Sustainable translanguaging pedagogy in support of the vulnerable language: honoring children’s ways of ‘Showing’ and ‘Telling’ in an early childhood dual language bilingual education program

ABSTRACT

Show-and-Tell activity provides emergent bilingual (EB) children with an opportunity to engage oral language skills to support their developing bi/literacy. In dual language bilingual education (DLBE) preschool programs, teachers utilize translanguaging practices to facilitate communication, scaffold learning, and encourage participation. Using a sustainable translanguaging lens, we explore English- and Spanish-language model teachers' pedagogical choices in Show-and-Tell in support of children's Show-and-Tell purposes and practices. Video data were analyzed for discourse- and content-related codes to examine teachers' discursive and translanguaging choices and presenters' languaging practices during Show-and-Tell. Qualitative analyses revealed that teachers' translanguaging choices vary in response to the language context (i.e. teacher's designated language of instruction and the target language of the Show-and-Tell) and to children's languaging practices (i.e. choice of language, amount of unprompted talk, purpose of presentation, degree of peer involvement). Given the vulnerable status of Spanish as the minoritized language in an English-majority culture, teachers sustained the use and modeling of Spanish in Spanish Show-and-Tell while integrating Spanish as a supportive resource in English Show-and-Tell. Findings suggest implications for how teachers can protect minoritized languages within DLBE preschool programs while valuing children's authentic translanguaging practices and building on children's understanding language functions and forms in each language.

KEYWORDS:

• Show-and-Tell
• preschool
• translanguaging
• dual language
• pedagogical choices

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The Portuguese-, Arabic-, and [some] Spanish-speakers also spoke English at home.

 

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sabrina F. Sembiante

Dr. Sabrina F. Sembiante is an Associate Professor of TESOL and Bilingual Education at Florida Atlantic University. Her research centers on examining how teachers and children use their multiple languages and modes in preschool contexts and how functional language instruction can provide emergent-to-advanced bilingual students with meaningful access to content area knowledge and discourse.

Catherine Restrepo-Widney

Catherine Restrepo-Widney is a doctoral student in the department of Curriculum and Instruction at the College of Education at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). Her research examines instructional practices in monolingual and dual language early childhood contexts that support children's socio-emotional, language, and literacy development and which enhance equitable learning environments.

Alain Bengochea

Dr. Alain Bengochea is an Associate Professor in the department of Early Childhood, Multilingual, and Special Education. His primary goal as a researcher is to explore the ways in which young, emergent bilingual learners' (i.e., ELLs) language and literacy development are supported across home, community, and school contexts.

Mileidis Gort

Dr. Mileidis Gort is a Professor in the department of Equity, Bilingualism and Biliteracy. Her program of research documents the complex and varied ways in which emergent bilingual children use their dynamic linguistic and cultural funds of knowledge to learn and interact with teachers and peers in school contexts where two languages are used for instruction.