Pro-Act: Sex Strategies for Organizing Peer Interaction in Elementary Classrooms

Abstract

One of the continuing instructional dilemmas faced by elementary bilingual education and English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers has been that of providing students with adequate and appropriate second language input and opportunities for practice. While recent research has shown that the use of peer language models is one potential solution to this problem, few bilingual educators have suggested the specific means by which peer models may be used to facilitate such input and practice.

This article outlines six major (or “macro”) strategies for facilitating peer interaction in English used by two teachers who were observed and videotaped in a study of a summer English Enrichment program. When combined, the first letters of each of the macrostrategies used by these teachers spell the word “PRO-ACT,” a term which describes a crucial attribute of each of these teachers’ macrostrategies- -that of being pro-active rather than re-active in the use of peer language models in the daily life of the classroom.