Making “Small Waves of Change”: Dual Language and General Education Teacher Transformation through Instructional Coaching

Abstract

This multisite qualitative case study explores ways in which instructional coaching focused on English language development (content) and teachers' individual beliefs (process) can help general education and dual language bilingual education elementary teachers work within and through perceived institutional barriers to improve their language and literacy instruction for designated English language learners (ELLs). In practice, much literacy coaching in schools is often finite and fidelity-oriented yet coaching grounded in constructivism empowers and emboldens teachers to become agents of change. Using the Vygotsky Space theoretical framework, we draw on multiple data sources generated during classroom observations, sessions with an instructional coach, and postprogram interviews to examine how 12 teachers moved through the stages of appropriation, transformation, publication, and conventionalization over the course of a 2-year period. Results show that teachers exhibited meaningful shifts in their beliefs and teaching practices for ELLs during their coaching experience, but that sharing and internalizing those changes are protracted processes. We also identified two additional phases in the Vygotsky Space cycle: prepublication, where teachers expressed desires and plans to share new ideas, and scale-up, where teachers began to reach individuals and institutions beyond their initial context.