ABSTRACT
Because student populations are constantly changing, prospective teachers, and even those who have been teaching for many years, need to be life-long learners. This means not only learning new content in their disciplines, but also learning new pedagogies and becoming aware of significant changes in the profession. Becoming sociocultural mediators is another important way that teachers can change to become more effective with students whose experiences, languages, and cultural backgrounds differ from the mainstream. The author presents numerous examples from both specialist and non-specialist teachers which provide lessons in how to become sociocultural mediators. There are two major lessons that non-specialist teachers of emergent bilingual students can learn from bilingual and ESL teachers: one is that they need to learn certain bodies of knowledge, and the other is that they need to build bridges with their students by developing affirming dispositions about language, culture, and difference.
