Clara Vaz Bauler | Faculty Profiles

Diplomas/Degrees

Ph.D. in Education with emphasis in Applied Lingusitics and Cultural Perspectives and Comparative Education, University of California, Santa Barbara (2012)

M.A. in Portuguese Linguistics, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (2007)

B.A. in English and Portuguese with emphasis in teaching English as a Second and Foreign Language, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (2004)

Professional Experience

Dr. Clara Vaz Bauler has a Ph.D. in Education with emphasis in Applied Linguistics and Cultural Perspectives and Comparative Education from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She draws from thirteen years of national and international classroom teaching from preschool to adult levels to inform her research and practice. She has worked as a world languages and TESOL teacher educator since 2008. Her research focuses on affirming and naturalizing multimodal and multilingual practices via digital media.

Personal Statement

I am a sociolinguist and critical discourse analyst, I am interested in unveiling unjust and often hidden educational practices that propagate language shaming and discrimination. I investigate language used in news media, social media and classrooms inquiring on the contexts, purposes and consequences of using certain terms and enacting specific policing practices associated with languaging and migration flows.

As a language educator, I am interested in pedagogical practices that validate and affirm minoritized and racialized multilingual students' funds of knowledge and linguistic-semiotic resources. I advocate for the naturalization of multimodality in language teaching and learning spaces via digital media technology.

My research and teaching are directly informed by my personal experience as a mixed-heritage individual.

I always felt “not from here and not from there.” I inherited my father’s tanned, brown skin, my mother’s Judaism, and Brazilian Portuguese. I was born in the US, in Boston, and I grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Although my mother’s family never hid their Jewish ancestry from me, it was seen as shameful, so they suppressed it, nullified their Yiddish and Jewish languaging and cultural practices.

As a language educator in the US, I have never really “fit” either as I am perceived to have a “foreign accent” which does not grant me the privileged position of the idealized, Anglo, white “native speaker.” I lost count of the many times I was asked where I am from. I painfully remember the one time I was required not to reveal my “foreign” origins during a summer job in a popular English Language school.

All these experiences only reinforced my conviction that my identities, sounds, body, experiences, languaging are the fabric of my whole being. Assimilating was never the answer or even a possibility given the persistent ways I was perceived. I believe racialization happens in relations and in contexts, so it is crucial to unveil these relations and contexts through critical approaches to discourse and education, especially by adopting a raciolinguistic perspective.

Recent Courses

S/T: Decentering Whiteness In K-12 Pedagogy And Educational Discourses

Community,Schools And Society

Sociolinguistic Perspectives In Adolescence Education

Sociolinguistic Perspectives In Childhood Education

Tesol I: Developing Literacy Skills In The Esl Classroom

Teaching Philosophy

In thinking about the guiding principles that orient my practice as a teacher, I immediately think of dialogue. Dialogue, according to Paulo Freire, is “an existential requirement, an encounter that allows us to pronounce and enact the world with others.” In this perspective, dialogue involves the idea that teachers and students learn together with each other. By engaging in genuine dialogue, teachers become learners and learners become teachers. This process involves humility, trust, mutual admiration and respect, as well as the belief that teacher-students and student-teachers can together construct knowledge and transform their worlds. It is my hope that in every educational encounter I have with students, we commit to be working together as partners, co-instructors and learners to design learning-rich as well as culturally and socially-responsive educational environments.

My main goal as a teacher has always been to foster and facilitate a collaborative and potentially transformative learning environment in which every member is responsible for each other’s growth. My ideal classroom is a place where teacher and students form a community of peers that not only strive for cultivating an affectionate atmosphere, but also challenge and push each other's thinking. This classroom demands that teacher and students take risks, and are not afraid of considering alternative and less explored ways of thinking and acting in the world. This classroom also demands attentive listening and openness to being moved by other people's ideas and concerns. In this context, students and teacher not only develop “skills,” but also engage, together, in a critical dialogue and process of discovery and exploration.

Research Interests

Trained in Applied Linguistics, I see my research as interdisciplinary, firmly grounded in practice, and deeply concerned with real-life problems. In this perspective, language permeates our everyday activities, shaping our interactions with others and the world. My work is influenced by Michael Halliday’s functional view of language, which posits that meaning is an integral part of the choices we make as speakers and writers (Halliday, 1994).

As a sociolinguist and critical discourse analyst, I am interested in unveiling unjust and often hidden educational practices that propagate language shaming and discrimination. I investigate language used in newsmedia, social media and classrooms inquiring on the contexts, purposes and consequences of using certain terms and enacting specific policing practices associated with migration flows and linguistically diverse populations. As a language educator, I am interested in pedagogical practices that validate and affirm minoritized and racialized multilingual students' funds of knowledge and linguistic resources.

My research agenda includes three interrelated strands. The first strand examines how digital media technology can be used to legitimize minoritized multilingual students’ writing to center their voices, linguistic-semiotic resources and composition strategies. The second strand examines ways to better prepare pre-service and in-service K-12 teachers to unveil pervasive and harmful raciolinguistic ideologies in their work with students in both virtual and face-to-face environments. The third strand examines ways translanguaging practices can be affirmed and validated in science and STEM.

Chapters

Bauler, C. V. & Kang, E. J. S. (2021). Exploring teacher residency candidates’ perceptions of preparation to support immigrant students in elementary classrooms. In R. M. Reardon & J. Leonard (Eds.), School-University-Community Collaboration and the Immigrant Educational Experience. IGI-Global.

Bauler, C. V., Wang, X. L. & Thornburg, D. (2020). Developing global-mindedness in teacher education through virtual and international intercultural experiences. In L. Baecher (Ed.), Study Abroad for Pre- and In-Service Teachers: Transformative learning at the global scale. London: Routledge.

Bauler, C. V. (2019). Speech acts and cross-cultural pragmatics. In N. Erdogan & M. Wei (Eds.), Applied Linguistics for teachers of culturally and linguistically diverse learners (pp. 223-238). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Bauler, C. V. & Gordon, D. M. (2018). Developing linguistic and cultural awareness for working with ELLs: Activities for beginning teacher preparation. In P. B. Swanson & S. A. Hildebrandt (Eds.), Researching edTPA problems and promises: Perspectives from ESOL, English, and WL teacher education (pp. 87-115). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Articles

Bauler, C.V. (2021). 'Flipgrid netiquette': Unearthing language ideologies in the remote learning era. English in Education, 3, [Special Issue: Grammar in schools: politics, policies and pedagogies]. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/04250494.2021.1927698

Bauler, C. V. & Kang, E. J. S. (2020). Elementary and ESOL teachers’ resilient co-teaching practices: A long-term view. International Multilingual Research Journal, 14(2). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19313152.2020.1747163

Bauler, C. V., Kang, E. J. S., Afanador-Vega, A., & Stevenson, A. (2019). “My partner always helps me”: Exploring two co-teachers’ practices to support writing in a first-grade linguistically diverse elementary class. TESL-EJ, 23(2).

Swanson, L. H., Kang, J. S., & Bauler, C. V. (2019). Revealing a bilingual science teacher's dynamic views and practice about science and language teaching through dialogic reflections. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 1-21.

Bauler, C. V. (2019). Crafting argumentation: Two multilingual writers’ discursive choices in online discussions and persuasive essays. Cogent Education, 6(1).

Kang, J. S., Swanson, L., & Bauler, C. V. (2017). “Explicame”: Examining emergent bilinguals’ ability to construct arguments and explanations during a unit on plate tectonics. Electronic Journal of Science Education, 21(6), 12-45.

Bauler, C. V. (2017, February). Becoming a language specialist: The unique role of the ENL teacher in integrated periods. Idiom, 47(1), 13-15.

Kang, E., Swanson, L., & Bauler, C. V. (2016). Making science real: Supporting English learners in argumentation and explanation through authentic tasks. Science Scope, 39(8), 27-34. Retrieved from http://www.nsta.org/middleschool/

Bauler, C. V. & Scalzo, J. (2016). Interdisciplinary project design: Integrating language, content, and technology for working with English learners. Issues in Teacher Education, 25(2), 69-88.

Bauler, C. V. (2013). Online forum discussions and the development of opinions in college-level ESL writing. The CATESOL Journal, 24(1).

Bauler, C. V. (2012), Multiletramentos na era digital: uma reflexão crítica para a educação (Multiliteracies in the digital era: a critical reflection for education). Revista Escrita, 14.