A Transformational Bilingual Model for Teacher Education.

At San Diego State University, the training program for bilingual education teachers was developed to systematically accommodate changing needs in education, particularly the needs to educate students with academic proficiency in both Spanish and English and to have a multicultural perspective. The emerging teacher education model empowers prospective teachers to effect positive change by helping them understand how meaning is established in human systems in the immediate context and over time. One strategy for driving systematic change involves peeling back successive layers of political and cultural factors surrounding the system's core value structure. For example, teachers must learn to give clear explanations in Spanish through understanding of the cultural and political context of the explanation and appropriate vocabulary. A central goal of the program is to develop self-directed learning, and prospective teauhers are exposed to teaching strategies that give them flexibility in classroom practice. (MSE) *****A***************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * *********************************************************************** A Transformational Bilingual Model for Teacher Education "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATE AL HAS BEES GRANTED BY Phil Moheno Richard Pacheco TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES Department of Policy Studies in Language INFORMATION CENTER (ERICV and Cross-Cultural Education San Diego State University U.S. DEPARTMENT O EDUCATION Offoce of EducillOnal Rematch and IN/lover EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMA1 CENTER (ERIC) 14 This document hes boon reproducee received from the person or organize originating it 0 Minor changes have been made to impr reproduction qualify Poirus of view or opinions slated in this dc merit do not necestramy represent cliff OERI position or policy Meeting the needs of an increasingly multicultural student population in America requires that we train teachers with a well . developed multicultural consciousness who are able to educate effectively within educational organizations. Traditionally, teacher education programs strive to give prospective teachers fundamental understanding of both the principles of educational psychology and the principles which govern educational institutions. The transformation of our schools to meet the future challenges of a changing America requires that our professional educators understand the interplay between the educational requirements of the students and the socia/ responding patterns of the institution. Training teachers for the challenges inherent in creating future-oriented schools serving multicultural student populations requires developing models of teacher education which prepare competent teaching professionals who are also able to effect positive transformations of our schools. One such model is emerging from San Diego State's Bilingual Teacher Preparation Program. The program was initiated in response to the need to serve the growing bilingual student population in California. As such, an ongoing process of transforming the traditional teacher education curriculum to an appropriate bilingual teacher education curriculum was developed in order to advance th:, goal of educating students with academic level proficiency in both Spanish and English. The commitment 00 of both the students and the instructing professors to this goal generates the momentum needed to meet the numerous curricular challenges.