front cover of Interrogating Privilege
Interrogating Privilege
Reflections of a Second Language Educator
Stephanie Vandrick
University of Michigan Press, 2013

Interrogating Privilege is a welcome combination of personal essays and academic research, blending theory, analysis, and narrative to explore the function and consequences of privilege in second language education.

While teachers’ focus on the learning process and class goals are quite important, there is not enough attention paid to the types of privilege—or lack thereof—that individuals bring to the classroom.  Through chapters that can either stand alone or be read together, with topics such as gender, age, and colonialism (the author is the daughter of missionary parents) in second language teaching, this book seeks to address the experiences of teachers, scholars, and students as “whole persons” and to observe the workings of identity and privilege in the educational setting.

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front cover of Narrating Their Lives
Narrating Their Lives
Examining English Language Teachers' Professional Identities within the Classroom
Edited by Lia Kamhi-Stein
University of Michigan Press, 2013

“…a groundbreaking book that will…engage, inform, and connect with present and future teachers and teacher educators.”                 

---Stephanie Vandrick, Foreword to Narrating Their Lives

The field of TESOL has called attention to the ways that the issues of race and ethnicity, language status and power, and cultural background affect second language learners’ identities and, to some degree, those of teachers. In Narrating Their Lives, Kamhi-Stein examines the process of identity construction of classroom teachers so as to make connections between their personal and professional identities and their instructional practices. To do that, she has selected six autobiographical narratives from teachers who were once part of her TESL 570 (Educational Sociolinguistics) class in the MA TESOL program at California State University, Los Angeles. These six narratives cover a surprisingly wide range of identity issues but also touch on broader instructional themes that are part of teacher education programs.

Because of the reflective nature of the narratives—with the teachers using their stories to better understand how their experiences shape what they do in the classroom—this volume includes provocative chapter-opening and reflective chapter-closing questions. An informative discussion of the autobiographical narrative assignment and the TESL 570 course (including supplemental course readings and assessment criteria) is also included.

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