Best Practices for Serving Emergent Bilinguals in Dual Immersion Programs

Kelly Alvarez and J-Lin TammingaMABE 2014

Partners in School Innovation transforms teaching and learning in the lowest-performing public schools so that every child, regardless of background, thrives.

Partners in School Innovation transforms teaching and learning in the lowest-performing public schools so that every child, regardless of background, thrives.

Mission

Why We Exist

The achievement gap persists. Results from a wide variety of state and national tests administered over the last half-century have been fairly consistent in at least one respect. They indicated that certain groups of children repeatedly score below children in other groups. - EdSource

“Gaps in US educational achievement have affected GDP more severely than have all recessions since the 1970s.”

– McKinsey Quarterly (April 2009)

Why We Exist

The achievement gap persists. Results from a wide variety of state and national tests administered over the last half-century have been fairly consistent in at least one respect. They indicated that certain groups of children repeatedly score below children in other groups. - EdSource

“Gaps in US educational achievement have affected GDP more severely than have all recessions since the 1970s.”

– McKinsey Quarterly (April 2009)

How Partners Works

Partners in School Innovation engages with teachers and leaders in under-performing school districts to drive results by strengthening teaching and learning through our sustainable, adaptable approach to continuous improvement.

By targeting students of color living in poverty, we aim to provide fair and equal access to high-quality education—one

of the most valuable opportunities in a young person’s life.̶ Derek Mitchell, CEO, Partners in School Innovation

How Partners Works

Partners in School Innovation engages with teachers and leaders in under-performing school districts to drive results by strengthening teaching and learning through our sustainable, adaptable approach to continuous improvement.

By targeting students of color living in poverty, we aim to provide fair and equal access to high-quality education—one

of the most valuable opportunities in a young person’s life.̶ Derek Mitchell, CEO, Partners in School Innovation

Objectives

• Explain the Multilingual perspective and the new reality of the bilingual population in the U.S.

• Describe the three linguistic spaces in the new language learner’s classroom.

• Implement concrete activities in order to increase success of emergent bilinguals in the classroom.

Background KnowledgePrimary Resource:Teaching for Biliteracy: Strengthening Bridges Between LanguagesCheryl Urow and Karen Beeman

Adapted Readers Theater (ART)

• The monolingual perspective views the two languages students speak as separate and compares the students to monolingual students. The monolingual perspective views the use of a second language as a deficit. The term “semilingual” may be used to describe them as non-proficient.

ART (con’t.)

• On the other hand, a multilingual perspective includes looking at the two or more languages each student speaks as complementary and views the use of more than one language as an asset.

ART (con’t.)

• Part of the multilingual perspective includes viewing the child as an emergent bilingual instead of an English Language Learner. With this term we recognize that our emergent bilingual students come with abilities and different levels of knowledge in more than one language.

ART (con’t.)

• We can divide our emergent bilingual students into two different groups - sequential bilinguals and simultaneous bilinguals.

ART (con’t.)

• Sequential bilingual students are those who begin to learn more than one language after the age of five whereas simultaneous bilinguals are those who begin to learn more than one language before the age of five.

ART (con’t.)

• Even though most of our students are now entering school as simultaneous bilinguals, many of our dual immersion programs are still programmatically designed for sequential bilinguals.

ART (con’t.)

• One effective strategy that can be implemented to better serve emergent bilingual students is the use of concrete activities.

ART (con’t.)

• Concrete activities are different from abstract activities in that they provide an opportunity for all students to participate regardless of their language abilities. Abstract activities such as discussion and reading can be used after themes and topics have been introduced with concrete activities.

Adapted Readers Theater

• The teacher summarizes or paraphrases a text while she/he do the TPR for the different terms and phrases.

• The students are able to preview the concepts and the new vocabulary through the activity. (Beeman and Urow, 2013)

Think, Pair, Share

• How can you apply this in your own practice?• How would this process benefit your

students?

Concept Attainment Activity

• Partner A - a student with less language abilities in the target language.

• Partner B- a student who is stronger in the target language.

Concept Attainment Explanation

• Students are given a series of examples and non-examples of the concept.

• Students analyze the examples and then can formulate a definition or description of the concept even if they are unable to name it using the exact term. (Beeman and Urow, 2013)

• For what other topics/themes could this be used?

Open Word Sort & Connect Two

• Can be done with pictures or words.• Can be used as a pre-reading, pre-assessment, or

introductory activity or as a formative assessment at the end of a lesson.

• The Connect Two activity provides an extension to the activity, and a way for the teacher to better assess the students’ background knowledge, and/or learning.

Objectives

• Explain the Multilingual perspective and the new reality of the bilingual population in the US.

• Describe the three linguistic spaces in the new language learner’s classroom.

• Implement concrete activities in order to increase success of emergent bilinguals in the classroom.

Resources

• One pager on Bridging from Cheryl Urow• Kathy Escamilla’s presentation on Literacy Squared• Teaching for Biliteracy: Strengthening Bridges Bet

ween Two Languages

Contact

PartnersInSchools.orgRenewing the Promise of Public Education

Contact

PartnersInSchools.orgRenewing the Promise of Public Education

Kelly Alvarez

kalvarez@partnersinschools.orgtammingaj@grps.org

School Innovation Partner

J-Lin TammingaBilingual Support Teacher