Developing Linguistically Responsive Teachers: Learning through Latino/a Student Stories

To develop dispositions essential to linguistically responsive teaching (Lucas & Villegas, 2011), preservice teachers need opportunities to engage in reflection and dialogue about the sociocultural and sociopolitical dimensions of identity, language and culture pertinent to Latino/a English language learners. In this article, we present two profiles of linguistically diverse students, highlighting linguistic and cultural elements present in their stories. These profiles of individual English language learners are useful because they personalize the experiences of students and they bring questions and themes relevant to linguistic diversity into the teacher education curriculum. We argue that profiles of students, either presented to preservice teachers in classes or developed as a result of field experiences can help preservice teachers to better understand linguistically diverse students and to develop orientations conducive to meeting the needs of these students.