 2nd edition. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Williams, J. (2014). Teacher educator professional learning in the third
space: Implications for identity and practice. “Journal of Teacher Education”,
65(4), 315-326.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Laura Dubcovsky is a retired instructor and supervisor from the Teacher
Education Program in the School of Education at the University of California,
Davis. With a Master’s in Education and a Ph. D in Spanish linguistics/with
special emphasis on second language acquisition, her interests tap topics of
language and bilingual education. She has taught bilingual teachers to use and
practice communicative and academic Spanish needed in bilingual classrooms for
more than ten years. She is currently helping with professional development
courses for bilingual teachers, interpreting in parent/teachers’ conferences,
and translating for several institutions, such as the Davis Joint Unified
School District, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, YoloArts in Woodland,
Davis Art Center, STEAC, and in the Zapotec Digital Project of Ticha. <br
/>Laura is a long-standing reviewer for the Linguistic list Serve and the
California Association of School -University Partnerships (CASUP), and she
also reviews articles for the Elementary School Journal, Journal of Latinos
and Education, Hispania, and Lenguas en Contexto. She published “Functions of
the verb decir (‘to say’) in the incipient academic Spanish writing of
bilingual children in Functions of Language, 15(2), 257-280 (2008) and the
chapter, “Desde California. Acerca de la narración en ámbitos bilingües” in
¿Cómo aprendemos y cómo enseñamos la narración oral? (2015). Rosario, Homo
Sapiens: 127- 133.





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