A book chapter that exemplifies how DLC can be employed in teachers’ continuous professional development and be performed as an educational practice in multilingual classrooms has been submitted to an edited volume with Springer. You can get a peek of the chapter content through the reference, the abstract, and the extracts provided below.
REFERENCE
Xu, Y., & Krulatz, A. (submitted). Employing Dominant Language Constellation in CPD: The Impact on EAL Teachers’ Beliefs, Practices and Multilingual Identity. In Cirocki, A., Farrelly, R., & Buchanan, H. (Eds.), Continuing professional development for TESOL practitioners: A global landscape. Springer.
ABSTRACT
While the numbers of multilingual students in classrooms around the world are on the increase, research suggests that teachers of English as an additional language (EAL) feel insufficiently prepared to work with linguistically diverse learners. Consequently, there have been calls for more focus on diversity and multilingualism in teachers’ continuing professional development (CPD). This chapter presents a CPD project that utilized the construct of dominant language constellation (DLC) and employed DLC as an approach in order to investigate the impact of the CPD on three EAL teachers’ beliefs, multilingual teaching practices (MTPs), and multilingual identity. The data consisted of the following CPD activities: 1) Discussion of teacher’s own linguistic repertoire (pre-interview), 2) Teacher reflection on their own DLC (1st CPD workshop), 3) Group discussion about implementation of a DLC-focused lesson (2nd workshop), 4) DLC lesson planning and delivery, and 5) Individual reflection on the DLC lessons (post-interview). By illustrating how the language awareness, the teaching competence, and the multilingual identity of the three teachers became enhanced, the authors argue that DLC is a tangible CPD model that can alter teachers’ beliefs towards the students’ use of home languages (HLs), enrich MTPs, and enact teachers’ and students’ multilingual identity to forge the multilingual turn in EAL education.
EXTRACTS
1. An Overview of DLC-focused CPD Practices
| CPD Practice | Focus | Period |
| Individual teacher interview (Pre-interview) | Teachers’ reflections on working in the EAL context | October-November, 2020 |
| 1st DLC-focused workshop | Teachers reflect on their own DLCs | December, 2020 |
| 2nd DLC-focused workshop | Teachers discuss implementation of the DLC-focused lesson | January,2021 |
| Researcher-teacher collaborating on DLC lesson planning and delivery | The researcher and the teacher co-plan and co-conduct the DLC lessons | March-May, 2021 |
| Individual teacher interview (Post-interview) | Teachers reflect on the conducted DLC lessons | After the DLC lesson |
2. At the DLC-focused workshops:
Figure 1: Teachers’ drawings of their DLCs as a manifestation of their multilingual identity
3. During the DLC lessons:
Figure 1. Teacher shares her DLC and explains DLC to the students (see Gallery)
Figure 2: Students’ DLC products as demonstrations of the affirmed multilingual identity (see images on this page)