Educational linguistics can have little impact on student learning unless it is effectively conveyed to and applied by teachers in actual classrooms. This chapter presents teachers' perspectives on linguistics in the classroom, from three authors with many years of experience teaching linguistically and culturally diverse learners at the high school level. Currently, Kimberly is a teacher educator, Daniel is an educational linguist and anthropologist, and Iris is a practicing classroom teacher. The vision of linguistically informed education cast by Fillmore and Snow (this volume) captures many of the ideas about language instruction that we have tried to embody in our classrooms over the years. However, we are aware that these approaches to teaching are not practiced in all classrooms, and we recognize the daily barriers faced by teachers and students in a world that does not share our perspective fully. In this chapter, we describe our approaches to linguistically informed teaching, the barriers we have encountered, and our recommendations for teacher education, professional development, and future research.

Valuing Student Language and Identity

In the high school classrooms where she once taught and in her current teacher education classrooms, Kimberly has incorporated an explicit focus on language. She begins this discussion by sharing her own language map—a map of the United States labeled with the words, phrases, and accents of her childhood—and shares stories of mañana, paella, lagniappe, and gradu. She shares her pride that her grandfather from Puerto Rico was bilingual and her grandmother born on the bayou was trilingual, and she laments that, although she can understand Spanish and pronounce French words, she speaks neither with much proficiency. She shares how Southern accents feel like home even though she is relieved not to have one because of their negative stereotype. And she shares her shame over feeling that relief. Then her students fill in their own language maps—a U.S. map or a world map. Soon, students begin sharing stories with one another without prompting. Thus begins their exploration of linguistic diversity.