Advocacy in English Language Teaching and Learning

Heather A. Linville, James Whiting, Heather A. Linville, James Whiting

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781351036641
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica generale

Appropriate for those new to the topic and established scholars, this holistic text examines the nexus of advocacy and English-language teaching, beginning with theories of advocacy, covering constraints and challenges in practice, and offering a range of hands-on perspectives in different contexts and with different populations. Bringing together wide-ranging and diverse viewpoints in TESOL, this volume examines the role of advocacy through a social justice lens in a range of contexts, including K-12 classrooms and schools, adult and higher education settings, families and communities, and teacher-education programs and professional organizations. Advocacy in English Language Teaching and Learning offers readers a deeper understanding of what advocacy is and can be, and gives teacher candidates and educators the tools to advocate for their students, their families and communities, and their profession.

PART I

Overview of Advocacy

1

ADVOCACY SKILLS FOR TEACHERS

“A Real Careful Little Dance”

Heather A. Linville

Ample literature documents the need for ESOL teachers to include advocacy in their professional role (i.e. Athanases & de Oliveira, 2008; Lucas & Villegas, 2011; Staehr Fenner, 2014). English learners (ELs) are often marginalized in schools and seen as a problematic population rather than valued for the linguistic diversity they bring to the classroom (Ballantyne, Sanderman, & Levy, 2008; García & Kleifgen, 2010; Maxwell-Jolly & Gándara, 2002; Orfield & Lee, 2006; Pettit, 2011; Reeves, 2006). ESOL teachers tend to believe advocacy is an important part of their role as teachers (Linville, 2015) and they have been found to focus on the advocacy role more than their general education colleagues (Pawan & Craig, 2011). They are often also expected to come into the profession with the disposition to speak up for ELs in their schools (Staehr Fenner, 2014) and, more and more, to collaborate with and educate their general education teacher colleagues (Teemant & Giraldo, 2000).

The TESOL standards for preparing ESOL teachers codify the advocacy role, stating,

In order to engage fully as professionals, ESOL teacher candidates must be grounded in the historical and theoretical foundations of the field, committed to continue to learn through reflective practice and classroom inquiry, and able and willing to contribute to the professional development of their colleagues and actively serve as advocates for their ESOL students.

(TESOL, 2010, p. 20, italics added)

In spite of this professional focus on advocacy, little literature explores and documents how advocacy can and should take place, and the skills needed for this work. In this chapter, I present findings from a study in which I explored ESOL teachers’ advocacy skills and how they developed.

Literature Review

I define advocacy as noticing ways ELs’ educational success is challenged and then taking action with the goal of improving their educational experiences and outcomes, and life chances. I use the following framework (Linville, 2014; Figure 1.1) to show how ESOL teachers may advocate for ELs, EL families, or themselves as professionals.

While all are important, ELs take prominence, at the top of the triangle and in this research. The framework also highlights how an ESOL teacher may advocate with different stakeholders, in the arrow crossing the triangle. The location of these potential co-advocates signifies with whom advocacy is more likely (ELs themselves, EL families, general education teachers, administrators), located within the triangle, and those with whom advocacy is less likely (community leaders, and local or national policymakers), more outside the triangle.

FIGURE 1.1 Advocacy framework

As ESOL teachers transverse the arrow of advocacy, working with different stakeholders at different times and with different goals, there is little doubt that collaboration skills are essential to their work (Christison & Lindahl, 2009; Fiedler, 2000; Forhan & Scheraga, 2000; Staehr Fenner, 2014). Staehr Fenner (2014) calls these the “soft skills,” and points to the importance of respecting content teachers’ expertise, showing empathy for content teachers, identifying those open to working with ELs, showing rather than telling, not taking negative comments personally, and beginning advocacy efforts slowly (pp. 74–78). Fiedler (2000), from the field of special education, also highlights “collaboration dispositions” that are necessary, including empathy, sensitivity to others’ perspectives, and a willingness to learn from others, take criticisms, and take risks (pp. 153–155).

In order to collaborate successfully, ESOL teachers also need to be skilled communicators. Fiedler (2000) notes,

The likelihood of experiencing a successful advocacy outcome. . .will be significantly dependent on the quality of the interpersonal interactions each advocate establishes. . .Further, the quality of those interpersonal interactions will be almost totally dependent on each advocate’s effective use of interpersonal communication skills.

(p. 130)

For Fiedler (2000), these interpersonal communication skills include verbal communication skills, such as “door-opening statements,” and nonverbal communication skills, such as using a soft voice when making sensitive points. He also highlights the importance of influencing skills, such as offering assistance with suggestions over directives (pp. 140–143).

The literature also suggests that knowledge is an important advocacy component (Forhan & Scheraga, 2000). Athanases and de Oliveira (2008) find, at the macro-level, teachers need knowledge of the structural reasons for inequity and have the ability to critique them, while at the micro-level, teachers need political and organizational literacy to improve conflict negotiation skills and create effective change strategies. They also highlight the importance of collaboration: “ . . .effective acts of advocacy follow a pathway of skillful assessment of a problem or challenge of equitable access, conviction to act, organizational and political literacy to know how to intercede, and an awareness that this cannot be done alone” (Athanases & de Oliveira, 2008, p. 99). Cloud, Genesee, and Hamayan (2000) encourage what they call strategic advocacy; identifying stakeholders, their potential issues, and why they may be resistant to change, and then targeting different advocacy actions to each stakeholder as is most appropriate. Fiedler (2000) also identifies some of these same skills: the ability to organize, building a broad base of support for advocacy, being flexible and “opportunistic,” having a concise and compelling message when advocating, taking into account others’ perspectives, building trust, and never burning bridges (p. 196). Thus, the literature highlights collaboration, communication, knowledge, and strategic advocacy as the skills needed for advocacy.

Methodology

This study adds to the available research by documenting the advocacy skills used by in-service teachers and identifying how they developed those skills. This research answers two questions:

1. What skills do in-service ESOL teachers use to advocate for ELs?

2. In what ways have in-service ESOL teachers developed these advocacy skills?

I conducted semi-structured, narrative interviews with 15 in-service ESOL teachers from five school districts in one Mid-Atlantic U.S. state. I first sent a survey on teacher advocacy in which teachers indicated their willingness to be interviewed. Using the survey results to determine the interview sample, I endeavored to obtain the “richest possible data” (Lofland, Snow, Anderson, & Lofland, 2006, p. 15) and achieve maximum variation of advocacy viewpoints. As seen in Table 1.1, the participants were diverse in school district, age, professional experience, gender, and race.

The interview included numerous questions, but here I focus on the stories the ESOL teachers told me in response to the question, “Can you tell me a story about a time that advocacy for ELs was needed?” Through the interview process, I began to notice the teachers implicitly and explicitly referring to the skills that they used to advocate. I thus later added a question, asking ten of the teachers some variation of, “How did you learn the skills of advocating?”

The recorded interview data was transcribed and analyzed using a constant comparative and grounded theory approach (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Reason, 1981, as discussed in Davis, 1995). Finally, the data results were analyzed to generate a holistic picture of how advocacy beliefs and skills are developed in in-service ESOL teachers, and how these skills are used.

Results

Similar to the literature review, I found collaboration, communication skills, and using knowledge significant in the interviewed ESOL teachers’ advocacy. However, their stories also revealed overarching themes of awareness of and purposeful relationship building and maintenance, and challenges in this work. They also shared how they developed their advocacy skills.

Advocacy Skills

TABLE 1.1 Interview participants (n=15)

^*Best estimates based on interview responses.

ESOL teachers, by the nature of their role, collaborate with a wide range of others in their schools and beyond. As one of the teachers, Belinda, noted, you have to “hav[e] your fingers in all the pots to make sure somebody knows what’s going on with the kids and with the teachers and everybody’s on the same page.” It is through this collaboration that advocacy can take root. Therefore, relationship building and maintaining skills are essential to the work of ESOL teacher advocacy.

Establishing relationships. Some teachers noted the importance of getting to know general education colleagues, ideally at the beginning of the school year. Julie highlighted the importance of face-to-face contact in establishing relationships, stating, “Usually what I try to do, especially in the beginning of the year, is I try to feel out teachers and how comfortable they are with having [EL] students.” Lorelei was also able to figure out teachers who “get it” in her first year teaching, in other words, those whom she would be able to count on as co-advocates. Other teachers also assessed their colleagues’ general stance towards ELs as a guide for their advocacy actions, but as Janette, another first-year teacher recognized, “It does take a while to build a relationship.” Georgia concurred: “The first couple of years I didn’t say much about anything because every school really operates differently, and I think you kind of have to learn the climate of the school and the teachers. . .And then, you know, then I just kind of started thinking, ‘This is your job, you need to do this. You need to.’ You know. And I just started doing it.”

Challenges in establishing relationships. Another first-year ESOL teacher in this study, Lisa, seemed to struggle with this skill:

As an ESOL teacher, it’s very difficult to create that collaboration type of mode that would be ideal. Unless you start out the year finding, kind of defining your boundaries and finding out what the teacher is like, pretty soon, that teacher will just do it her way and you have to be very careful . . . Of course, we have our mutual interest in the kids’ success. So if there’s a particular skill or concept, then I can, if I can be proactive about it, I can say, “Oh, yeah. We can use this strategy.” But I can’t really interfere when she’s, when the machine is already in motion.

She recognized the need to establish relationships at the beginning of the year, but her story indicated she learned this after the fact when it was too late. She lamented, “You really need to come prepared and armed to know how to collaborate with the teachers.” For her, more structure with the collaboration model would help: “It would be nice, the more systems there are in place. There aren’t so many systems in place in terms of how we, how we, how do you collaborate with other teachers.” Establishing relationships was particularly challenging for this teacher, and it appeared she was not prepared for this essential skill.

Maintaining relationships. The ESOL teachers worked hard to cultivate relationships with other teachers, staff, and administrators in their buildings, and then took care not to harm those relationships. Georgia highlighted this importance, saying, “I have to work with everyone so I don’t want to put anyone off. . . I don’t ever want to be shut out because I never know if one of my [EL] students is going to get that teacher.” These ESOL teachers skillfully maintained their relationships in several ways.

Interpersonal communication skills. For some teachers, relationship maintenance took the form of careful communication. Rebecca explained, “As the ESOL teacher who shares students with every teacher, I try to say ‘our’ a lot. And just make it a team effort as much as possible.” She additionally used a soft voice when recounting how she said to a general education teacher, “[An EL] needs for you to talk slower in class.” Josh’s voice also became quieter and gentler when recounting a conversation with a general education teacher: “So, please, if you can, please, try to apply these [strategies] in your class because I think they’ll help.” He skillfully used “please” and hedging language because, as he noted, “just your choice of wording. . .can make or break the situation.” For Josh, advocating with colleagues meant doing “a real careful little dance” and avoiding “burning any bridges.” Lorelei, similarly, mentioned having to “just bite her tongue” rather than speaking up and damaging a collegial relationship.

Paying attention to context. The teachers also spoke of evaluating their teaching context and making strategic decisions how to best advocate within them, for example, speaking with teachers one-on-one or in a group, depending on the situation. Belinda mentioned that “knowing how to deal with each teacher’s personality” was important, explaining, “Okay, this teacher I’m not going to talk to in the afternoon because that’s not the right time. But if I get them first thing in the morning, we have a chance.” Josh, on the other hand, used his awareness of the number of ELs in his school to advocate, noting, “The idea of somebody being in a special program is not going to be at all foreign here.” Administrator support, or lack of it, was also important in the evaluation of the context.

Empathy. Empathy and understanding others’ points of view were another collaborative skill salient for the teachers. They sympathized with challenges their colleagues face, such as having many students, and potentially many ELs, in the data-driven environment of schools today. Josh in particular noted, he would “put myself in their shoes,” imagining how it would feel, for example, to have an observation coming up and receiving a new low-level EL in his classroom. He asked himself, “How are they going to feel and what can I do to help them deal with that?” Josh’s empathy also extended to his decision to keep things “informal” with his colleagues. He explained,

I know some teachers, I think, really, like...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Foreword By Ester De Jong
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Part I Overview of Advocacy
• Part II Preparing Teacher Advocates
• Part III Advocacy in Action
• Part IV Advocating With Specific El Populations
• Notes on Contributors
• Index