Remodeling dual language programs: Teachers enact agency as critically conscious language policy makers

ABSTRACT

Dual language (DL) programs experience many tensions stemming from English hegemony in its curriculum, instruction, and assessment. These tensions often work in concert to usurp the three goals of DL programs to develop bilingualism, biliteracy, and bicultural competence while achieving grade level standards for its students. Subsequently, there is need to understand how DL teachers can and do enact agency as language policymakers to create DL programs that truly accomplishes its three-fold goals. Using a case study method with two DL programs within different schools, the researchers explore how 13 Spanish- and English-medium DL teachers a) perceive their agency and display critical consciousness, by b) acknowledging program tensions and c) acting to remodel their programs. Interviews, surveys, and focus group data from teachers and administrators reveal that DL teachers report a lack of perceived agency in their role as language policymakers. Simultaneously, these DL teachers demonstrate a keen awareness of the hegemonic tensions ubiquitous to DL programs. Some teachers covertly remodel their programs to meet students' holistic needs. Researchers suggest this nuanced understanding of collective agency provides a foundation to prepare DL teachers and administrators to jointly name tensions and take action by openly remodeling programs to best serve their students.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the participating teachers and administrators for trusting us to share their heartfelt experiences. It’s because of educators like you that we have hope for our students and community. Additionally, we’d like to thank the journal and program reviewers of the Bilingual Education Research Special Interest Group for their thoughtful, detailed contributions to earlier versions of this work.

Notes

1. According to Dictionary.com, a maelstrom is a “restless, disordered, or tumultuous state of affairs.” We employ this metaphor to refer to the pervasive way that the pressures around English hegemony coalesce in the language ecology of DL programs. In doing so, we seek to highlight the overlapping of hegemonic contexts that include factors so interrelated it is difficult to parse out and explore individually. At the same time, we aim to center how DL teachers may enact agency to effectively resist these pressures at the individual and collective level.

2. It should be noted that this is the teachers’ interpretation of the district’s policy. Since the time of the study (2014–2015), the district has amended its separation of language policy to mostly include teacher discourse and instructional material use, allowing students to sometimes use the partner language.

3. We recognize that students’ language practices are more complex and hybridized than the labels “Spanish dominant” and “English dominant” convey. Thus, we use these terms loosely, as emic labels participants use to describe these student populations.