Classroom Caffeine
Classroom Caffeine
A Conversation with Mark Pacheco
Dr. Mark Pacheco talks to us about valuing language and creating language-rich classrooms, how we can support emerging bilingual students in their literacy development, and home language as an essential part of identity. Mark is known for his work in language and literacy practices of emerging bilingual students and how teachers can support these practices. Dr. Pacheco is an Assistant Professor of ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) and Bilingual Education at the University of Florida.
To cite this episode:
Persohn, L. (Host). (2021, Apr. 20). A conversation with Mark Pacheco. (Season 1, No. 23) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/9A25-447F-E120-B7D4-0D20-9
Connect with Classroom Caffeine at www.classroomcaffeine.com or on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Education Research has a problem. The work of brilliant education researchers often doesn't reach the practice of brilliant teachers. Classroom caffeine is here to help. Each week, I invite a top education researcher to sit down and talk with teachers about what they have learned from years of study. This week, Dr. Mark Pacheco talks to us about valuing language and creating language rich classrooms, how we can support emerging bilingual students and their literacy development, and home language as an essential part of identity. Mark is known for his work and language and literacy practices of emerging bilingual students, and how teachers can support these practices. Dr. Pacheco is an assistant professor of English for Speakers of Other Languages and bilingual education at the University of Florida. For more information about our guest, stay tuned to the end of this episode. So pour a cup of your favorite morning drink. And join me your host, Lindsay Persohn. For classroom caffeine research to energize your teaching practice. Mark, thank you for joining me. Welcome to the show.
Mark Pacheco:Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Lindsay Persohn:So Mark, from your own experiences and education, will you share with us one or two moments that inform your thinking now?
Mark Pacheco:Sure. It's funny, I was thinking a little bit about this. And a critical moment for me actually came when I wasn't working in education. It was right after college, I was in Washington, DC. And I was working as a host in a restaurant and I was taking the bus to work. And a guy sat next to me started, we started chatting, I'm kind of a chatty person. So he started talking to me and asking what I was doing. I was like, Well, I'm going to work. And I said, at this restaurant, I said, but I'm just a host, you know, I wasn't quite a waiter, I wasn't even a busboy. I was just a host. And he made a comment. He's like, you're not just a host, you have a chance to make somebody's evening wonderful. And it kind of stuck with me for that night, you know, greeting customers as they came in and smiling. And then when I did start teaching, I was a high school teacher in New York City, it made me realize the importance of oftentimes we think of ourselves as Oh, today, I'm just explaining an assignment, or we're just talking about these vocabulary words. And you realize, now your role is so much more as a teacher. You're not just talking about vocabulary, maybe you're investigating an important issue in students lives in vocabulary words are the tools that you're going to use to help investigate that issue. Right? Or, you know, that moment before you enter into a class and students enter into a classroom and you greet them at the door. It's, it's not just saying hi, and seeing who's there, but like, you're really setting the tone for your classroom. So I like that idea of like, know, you're not just a host, or you're not just setting vocabulary, or you're not just doing like a reading comprehension story, you're you're really taking time and using your abilities to possibly really improve somebody's life, including your own and the process. I think it certainly changed the way I thought about my role as a host. And it certainly changed the way I thought of myself as a teacher in the classroom. A second experience I had was when I was doing my dissertation work. I was lucky enough to work with two really, really fantastic elementary school teachers in the southeast. In these teachers were trying to figure out how can we include students home languages, or heritage languages in the classroom, the students were emergent bilinguals. And the teachers were grappling with this project over the course of the year. And I was working with a third grade teacher. And they were in small group reading instruction. And they came across a passage in this book, just a seed, which is one of these kinds of informational texts that you might read in a guided reading. And the student was stuck. And she said to that student, Oh, it's okay. You can say it in Spanish. And he kind of paused, sat straight up in his chair and said, No, I want to say it in English. And for me, that was kind of a really eye opening moment where I realized hey, what are we asking students to do with their home languages? For example, are we are we only asking them to use these languages as a crutch? You know, when they don't understand something in English? Are we only asking them to use Spanish? for example, when we're setting them apart from their classmates, or it's something that shows, hey, I don't really understand what's going on. So I need to use Spanish. So for me, I had a conversation with the teacher afterwards, we kind of came to this realization, like, Wow, there's so many times when we position students to use these really rich tools, but to use them in a way that's like you're a novice, or you don't know something, or you're not a full member of the classroom community. So it made me think, wow, what would happen if we asked students to use their home languages in the classroom in a way that really showed their expertise, or showed that wow, like, I have something that my classmates might not have, that really sets me apart from a position of strength rather than a position of deficiency. So those two kinds of moments, I think, really resonated with me, you know,
Lindsay Persohn:I was struck by the way, mark that both of those stories contained the word just in a pretty direct manner, even thinking just a seed. I think sometimes that we don't we don't realize the power of ourselves to kind of extend your first remark. But we are in a lot of ways we are seeds, we are ready to bloom. And I think that that point of encouraging teachers to really question, you know, what, are we truly using a student's heritage language for? What are they doing with that? And I know, just in that one anecdote, it really changes the way I think about that. And I think it it causes us to be just a little bit more critical about how we're looking at those, how we're positioning students in their own learning journey. Right? Are we just sort of saying, yeah, just rely on this for a while until you sometimes the implication is until you can get it right in English? Yeah. Right. So that's, I think that that's a really powerful, powerful couple of stories you shared there with us. Yeah. Yeah. So Mark, what would you like teachers to know about your research?
Unknown:So I think this kind of builds on these last couple points that I made about different formative educational experiences for me. I think that so my research focuses specifically on how teachers and students can recognize build on, leverage, honor the many different resources that students bring to classrooms, including their home languages. So my own education in college, I went to a Jesuit University. And I grew up Catholic, and I'm still Catholic. And it's a huge part of my identity. And one of the philosophies in that tradition is it's called cura personalis, where education addresses the whole person. It's not just thinking about, okay, how can we use your language to, you know, get at learning new vocabulary, for example, it's, wow, I want to approach you as the student as this multifaceted, rich, powerful, individual, and I'm only seeing one small speck of who you are, and there's so much more to you, in the language is such an important part of our identity. It's such an important or integral part of that whole person. So again, I think it goes along with that work of like, hey, when we're doing language work in the classroom, when we do position students to use their home languages, we're doing person work, right? We're doing identity work. It's not just about this little thing called language. It's about working with something that's so critical to our identities. I've been in a situation. It's funny, I have an older sister, that's a very much a, I guess, you'd call her a grammarian, you know, and I, I don't have the best grammar, especially when I get angry, or if I'm being emotional. And she'll correct me. And I just know that feeling of like, oh, feeling totally shut down when my language isn't valued for whatever reason. I remember giving a public I was public speaking when I was in college, and actually my brother was there. And when I public speak, my Boston accent sometimes comes out. And my older brother said, like, why were you talking like that? And I was just so shocked that like, oh my gosh, like there might be something different or odd about the language that I use. And it really kind of hit home. It sat with me it it made me uncomfortable. It made me feel not welcome. So I think about that with the students that I work with. Yeah, language isn't just this tool, right or isn't just as resource that they're using. Language is something that's fundamental to our identities. So when we're working with emergent bilingual students, wow, we're working with language mean, meaning we're working with students lives and who they are.
Lindsay Persohn:That actually makes me think of a colleague of mine, Patrick and Smith who talks a lot about translanguaging. And and what that means and language as a part of of identity. I was actually listening to a podcast episode this morning that she did, but but this idea of of valuing where students come from through their use of language, I do think that, at least in my own experience in schools, that is so often a fundamental part of a kid's identity that we are quick to dismiss. Yep. Yeah, that's cool. Because we want them to conform to the Eurocentric view of what language should sound like.
Mark Pacheco:Yeah, yeah. And I think that that idea of, like, we, as teachers, we, as researchers want certain things to happen. Like, it should be like this. But it's so valuable when we can get the student perspectives, right, like, well, you know, that that student when I was doing that work, you know, in that third grade classroom, he did not want to use a language other than English, right? So it pushed me to really investigate Oh, why? What about the classroom spaces like shutting down this possibly, really important aspect of the student's identity? Because he certainly wants to use languages other than English and other aspects of his life. So what about the classroom is preventing that from happening? So I think you know, getting student perspectives is unbelievably valuable when you're when you are doing language or identity work in the classroom.
Lindsay Persohn:I'd love to hear a little bit more about that Mark, what what was the student's response to that question, or that bit of prodding as to why he was he wanted to really just use the English words.
Mark Pacheco:So it was one of these moments that we didn't have the luxury of going back and interviewing the student, I wish I could have done that. And that work, as I kind of talked about before, like he just flat out said, I want to say it in English. And then when talking with the teacher, afterwards, we were able to look back at the different examples, the different things she was doing in the classroom. And it was positioning home language as a crutch, or an over and over again, there were other examples where there'd be a whole group discussion in over the course of the year, that student other students did start to feel more and more comfortable using languages other than English, in the classroom space. I have a colleague, Shannon Daniel, at Vanderbilt at Vanderbilt, who's done some interesting work thinking about translanguaging as becoming a classroom norm, right? So that moment where, hey, you ask a kid to say something in Spanish, they're like, Oh, that's weird, that's gonna make me look different from my friends. Well, yeah, that's probably what's gonna happen if that's the first time that you ask students to bring part of their identity and who they are into a classroom space that's not traditionally welcoming of these identities. But over time, with, you know, words on the wall and other languages, doing morning meeting and talking about other languages, finding opportunities to invite people from the community into the classroom, that speak other languages, I think that, in some ways normalizes or says, Hey, this is a translanguaging space. And the way I think about language is that it relates to you know, who we are. And it also relates to the context in which we use languages. So if you can make the classroom, a translanguaging space that's going to encourage translanguaging pedagogies.
Lindsay Persohn:this idea of recognizing our students for the whole person they are, it comes up again and again, in the conversations I have. And of course, it comes up when you know, no matter what the person's area of expertise is, no matter how long they've been been doing education researcher or how much time they've spent in a classroom, the same messages, come come back again and again. And I think it could be helpful if, if we might be able to offer teachers a way to, to enact some of these things today, or tomorrow, you know, how do we begin to build that kind of culture in our classrooms, and I know that, you know, I always love teaching because you have this opportunity to sort of reinvent who you are and how you do things each year. But I think that there's even more of a sense of urgency than that this can't be something that we decide we're going to start next school year. But you know, how how do we really get to these things today? How do we you know, how do we plan to to create this kind of environment where students feel welcome to use their home language and welcome really to enrich the classroom with their their home language, within classroom spaces and any ideas on that? That we could share with listeners?
Mark Pacheco:Yeah, I think that. First of all, I think it's a huge question that I think lots of folks are struggling with right now. Because we know, we know from the literature, for example, all of the different different types of benefits, right? Whether it's academic, social, linguistic, like when we do have opportunities to use our home languages, or to like juxtapose languages next to each other and make comparisons, for example, the thing that resonates with me and what resonated with me as a teacher, I think were some just like very practical approaches to doing this, like a few really good strategies to use not necessarily like a checklist, or like, hey, just go do this tomorrow, and it's gonna work. But I think the field is still trying to develop, like what might be like a really great instructional approach that makes use of students, home languages, and a literacy classroom. So Bob Jimenez, for example, has developed a great approach with using translation with students where you know, you read a text in English, then you, the teacher might choose a really interesting line of that text. And then ask the students to translate that line into their home language. And then after doing that, the teacher can ask questions about the translation, the teacher can compare that translation with the students with another translation in the classroom. And it raises all these interesting questions about language like, why did you choose that word, or I noticed, you know that, that in Spanish, you put the noun before the adjective, but in English, we do something a little bit different. So it gives us opportunities to talk about language in a very complex way, we oftentimes it's really hard to get eighth graders to talk about grammar, but it allows them to do that. And then it raises really interesting discussions about character or theme or other important literary elements. We've done this activity with, also with students that don't speak a language other than English, and we say, okay, so Juliet is on the balcony, and she says, Wherefore art thou Romeo? Right? Well, what would happen if Juliet texted that line? Right? And then they put that line into text speak, and it becomes this discussion of like, I mean, maybe it's some of our more literary leaning listeners, you know, wherefore it doesn't mean where are you Romeo? It means Why are you Romeo? Right? So it might raise a discussion about that, and then some of the central themes or conflicts in that play. So I think just really kind of like practical, like pedagogy is like that could be helpful. But the thing that I learned, I think, above all, I think, from doing my dissertation work, from the work that I'm doing now, if we want to include students, home languages, in classrooms, if we want to value home languages, we have to value language in general. So when I was doing my dissertation work, I was like, wow, like, you know, students aren't getting their very many opportunities to speak in Arabic, for example. And then I realized, holy cow, students aren't getting very many opportunities to speak in general. Right? So I think creating a classroom that's rich, in in student language production is is so valuable for starting to think about, okay, then, once they're using language, how do I bring in other languages? And then it pushes you to think about like, you know, with this assignment, what am I asking students to talk about? Are they just repeating back something to me? Are they just giving the answer in the textbook? Or are they having opportunities to discuss, to negotiate to make meaning? And I think, once that's our goal making meaning, then we can think about, okay, they could use English to do that they could use Arabic, they could use Spanish. I think that's kind of a long winded answer. But um, I think the short summary would be, if we want to include languages other than English, we have to value student language use in general.
Lindsay Persohn:Thank you for that mark, a term that keeps coming back to my mind, a pretty concrete term is this idea of word consciousness. And I know whenever we talk about vocabulary in some of my classes, my students are a little bit surprised that word consciousness is something that you might actually explicitly you know, teach and expect in your own classroom. But I think that a lot of these concepts we can we can tie back to the idea of word consciousness and just sort of raise the awareness of everyone in the room that words function differently. We We use them in different contexts. And I even think it could be really neat to ask your students who have a home language other than English, if they could maybe highlight some of the words in their home language that don't translate, how about some words that we can't find the words for in English. And that would be a really exciting writing activity, I think to give your you know, give all of your students this menu of options. So if you can't find the word in English, maybe there's a word in another language you could use. And I'm, you know, thinking about how we can get everyone engaged in this idea of noticing words, understanding the richness and complexity that comes with them. Because I think that then it can help us to elevate the idea of language, being a part of our identity being a part of our identity, not just as people but also as learners, as writers as readers. So I think that could be fun.
Mark Pacheco:I think that's right on, I think that one of the things I love about that example is that, it it makes me realize it's not just like emergent bilinguals, right? It's like everybody, you know, language is part of all of our lives. But it's, we don't necessarily realize the extent to which it is part of our lives. You know, it's like the, the two fishes the two little fish swimming, right. And then an older fish swims by and says, Hey, you know, Hey, young uns, how's the water? And then the little fish says, What the heck is water? Right? Like, we don't realize that we're in this really like, rich environment, we just kind of take it for granted. I remember driving with my parents in the car, I was a little kid. And they were talking about the windshield. And I was like, oh, windshield, windshield, windshield. Oh, I know what a windshield is like, you just hear this word. But you don't realize that kind of like language awareness, or that meta linguistic awareness that we might talk about, like, yeah, that's something that all students would benefit from investigating and understanding, or, you know, questions of like, you know, how I text somebody is going to be different from how I use language when I'm giving a soliloquy on a balcony, right? So I think those discussions can be really fruitful for students understanding,
Lindsay Persohn:highlighting those differences. And I think also asking students to bring their own examples is a great way to keep that conversation going, and a really rich and engaging way. And your your example of the windshield reminds me of something from my childhood, I remember driving down the road and seeing the sign that says, bridge ices before road. And I remember thinking the road is before and after the bridge, what are we talking about? But you know, to realize that, that before could be a spatial or temporal meaning I think that, you know, highlighting those kinds of things, and there's things that especially as a kid, would you go, what does that mean? Especially if you hear it or see it over and over again, and then one day, you know, you just kind of everything clicks, and you go, Oh, yeah, that's so silly. Yeah.
Mark Pacheco:So many examples. I think road signs are fascinating. My wife has a story where she was when she was younger, and the sign was, you know, dear xing right, deer crossing here. And she was like, why would the deer choose to cross the road? Right? They're like, how do they know to follow that sign?
Lindsay Persohn:I mean, it would lead to so many really rich and interesting conversations. And I could see this, you know, starting as either a whole group discussion or even small group conversations with your students, and then to bring forward you know, the richest example from their group, and you can really highlight so many different dynamics of language that does heighten our awareness of what words do in our lives and how valuable they are. Totally. I think that's great. Yeah. Because I think it'll, in a lot of ways, the the power of language has been minimized, certainly over the last few years. And I think in schools really, since this huge movement towards standardized testing. You know, I find that so many students are really just looking for the right answer and really negating everything that comes before and after that, the that in sometimes there isn't one right answer. And sometimes even the right answer isn't actually the right answer, you know, so, so it gives you space to kind of play with those ideas. Sure. So, Mark, given the challenges of today's educational climate, what message do you want teachers to hear?
Mark Pacheco:That's a really hard question, I think to answer and I think that part of it is, you know, I'm not on the ground every day, you know, in some ways, you know, risking personal safety or, you know, really kind of on the front line. So I have tremendous respect for what teachers are, how they've handled the last year, you know, in Florida for Example teachers have been in classrooms, working with students in high flex environments where I'm living. And it's just really, really challenging work. And I'm kind of in awe at the, I don't know, the the perseverance that I've seen working with teachers. So it's hard to say like, oh, I want, you know, teachers to hear this specific thing, it'd be great to hear more from teachers. I think that's something I've learned. And this, this builds on what we were talking about earlier, I find that, you know, my work focuses on emergent bilingual students. And I think lots about like, well, what are the different strategies that we can use? Or what's the different? What pedagogical approaches might be helpful for those students, and I've worked in different contexts, whether they're right now I'm working in a science classroom, a secondary high school biology classrooms. And I find that, you know, when teachers are intentional about scaffolds for emergent bilinguals, the trickle down effect is pretty remarkable. You know, if they're thinking about ways to really scaffold a collaborative activity, so that there emergent bilinguals students can use language can engage with content. Well, that's good for not just emergent bilingual students, but that's good for all students. So I think that level of intentionality is just really remarkable. When you think about EBS. It positions us to really think about, hey, you know, how can I make my my instruction accessible and beneficial to all my students? Think something else. I think a lot about goals for instruction. This builds on my idea of like being a host at a restaurant, like, is my goal just to seat people at a table? Or is my goal to help somebody have a wonderful evening? There's a great anecdote from I think Wenger, Etienne Wenger, who does work with communities of practice some seminal work, and he talks about goals being important. And he gives an anecdote that's not his, but it's a kind of an old story where you have three different Masons cutting stone, and you ask the first Mason and you say, hey, you know, what is it that you're doing? And he says, Well, I'm, I'm cutting stone. Okay. You asked the second Mason, what are you doing in? And she says, Oh, I'm building a building. You asked the third one, what are you doing? Oh, I'm constructing the house of God. Wow, is three different outcomes from a very similar activity. So I think I'm applying that then to a classroom space. It's like, you know, are we just reading Romeo and Juliet to understand Shakespeare? or are we reading it to help us make sense of our lives? I love I think Paulo Freire work, you know, where you think about like, you're reading the word, but you're also reading the world. Literature is a memoranda window. There's so many little different, you know, different little like adages about the importance of literature and literacy and language. But I think the idea that like, No, you're not just teaching about photosynthesis, you might be, you know, supporting somebody to become a scientist one day, right? You're not just reading Romeo and Juliet, you're helping students understand challenging relationships with their parents. So I think that's kind of the big takeaway for me, like, what are our goals in the classroom?
Lindsay Persohn:I love that idea of sort of identifying our most elevated purpose. Yeah, and that is what we're doing. It's not just oh, you know, sometimes you think, Oh, I'm grading papers? Well, really, you're, you're not grading papers, you're providing valuable feedback to your students so they can can become the learners they want to be. And you know, so I think that that's pretty inspirational to think that, you know, we just, we can kind of reframe those tasks that we do even when they seem daily or mundane. What am I actually getting at here? What is my real purpose in doing this? And I think there's a lot of renewal of our own energies that come from that kind of thinking. So I thank you for offering that.
Mark Pacheco:Sure. Sure. My pleasure.
Lindsay Persohn:The other thing you mentioned there that I wanted to just sort of loop back around to is that whenever we identify these purposes, I think that that often in teaching, we feel this tension between what we think we're doing or what we hope we're doing and what we're expected to do. And so I think that again, sort of finding that most elevated purpose that that maybe our standards don't quite get to, or maybe our schools expectations don't quite get to, but you know, obviously, or maybe not. So obviously, if we can, if we can rise above this seemingly mundane purposes and instead, sort of, reconceptualize the work we're doing around, you know, this isn't just for today, the work we're doing, you know, even though it might feel very daily, and it might feel heavy from day to day, but to understand that we are impacting the lives of individual students, but we're also impacting, you know, the future global societies, because we really don't know where our students are going through, you know, we can help them identify goals, we can help them work towards those goals. But you know, the path of life is often very winding. And, you know, I think that if we can, can help our students see their purpose, and an elevated way, what a gift to give to them, not just today, but for the future, as well.
Mark Pacheco:So I think a great example of what you're talking about, and this is, I know that for anybody that's been a teacher for a long time, I know that you have countless examples, like you know, when you see your student 20 years later, in the grocery store, I had two students when I was teaching in New York City to Chinese students that didn't speak any English, or, you know, very, very limited English proficiency when they started, you know, as ninth graders, and this one student, she didn't say a word basically until November, right. And this other student, he was the student, when my principal would come observe me to be like, she say, like, You're doing a great job, but this one kid, what's going on there. And for a research project, I actually went back and I interviewed those some of those same English learners. And sure enough, you know, the, the female student is a teacher's assistant in Queens, you know, in education working with students. And the boy is a, like an aviation mechanic. And I see him on Facebook, posting pictures of himself in India, and all these other places that he's gotten to travel to, and doing this really important technical work. And I never would have predicted that, you know, 10 years ago when we were trying to get through the outsiders, and we couldn't make it past the first page. So it's really important work. I think I'm preaching to the choir, it's really important work that what teachers are doing, and I'm just thankful and, and grateful, you know, grateful for the work as well.
Lindsay Persohn:Well, Mark, thank you so much for your time today. And thank you for your contributions to the field of education.
Mark Pacheco:Thanks for having me, Lindsay. It was really a pleasure and an honor. So thank you.
Lindsay Persohn:Dr. Mark Pacheco is known for his work in language and literacy practices of emerging bilingual students and how teachers can support these practices. He is currently part of three research projects that investigate how emerging bilingual students strategically translate text to support their language and literacy development. How emerging bilingual students participate in biology classrooms, and how emerging bilingual students engage in digital multimodal composition. Dr. Pacheco received his PhD in learning, teaching and diversity from Vanderbilt University in 2016. He is the recipient of a National Science Foundation grant to develop more responsive pedagogy for emergent bilinguals in biology classrooms and a Lyle Spencer Research Award for using translation to support emergent bilinguals. His research has been published in the Journal of literacy research, reading Research Quarterly Journal of adolescent and adult literacy, ESOL quarterly language arts and bilingual Research Journal. Prior to academia, he was a high school ESL and English teacher in New York City. Dr. mochiko is an assistant professor of English for Speakers of Other Languages and bilingual education at the University of Florida. For the good of all students, good research should inform good practice and vice versa. listeners are invited to respond to our guests. Learn more about our guests research, and suggest a topic for an upcoming episode through this podcast website at classroom caffeine.com. If you've learned something today, or just enjoyed listening, please subscribe to this podcast. I raised my mug to you teachers. Thanks for joining me