When We Hear Them

Book excerpt: This book puts forward practical tools and applicable theories for enhancing the listening skills and pedagogical approaches of teachers and educators in the context of language-minoritized and multilingual learners. What does it mean for us to really hear them? How can we more fully facilitate inviting, celebratory, and sustaining learning spaces? What listening skills should the faculty who prepare pre-service teachers for linguistically diverse classrooms impart? By asking these questions, we seek to upend deficit models of language learning and usage in order to attune practitioner-scholars to the powerful voices of language-diverse students in our classrooms, schools, and communities. This book is organized into three parts to help practitioner-scholars explore the space where theory meets practice to amplify the voices of languageminoritized learners. ENDORSEMENT: "Listening is a thread that runs through this fine book. Offering an expansive view of language teaching in the US and across the globe, this engaging volume raises questions, explores dilemmas, and offers concrete ideas for both practitioners and scholars for listening and teaching. In addition to traditional research studies, this volume brings the voices and lives of the teachers and their commitments to equity and justice into the center of the writing, often providing exquisite and touching stories about teaching and learning. This book calls upon our curiosity and our humanity, encouraging critical reflection and action." — Kathy Schultz, University of Colorado