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“Mr. Wang Doesn’t Really Care How We Speak!”: Responsiveness in the Practice of an Exemplary Asian-American Teacher

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Abstract

This study presents holistic insights into the culturally relevant English language arts and reading instructional practices of one award-winning Asian-American male teacher as he worked with culturally and linguistically diverse students from a variety of backgrounds in a ‘significantly underperforming’ urban middle-school. Avenues through which the exemplary teacher reflected his culturally relevant teaching practices were planning instruction, prompting students to think critically through reflection, modeling, conferencing with students, facilitating peer evaluation and support, emphasizing procedural processes, establishing routine classroom practices, and capitalizing on technology and visual aid support. Mr. Wang found consistent collaboration with other teachers and opportunities for debriefing based on data from instruction to be the most beneficial forms of support. Students’ positive responses to Mr. Wang’s responsiveness were most influential to his continued instruction. Implications are provided.

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Acknowledgements

Funding was provided by U.S. Department of Education (Grant No. U215N120013-14).

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  1. Department of Teaching and Learning, University of South Florida, 4202 E. Fowler Avenue EDU105, Tampa, FL, 33620, USA

    Patriann Smith

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Smith, P. “Mr. Wang Doesn’t Really Care How We Speak!”: Responsiveness in the Practice of an Exemplary Asian-American Teacher. Urban Rev 52, 351–375 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-019-00531-4

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