Pedagogy of Possibility: Proleptic Teaching and Language Learning

Abstract

We charted how one educator's use of proleptic language—or language that invoked students’ imagined future identities as if they are fully realized in the present—situated students in communities of academic and professional practice, both within the tangible community of the classroom and within those intangible communities consisting of college students, litigators, music producers, and activists which her students aspired to join. Students demonstrated transformative agency in aligning, resisting, and reinterpreting these proleptic bids, which appeared to create opportunities for students to engage in authentic uses of academic discourse as well as to develop critical rhetorical flexibility—or skill in using all language resources flexibly and critically as a part of participation in an array of social contexts. We suggest that the use of proleptic talk transforms the tenor of academic language instruction by centering students’—rather than teachers’—goals for language learning and by recognizing learners’ past, present, and future selves.

Operationalizing the Access–Voice–Choice Framework for Equitably and Justly Teaching the Language for School Literacy

“…Instruction that gives voice extends beyond just including students' identities and perspectives in the present and includes students' imagined and future selves (Phillips Galloway & Meston, 2022). Instruction that teaches language to amplify voice requires classrooms that affirm students' prior knowledge, various identities, perspectives, aspirations, and hopes.…”

“…Students bring aspirations for participation in professional communities where LSL is used—what Aristotle referred to as “telos” or potential for becoming. For example, we have worked with middle‐grade students who hope to become civil rights advocates, music producers, lawyers, and activists, and who have been motivated to learn LSL (in English, Spanish, and other languages) in order to participate fully in those communities (Phillips Galloway & Meston, 2022). Curricular, institutional, and teacher goals for students tend to drive language learning in classrooms.…”

“…Curricular, institutional, and teacher goals for students tend to drive language learning in classrooms. However, we have observed that it is even more powerful to center the goals for language learning that students bring for themselves (Phillips Galloway & Meston, 2022). Often this involves invoking students' imagined future identities as if realized in the present, or what is known as “proleptic teaching.”…”

“…Because differences in LSL knowledge levels are the result of unequal opportunities to learn this language, as a matter of equity, all students-not just those who enter schools speaking the societally dominant language variety-must be given the opportunity to grapple with rich content presented in text and use LSL to meaningfully convey thinking (Bailey & Wilkinson, 2022;Walqui & Van Lier, 2010). More important still is the fact that LSL is also useful for critically appraising and challenging colonial, racist, classist, biased, and otherwise oppressive ideologies that permeate disciplinary discourses-and for understanding ourselves as actors capable of contributing and changing these disciplinary communities through participation and the contribution of counter-narratives (Freire, 1970(Freire, /2002Janks, 2009;Kibler et al, 2021;Phillips Galloway & Meston, 2022). Beyond the classroom, LSL is also used to convey content and messages in civic, social, and political spheres (Haneda, 2014).…”

“…77 No. 2 September/October 2023 literacyworldwide.org for language learning that students bring for themselves (Phillips Galloway & Meston, 2022). Often this involves invoking students' imagined future identities as if realized in the present, or what is known as "proleptic teaching.…”