Exploring bilingual pedagogies in dual language preschool classrooms

Abstract

In this paper, we present an analysis of the language practices of four Spanish/English dual language (DL) preschool teachers, focusing on the ways in which the teachers mediate bilingual interactions with students and distribute Spanish and English across different classroom discourse functions. Findings reveal teachers’ flexible and strategic use of each language to support children's developing bilingual competencies as well as to negotiate several communicative, academic, and management functions. Findings further illuminate the utility of bilingual speech/interaction as a communicative and academic resource and suggest that a strict language separation approach, as traditionally implemented in DL programs, may be at odds with the natural social interactions of bilinguals who draw on a number of communicative strategies, including codeswitching and tandem talk, to construct meaning.

Keywords:

• bilingual teachers
• classroom interaction
• codeswitching
• teacher talk
• pedagogy
• preschoolers

Notes

1. The Head Start and Early Head Start programs, funded by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, provide comprehensive education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children from birth to age five and to their families. Programs are administered locally by non-profit organizations and local education agencies such as school systems. The Voluntary Pre-kindergarten (VPK) program is a state-funded voucher program for all children residing in the state who are four years of age on or before September 1, regardless of family income level. A child remains eligible for this program until the beginning of the school year when s/he is eligible for kindergarten. A parent may select any participating provider in the county or multi-county region served by the local early learning coalition.

2. This number includes students from Spanish/English bilingual homes where there was at least some usage of English.

3. The summer session mirrored the 10-month academic program, including the daily schedule, curriculum, teaching practices, and use of instructional materials.

4. Show-and-tell activities were scheduled in the morning in the ‘language-by-time-of-day’ classroom, and thus were always conducted in English.

5. Graduate students had received training in classroom-based ethnographic approaches to data collection, preparation, coding, and analysis.

6. Agreement data were obtained by using the following formula: (number of agreements/[number of agreements + disagreements]) × 100 (Girolametto et al. 2000).

7. In all excerpts, text language is shown in quotations, translations to English are shown (italicized and in parentheses), researchers’ notes are included {in curly brackets}, concurrent speech is shown <in angle brackets>, and departures from the target instructional/teacher designated language, or codeswitches, are bolded.

8. This picture book is a translation of the English original.

9. Although both teachers generally participate in Read-aloud activities, this particular session only involved one teacher.

10. On this page, Froggy is shown standing outside in the snow and wearing a winter coat, cap, scarf, gloves, pants and boots.

11. This picture book is a translation of the English original.