This annotated bibliography is reformatted and customized by the Center for Positive Practices. Some of the authors featured on this page include Esther Nieto Moreno de Diezmas, Shanan Fitts, Chun-song Ye, Zhou Ye, Hua Jiang, Steve Daniel Przymus, Maio Sun, Khalid Ouazizi, Socorro Mendoza, and Johanna P. Leal.
(2016). "Now I See How My Students Feel": Expansive Learning in a Language Awareness Workshop, Language Awareness. This study looks at a case study research on a language awareness workshop in a New York public school with a dual language (Spanish/English) program. A learner-centred lesson, taught in Spanish, focused on basic personal information exchanges for in-service teachers who taught only in English and who had some limited knowledge of Spanish. The instructors' charge was to teach participants how to exchange basic personal information in Spanish. Working from a cultural historical activity theory perspective, the interactions that took place in a videotaped session were analysed, using tools from discourse analysis, conversation analysis, and linguistics. The focus was set on the interactions of the instructors with one of the teachers in the workshop to examine how she moved from resisting a new language to embracing an understanding of the role of a new language in learning by paying attention to the dynamics of identity production. By exploring moment-to-moment identity moves and moves across time, the authors identified learning actions leading to the potential of expansive learning and suggesting enhancement of the concept of experiencing (Sannino, 2010) by examining the production of the teacher's identity. [More] Descriptors: Teacher Attitudes, Case Studies, Workshops, Spanish
(2009). Exploring Third Space in a Dual-Language Setting: Opportunities and Challenges, Journal of Latinos and Education. This study examined the ways that 5th graders and their teachers constructed third spaces in bilingual and bicultural communities of practice in a dual-language school. Students and teachers used students' funds of knowledge to connect with and transform academic tasks and discourses and to create third spaces. In transformational third spaces, students' personal experiences were merged with official discourses to inform the curricula and enrich learning. However, the linguistic and cultural resources of the bilingual students were not fully capitalized upon; thus, crucial moments that offered potential for learning and discovery were underutilized. [More] Descriptors: Bilingual Students, Grade 5, Teacher Student Relationship, Bilingualism
(2016). The Study of the Teaching Models and Prospects of Bilingual Teaching in Local Universities of China– A Case Study of Leshan Normal University, Sichuan, English Language Teaching. In present China, bilingual teaching, as an education model, can meet an urgent demand for increasing interdisciplinary talents who have high levels of professional knowledge as well as competent foreign language abilities to deal with the ever-increasing global social, economic, scientific and technological exchanges, and international cooperation. Bilingual teaching is now developing fast in many local universities in China. However, the result is far from satisfaction. Inappropriate teaching strategies, learning materials as well as insufficient qualified bilingual teachers bring about the students' lack of learning motivation, and thus to hamper the development of bilingual teaching. It is hoped that this paper can enrich the knowledge of bilingual teaching in local universities of China and provide useful and valuable information for students and teachers who are interested in this field. At the same time, it also provides a useful guidance for the future bilingual teaching practitioners. [More] Descriptors: Case Studies, Learning Motivation, Instructional Materials, Bilingual Teachers
(2016). Challenging the Monolingual Paradigm in Secondary Dual-Language Instruction: Reducing Language-as-Problem with the 2-1-L2 Model, Bilingual Research Journal. This study reports on an innovative approach to dual-language instruction (DLI) at the secondary-education level and introduces the 2-1-L2 model. The context of the study is an American Government class at a public charter high school in Tucson, Arizona, where the 2-1-L2 model was used for nine weeks to structure daily 90-minute lessons into a 30-minute immersion in English, a 30-minute immersion in Spanish, and a final 30-minute section of hybrid language practices, such as translanguaging (Bhabha, 1994; García & Wei, 2013; Kramsch & Uryu, 2012). The culturally and linguistically diverse participants represented an almost equal division of recursive dynamic bilinguals and dynamic bilinguals, plus an emergent bilingual who had recently moved from Mexico to the United States (García, Kleifgen, & Falchi, 2008; García & Sylvan, 2011). Through the bilingual structure of the 2-1-L2, all students were treated and valued as bilingual content users, as they learned American Government content together, an identity that they claimed for themselves. Findings suggest that the 2-1-L2 model may contribute to providing equal access to world language/English as a Second Language (ESL) instruction for students in content area classes at the secondary level and offer a response to the Language-as-Problem "T(threat)-inversion" (Richard Ruiz, personal communication/lecture PowerPoint slides, August 2013). [More] Descriptors: Instructional Innovation, United States Government (Course), Bilingual Education, Teaching Methods
(2016). Peer Collaboration in an English/Chinese Bilingual Program in Western Canada, Canadian Modern Language Review. Informed by current notions of dynamic bilingualism and the community of practice (C of P) framework, this study was designed as an ethnographic case study to explore peer collaboration in an English/Chinese bilingual program in a city in Western Canada. The main participants in the study were three Grade 5 English/Chinese bilingual students. The ethnographic data were collected for a whole academic year at school, in students' homes, and at community events through participant observation; field notes from the observation; semi-structured interviews and open-ended conversations with children, teachers, the principal, and parents; audio- and videotaped student–student and student–teacher interactions; and literacy artefact collection and analysis. Four main kinds of peer collaboration in the forms of helping, practising, sharing, and respecting were identified as significant factors that support these bilingual students' successful translingual practices and positive identities as language learners. [More] Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Cooperative Learning, Communities of Practice, Bilingual Education Programs
(2007). Practices and Experiences on Bilingual Teaching, Online Submission. The implementation of bilingual teaching is specialized course in one of the important teaching reforms and it is also the inevitable trend in cultivating talents with high quality. In the paper, several problems of currently restricting the method are pointed out in China and experiences on bilingual teaching of "fundamentals of water quality science" are summarized. The focus of this paper is on the request for bilingual teachers, textbook, teaching mode in class and teaching approach. [More] Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Teaching Methods, Water Quality, Bilingualism
(2016). Designing Bilingual Scenarios to Promote English Language Learning at a Public School in Monteria, English Language Teaching. This research study examines the assumptions of creating bilingual scenarios to promote English language learning for 384 students of ninth, tenth and eleventh grade of a public school in Monteria Colombia. An action research methodology was carried out in this study. The findings of this research suggested that the creation of bilingual scenarios within the school facilitated the promotion of English language learning because the students felt the need to use the target language in different contexts and situations and also because they felt that they were an important part of the teaching-learning process. [More] Descriptors: Bilingual Education Programs, Curriculum Design, Vignettes, Grade 9
(2016). Print-Related Practices in Low-Income Latino Homes and Preschoolers' School-Readiness Outcomes, Journal of Early Childhood Literacy. This study examined literacy practices in the homes of 127 low-income Latino preschoolers enrolled in bilingual preschool classrooms. Specifically, we investigated the print-related practices that Latino primary caregivers engaged in with their preschool-aged children at the start of the school year and explored the relation between these practices and children's language, literacy, and social-emotional school-readiness outcomes at the end of the preschool year. The results demonstrate the importance of print–including books and non-book-related environmental print–for Latino preschool children's development of early literacy and self-regulation skills. In addition, the results highlight that when sharing picture books with their children, low-income Latino caregivers provided the majority of the information to their children, and ask few questions of them, thereby adopting a sole-narrator participatory role. Interestingly, the manner in which caregivers shared the books with their children was not related to child outcomes. The results are discussed in relation to the importance of enhancing Latino caregivers' culturally preferred print-related practices as a means of fostering their preschoolers' language, literacy, and social-emotional development. [More] Descriptors: Literacy Education, Low Income Groups, Hispanic Americans, Preschool Children
(2016). Effects of a Paired Literacy Program on Emerging Bilingual Children's Biliteracy Outcomes in Third Grade, Journal of Literacy Research. This longitudinal study examined whether the implementation of a Spanish-English paired literacy approach provides an academic advantage to emerging bilingual students over a sequential literacy approach. The study employed a quasi-experimental design. It compared the biliteracy outcomes of third-grade emerging bilingual learners participating in paired literacy instruction from Grades K-3 (n = 167) to those of students from the same schools who received sequential literacy instruction in K-2 and started to participate in the paired literacy model in third grade (n = 191). Students' writing and reading were assessed in both languages using informal measures; third-grade reading scores on a high-stakes state assessment were also examined. Independent-samples "t" tests were conducted to compare means on the four measures (Spanish and English writing and reading), and Cohen's "d" was calculated to generate effect sizes for each assessment in each language. Frequencies were run to determine the percentage of students who met or exceeded the state test performance standards. Findings indicate that the paired literacy group scored considerably higher than students in the comparison group on all measures. Furthermore, differences between groups were statistically significant for each outcome measure in each language with moderate to large effect sizes (0.42 to 0.90). Also, a larger percentage of students in the paired literacy group met or exceeded the state test performance standards. These findings suggest that paired literacy instruction leads to stronger literacy outcomes in both languages than sequential literacy. Implications for practice and future research are provided. [More] Descriptors: Literacy Education, Emergent Literacy, Bilingual Education, Early Childhood Education
(2009). Informed Additive Literacy Instruction for ELLs, Reading Teacher. There are numerous reasons why schools struggle to provide English-language learners (ELLs) with additive literacy instruction. One reason for this is the lack of available trained bilingual teachers, mainstream teachers who have not received adequate training on how to teach ELLs, and the current political climate that appears to support an English-only school environment. Despite these obstacles, it is important for all teachers to support additive literacy in their classrooms. Classrooms that promote additive literacy provide students with the means to connect what they know about literacy in one language to another language. [More] Descriptors: Bilingual Education, Literacy, Educational Environment, Bilingual Teachers
(2016). The Impact of CLIL on the Acquisition of L2 Competences and Skills in Primary Education, International Journal of English Studies. The aim of this paper is to provide new evidence on the effectiveness of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in the acquisition of English language competences (reading, writing, listening and spoken production and interaction) compared to traditional learning of English as a foreign language (EFL) in primary school settings. To do so, results of CLIL and non-CLIL learners enrolled in the 4th year of primary education (9-10-year-olds) were examined and contrasted. Findings showed that the only communicative competence in which differences in favour of CLIL students were significant was spoken production and interaction. However, significant differences have also been detected in the following indicators: "preparing an outline before writing" (writing), "understanding space-time relations" (reading), and "global comprehension" and "identification of details" (listening). The confined effectiveness of CLIL may be due to the limited time of extra exposure to English, the young age of participants and the absence of any selection process for CLIL learners. [More] Descriptors: Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, English (Second Language), Course Content
(2016). Assessment in CLIL: Test Development at Content and Language for Teaching Natural Science in English as a Foreign Language, Latin American Journal of Content and Language Integrated Learning. On-going bilingual programs without regard to needs analysis; little research on the actual effects of CLIL in Colombia and vague awareness or knowledge about the necessary considerations for effective CLIL programs, underpin the need to address a particular issue of curriculum as it is summative assessment. This small scale study takes place in a Natural Science class using a CLIL approach with third-grade students at A2 proficiency level who have been progressively immersed in a bilingual program at a private school in Bogotá, Colombia. Regularly scheduled tests were analyzed in order to identify suitable assessment items that simultaneously report on the content and language achievement in order to provide guidelines for test development that are aligned with the teaching goals, consistently measure students' progress, and facilitate teaching practices. This study entails a systematic examination of test items using formal item analysis to depict test validity from an assessment grid that integrates content, at different knowledge levels, CALP functions and cognitive skills. The study concludes that the assessment grid is a helpful tool to discriminate language and content achievement in the results of multiple-choice CLIL tests, by increasing teachers' understanding of the language demands of test items and the level of difficulty of content tasks. [More] Descriptors: Science Instruction, Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, Language Proficiency
(2016). Globally Minded Text Production: Bilingual, Expository Writing of Italian Adolescents Learning English, Topics in Language Disorders. This study investigated micro- and macrostructural text features, and the impact of language-specific skills, on the bilingual, persuasive writing of 41 high school students learning English in Italy. Participants composed persuasive essays on 2 topics, each in Italian and English, and completed spelling and sentence generation tasks in both languages. Texts were assessed for fluency, productivity, complexity, and discourse quality. Repeated-measures analysis of variance was used to explore group differences between Italian and English writing. Correlations and regression analyses were used to investigate the impact of spelling and sentence generation on writing skills. Texts were more productive in English and more complex in Italian; however, no significant differences emerged between languages for fluency or discourse quality. In Italian writing, sentence generation skills affected only fluency. In English writing, spelling explained most of the variance in fluency and also impacted productivity, complexity, and quality. Results not only suggest cross-language transfer of discourse-level composition skills but also highlight the role of language-specific constraints in written text production. [More] Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Bilingual Students, Bilingualism, Bilingual Education
(2016). The Effects of CLIL Education on the Subject Matter (Mathematics) and the Target Language (English), Latin American Journal of Content and Language Integrated Learning. This paper investigates the effects of Content and Language Integrated Learning, CLIL for short, on both the attainment of the subject matter, mathematics in our case, hence the content aspect of CLIL. The second axes of research focuses on the effect of CLIL on the learners' proficiency vis-à-vis the language of instruction, epitomized here by English–hence the linguistic aspect of CLIL education. This paper adopts a multiple approach methodology to deal with the research questions at hand. I concluded on the basis of field work, this includes data coding and analysis, questionnaire design and analysis, an administered mathematical test, and the teacher's continuous assessment of his students, that CLIL education is more effective than traditional educational systems in helping learners to achieve high proficiency levels in the target language (English) and to attain high levels of competence in the subject matter (mathematics). I believe these results might be explained by an existing of a covert tradeoff between the brain mechanisms involved in learning both mathematics and languages as well as by the pedagogical opportunities, provided by CLIL environment, and which echo, to a great extent, L1 acquisition environment. [More] Descriptors: Second Language Learning, Language of Instruction, English (Second Language), Mathematics Tests
(2016). Reading Strategies to Support Home-to-School Connections Used by Teachers of English Language Learners, Journal on English Language Teaching. This particularistic qualitative case study design examined reading strategies, approaches, and resources teachers of ELL (English Language Learner) students in kindergarten through third grade use to support reading development and promote the home to school connection regarding literacy proficiency. The purpose of this study was to examine strategies, resources, and approaches used to support home-to-school partnerships focused on reading development of K-3 ELLs in the X Public School District. Data analysis resulted in six emergent themes consisting of 22 teacher interviews. The first finding in this study that was revealed through teacher interviews identified guided reading, visual aides, reader's theater, and modeling/oral reading fluency as strategies that contribute to ELLs reading proficiency. In the second finding, teachers identified inviting parents to volunteer in the classroom, sending home a reading log that helps track the students' reading at home, and inviting parent participation in extracurricular activities as approaches to encourage partnerships regarding reading development of ELLs. The results of this study provided recommendations for educational leaders to provide teachers specific professional development to encourage parent participation to focus on increasing students' reading development that is tailored to the students' and caregivers' language needs. For future research, it is recommended that the study be replicated using different school districts to determine if similar findings were consistent across different districts. [More] Descriptors: Reading Strategies, Family School Relationship, English Language Learners, Extracurricular Activities