Raising learners' awareness through L1–L2 teacher collaboration

ABSTRACT

There is considerable interest in teacher collaboration across mother tongue and second language curricula. However, cross-curricular collaboration in reading strategy instruction has seldom been investigated. We report a two-year study involving collaboration between the French first language (L1) and English second language (L2) teachers in an intensive English as a second language (ESL) programme in Quebec, Canada, as they raised their own and their students' awareness of reading strategies. Findings from Year 1 revealed that while teachers broke some of the barriers of isolated teaching, cross-curricular connections were difficult to make as they were unfamiliar with each other's curriculum, and the L1–L2 strategy terminology was not uniform. In Year 2, we provided the teachers with tables showing equivalent terminology for strategies from both the L1 and L2 curricula and documented the process by which their awareness of both curricula facilitated collaboration, reading strategy instruction, and the development of a transferable pedagogical approach to teaching strategies. We found that the consistency of instruction strengthened learner awareness and autonomous use of reading strategies. We conclude that reading strategies provided a structure for mirroring instruction across languages. However, in order for teachers to collaborate, they need time, materials, and administrative support.

KEYWORDS:

• teacher collaboration
• strategy instruction
• reading strategies
• cross-linguistic awareness
• bilingual education
• intensive English

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the participating teachers and students, as well as the school administrators who welcomed us in the school during the data collection stage.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Formerly, Ministry of Education of Québec.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the Concordia University Part-Time Faculty Association and by FQRSC (Fonds Québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture) F00783.

Notes on contributors

Pamela Gunning

Pamela Gunning lectures at Concordia University. She has vast experience as an elementary ESL teacher and has co-authored several ESL textbooks for children. Under the auspices of the Ministry of Education of Québec, she has also co-authored a strategy training module to help teachers incorporate learning strategy instruction into their ESL teaching. Her teaching and research focus on primary pedagogy, strategies, and classroom-based assessment.

Joanna White

Joanna White is a professor in the Department of Education, Concordia University and a long-time member of the Association for Language Awareness. In her teaching and research, she focuses on maximising the benefits of instruction in second language classrooms for learners of different ages in a variety of instructional contexts. She is particularly interested in promoting collaboration between first and second language teachers.

Christine Busque

Christine Busque completed her Bachelor Degree in teaching English as a second language at the Université de Sherbrooke and her Master's Degree in Applied Linguistics at Concordia University. Her main research interests are the intensification of language instruction, especially in the case of intensive ESL in Quebec, cross-linguistic awareness, and teacher collaboration.