Investigating Critical Emotional Reflexivity Within ESL and Bilingual Teacher Preparation

ABSTRACT In this study, we explore critical emotional reflexivity (CER) and draw upon data from our implementation of “language portrait” and “language ideology tree” activities with elementary school bilingual and ESL teacher candidates (TCs) in an ESL teaching methods class ( N = 23) at a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). Through multimodal critical discourse analysis, we study how TCs identify and discuss (a) the relationship between language ideologies and emotions and (b) the implications of that relationship for their identities as teachers of ethnoracially and linguistically diverse students in the US public schools. We found that TCs enacted CER as tension, resistance, and awareness, informed by their positionalities and linguistic histories. Emotions served as agentive resources through which TCs theorized the relationship between ideology, emotion, and identity, and theorization served as a form of CER. Collectively, our findings demonstrate deep student engagement when intentionally integrating CER in teacher education practices by both teacher educators and TCs.