‘Time for una pregunta’: understanding Spanish use and interlocutor response among young English learners in cross-age peer interactions while reading and discussing text

ABSTRACT

This study examined how cross-age peers (ages 5–6 and 9–10) used and responded to Spanish (L1) as they read and talked about informational texts together written in English (L2). Grounded in sociocultural discourse analysis, we analyzed video recordings and transcripts from 10 sessions of peer reading in two elementary schools. We coded student talk to understand L1 language functions in this context and found that students employed L1 for task management, clarifying language, negotiating content, building relationships, and checking for understanding (in this order of frequency). We discuss quantitative patterns and qualitatively analyze student interactions that show affordances and challenges using L1 in literacy activities. This study contributes to scholarship by shedding light on a previously under-examined context (cross-age peers reading L2 texts) and by offering a coding scheme for analyzing interlocutors’ responses to L1 use in terms of engagement in learning activities and subsequent language use. Findings have implications for educators to consider how L1 can be used in peer discussions, reading materials, and teacher language as pedagogical tools, which should respond to learners with varying L1/L2 literacy backgrounds.

KEYWORDS:

• Cross-age peer interaction
• literacy
• content-based instruction
• second language acquisition
• translanguaging
• English learners
• scaffolding

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the students and teachers involved in this study. We thank Johanna Tigert, Anna Hartranft, Lauren Artzi, Stephanie Nunn, Megan DeStefano, Dawn Sherman, James Groff, and others, who made important contributions to data collection and analysis. Finally, we thank the editors of this special issue and reviewers for their helpful feedback and comments on this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Melinda Martin-Beltrán is an Associate Professor of Language, Literacy and Social Inquiry at the University of Maryland. Her research seeks to understand and transform educational contexts and practices that can foster multilingualism and lead to greater educational equity for culturally and linguistically diverse students. She studies classroom discourse and peer interactions as potential contexts for learning among students and teachers.

Angélica Montoya-Ávila is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Maryland with a focus on Applied Linguistics and Language Education. Her research focuses on immigrants' literacy practices, family-school partnerships, and Latinxs' home learning environments. As an educator and researcher, she works to enhance the educational opportunities for immigrants.

Andrés A. García is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Maryland with a focus on Applied Linguistics and Language Education. His research interests include second language acquisition and the education of heritage language learners, English language learners, and immigrant students.

Megan Madigan Peercy is Associate Professor of Language, Literacy, and Social Inquiry at the University of Maryland. Her research focuses on preparation and development of teachers throughout their careers, as they work with linguistically and culturally diverse learners. She is deeply invested in understanding the ways in which practice and theory can be in dialogue.

Rebecca Silverman is an Associate Professor of Early Literacy at Stanford University. She studies the intersection between language and literacy in elementary school age children from diverse backgrounds.

ORCID

Melinda Martin-Beltrán http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4735-7563

Notes

1 Although the labels L1/L2 may oversimplify emergent bilinguals’ fluid linguistic repertoire, we utilize those terms for the sake of parsimony and for analytic purposes.

2 See www.dedoose.com.

3 We arrived at this number by adding the frequencies for the following responses to L1 use: ‘engage/understand,’ ‘disengage,’ and ‘no response’ (see Table 5). This may be the closest estimate because several episodes of L1 use fulfilled multiple functions (i.e. they were multiple-coded), and so adding the L1 function frequencies would have overestimated the amount of L1 use in our data.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305A110142. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education.