She Shuts Her English Channel in Her Brain: Racial and Linguistic Ordering during Kindergarten Practicums

Abstract

During their kindergarten placements, teacher candidates are learning to teach with young children who may be experiencing linguistic and racial hierarchies in a formal institutional setting for the first time. The purpose of this research is to understand how teacher candidates make sense of the socially constructed boundaries of language and race in their practicum placements in kindergarten classrooms. In our critically informed inquiry, we draw on translanguaging and LangCrit to understand the process of language teaching and learning in kindergarten classrooms. The three teacher candidates in this article, Yu, Fie, and Charlotte, took a required course on supporting multilingual students in the mainstream classroom as part of their requirement to become Primary/Junior (K–6) teachers and were interviewed on their experiences with multilingual children during their practicums. Four major themes were found in the data: language hierarchies during practicums, subverting language hierarchies, translanguaging with families, and racialized experiences of speaking Mandarin. Much more than other grade-level placements, kindergarten placements were spaces where the candidates witnessed communication break down, with families and children refusing to speak English.