Bilingual Education: Using a Virtual Guest Speaker and Online Discussion to Expand Latino Preservice Teachers' Consciousness (Research) (Report‪)‬

For Latinos who teach language minority children, pedagogical effectiveness depends on a positive self-esteem related to their ethnic identity and self-concept (Wood, 1991). Teacher preparation programs must show them the value of cultural knowledge and provide them with skills to enhance their future students' ethnic identities and academic improvement (Clark & Flores, 2001). In today's sociopolitical climate in the United States, nativist anti-immigrant movements drive the marginalization and disempowerment of Latino school-children (Leistyna, 2002). Latino teachers need more than a shared ethnicity with their students to help them develop their full potential (Berta-Avila, 2004). Bilingual educators and proponents of dual language programs must understand the often camoflaged hegemonic ideological motives behind most organized opposition to bilingual education (Cardinale, et al, 1998).