Final Project

Patterns across literacy domains:

Juliet demonstrates aspects of a “two-language learner” (Beeman and Urow) across all domains of language. While she technically is a sequential learner, having become fluent in English speaking before the age of 3, she also grew up practicing Spanish with a bilingual (non-native) mother and is only 5 years old in her first literacy instruction at a Dual Language Immersion school. According to Beeman and Urow, “Two-language learners have grown up using both of their linguistic resources, and have strengths in both languages. These students are exposed to English literacy on a daily basis: on television, in stores, on street signs. Given the bilingual environments of these children, sequential literacy is a fallacy.”

In Juliet’s communication attempts in all 4 domains she was likely to access the code she had been instructed in, regardless of the language she was attempting to use. While this transference affected Juliet differently across the domains, it still illustrates my assertion that she is truly a simultaneous bilingual. The tension in her literacy development, and perhaps in that of all DLI Kindergarteners, will be that she is learning in a sequential literacy program where “students [are] learning to read and write in one language first, and only begin[ing] to receive formal literacy instruction in a second language at a later point in the program.” (Beeman and Urow, IRC May 2009, p 3). Described below are some of the transfer patterns witnessed in this simultaneous bilingual learner in a sequential program.

Reading/writing:

In both reading and writing, Juliet will attempt to solve problems with the code she has most accessible. That meant, in reading, that she commonly applied Spanish visual phonetic code to decoding English language. In writing she similarly used Spanish phonetic markers to encode English words. That meant she attempted to read the word “shoe” as “/s/-/h/-/o/”, and attempted to write the word “I” as “ai”. These typical transferences are, according to Beeman, common with language learners who apply rules from either language to the other. That was the primary pattern for Juliet in reading and writing, and more common for her than code-switching, which I only witnessed in one reading or writing attempt.

Listening/speaking:

While in her oral language development Juliet did occasionally use transference of code (applying the “s” ending from English to Spanish nouns, in an attempt to indicate possession) she was far more likely to code switch. Examples included “dame the marker” and “No es malo, pero es also, es also…” These code switches can be described most commonly as intra-sentential switches, wherein Juliet code-switched within clauses or sentence boundaries (Beeman and Urow, May 2009). I maintain that these switches occurred, as in her written language, when the code was easily at hand. She was more likely, for example, to pull school words out in Spanish than in English.

Hypothetical Cause/ Potential Effects

I believe that Juliet has learned from two powerful different teachers: her Kindergarten program, as well as her mother at home. According to Fortune and Menke, “Literacy development begins early. During the preschool years, most children from language- and literacy-rich home environments begin to recognize familiar letters and words as well as the structure and elements that make up stories.” It is definitely the case that Juliet’s early literacy experiences have given her the perspective that language and communication are important, books are fun, and that she can read and tell stories by reading or writing. It is also the case that her oral language development included both English and Spanish, and that she can consciously listen for both codes and produce both codes with success.

One of the causes of her frequent transferences and code-switches may have to do with the manner in which she learned all of these lessons about language. First, Juliet and her mother practice mostly social Spanish. Juliet will diminish the amount of time they spend practicing together, saying “Well, just sometimes we speak in Spanish at home”; even though I know that her mother dedicates a fair amount of her time to provided Juliet with an oral language base at home. This indicates to me that Juliet has learned many of her lessons about literacy by acquisition. At school, however, she was explicitly taught about language and literacy in Spanish. The majority of her phonetic codes for transcription and decoding were taught to her in Spanish, as were the academic vocabulary pieces such as: espacio de un dedo (finger space), arriba de la linea (above the line), arréglalo (fix-it plans), estira las palabras (stretch out the word). So when Juliet is asked to problem solve a literacy task, her academic code seems to be primarily formed from Spanish. Juliet has become an adept problem solver, however. She arrives at difficulty in reading, writing, or oral language, and doesn’t give up but blends the lessons from home with those at school to try and find a way to communicate her ideas. To quote Livant (The Bridge, 2006), “ Though immersion students learn to communicate in their L2 from the need to function in the classroom, they do not develop native-like oral proficiency without explicit instruction and activities designed to make them focus on the form of their speech, not just the content.”

What this means to L2/L1 literacy

While Juliet is just beginning her journey to biliteracy, she has now had almost one full year of those explicit, meaningful instructional activities in her schooling. I believe she will continue to grow closer and closer to native-like proficiency via problem solving attempts by herself and instructional design choices by her teacher at school.

According to Fortune and Menke, “In contrast to students learning to read in their L1, students learning to read through a language they are just acquiring must simultaneously develop oral proficiency in the second language, each of the aforementioned cuing systems and the reading process. For this reason, teachers can anticipate that learning to read in a language still being acquired will take longer.” This reassures us that while we need to plan instruction purposefully for Juliet, we needn’t yet be concerned that her transfers, code-switching behaviors, or partial acquisition of Spanish language code are keeping Juliet behind.

Fortune and Menke also state some benchmarks that monolingual students learning to read in their native language typically meet. They include:

·         By the end of Kindergarten, most monolingual students read upper and lower case letters as well as some words and simple books.

·         In first grade, the majority of students begin to decode words that they do not know by sight; by the end of first grade, they can read simple books smoothly, albeit word-by-word.

·         Second and third grade students begin to make meaning when reading, relating new information to what they already know; reading typically becomes smoother, more efficient, and more fluent…

Given these benchmarks, Juliet is not even behind to date. She currently reads simple books in both languages (with errors, but with comprehension), and can identify upper and lower case letters in both languages. In fact she is already attempting to problem solve words that she doesn’t know by sight and reading somewhat smoothly in her attempts at little books. Juliet is probably making gains above what may be considered a “typical” range for immersion learners.

Instructional strategies recommended for Juliet

Given the above analysis, I would recommend several strategies for supporting her language acquisition in her immersion setting.  Knowing that Juliet is a learner who is making gains in the general immersion classroom, I would plan for her using research based best practices that also could benefit the rest of the class. According to Fortune and Menke, “It is important for teachers to understand that instructional strategies that are implemented to meet the needs of a struggling learner will not take away from the learning of other students in the classroom; in fact, often times strategies aimed at helping one student or a small group of students result in gains for other students as well.” (Fortune and Menke, 2010, p 67) While Juliet cannot be considered a “struggling learner”, she can be considered a learner problem solving to acquire literacy, oracy, and a second language at the same time. I would call her a “busy learner”, and advocate for the following five adaptations and strategies to create a bi- literacy program for Juliet. I believe that these adaptations will benefit her and all of her classmates.

They are (Fortune and Menke, 2010 Chapter 5):

1.      Differentiated Instruction—varied and adapted learning instruction. Not just for struggling learners, this teaching belief modifies the curriculum around each student’s need rather than asking students to adapt to a curriculum. “Content, process, and what learners are expected to produce can be modified to meet a learner’s unique needs.” (p 68) Juliet will benefit from small group instruction in literacy, offering her a chance to hear and use authentic language, learn reciprocally from others, and practice her literacy skills with strong guidance.

2.      Multi-modal teaching and learning—presenting learning in a variety of modes or manners. Accessing learners through their strengths or intelligences (Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligence) can support content and process in a diverse group of students. Also working within and across the sensory mode strengths of learners can support their acquisition of language and content. Juliet has strong verbal and artistic intelligences, so presenting information with strong visual support and allowing her to practice content through spoken language will help her learn and grow. Also, she shows great auditory and oral strengths, so I would focus my instruction on her hearing and repeating content in authentic contexts.

3.      Strategies-based instruction—teaching learning strategies explicitly for students to use in their own learning. These strategies may be metacognitive (using thinking about how you learn to learn) or task-based (using thinking about the task to complete the task). Juliet will benefit from both categories of strategy instruction. I believe that she has such a vivid imagination she will easily be able to learn about visualizing, predicting, inferring and connecting as strategies to better think about her own comprehension. Also, as an artistic learner, graphic organizers such as writing planning sheets, character description maps, and other task-based strategies that use drawing will greatly support her literacy acquisition.

4.      Five standards of effective pedagogy—this research based model creates five standards for effective teaching, and could greatly effect Juliet’s learning. However, it requires a lot more study on my part than is within the scope of this paper to complete. In a nutshell, the five standards include Join Productivity, Language and Literacy Development Across the Curriculum, Making Meaning, Complex Thinking, and Teaching Through Conversation. What I like most about these steps for Juliet are their consideration of language as separate but related to content, the use of meaning making and higher order thinking, and the relationship between interaction around both content and language with teachers and peers.

5.      Cooperative Learning—students working together in pairs or small groups to accomplish the learning task at hand. Juliet, as an oral, auditory, and social learner will be held highly accountable for her language development through cooperative learning. By encouraging Juliet to interact in heterogeneous groups of language learners she will have more authentic reasons to practice using her L2.  

In reading

In the reading block I would like to see developed for Juliet, she would be learning in a balanced system with a blend of synthetic, socio-psychological and analytic manners. While this sounds counter-intuitive, Escamilla points out, “It is important to note that these orientations are not as dichotomous as they might appear.” (Teaching Literacy in Spanish, P3)  This, in my mind, means that Juliet and her classmates will be best served with some explicit teaching around phonetic code and visual cues in reading, along with language and meaning-rich activities that support her problem-solving and comprehension strategies in reading. I would also advocate for appropriate use of reading and literacy centers during Juliet’s independent work time. Since she will spend a fair amount of time independently working, I would like to see Juliet, “In a learning center, talking about concrete objects, playing a game, or completing a partner activity are interactive language tasks that serve as excellent vehicles to help students communicate purposefully in the L2.” (Click, 2004 p2) I would also hope that the environment in which Juliet learns is a text-rich one, with appropriate word walls, anchor charts, and student work modeling the value of reading and writing. These specific strategies would occur within the framework of the five adaptations listed above.

In writing

Much of what I hope for Juliet in reading I would also hope for her in writing. A text-rich environment with small-group instruction and centers-based independent time all apply to acquisition of writing skills as well as those of reading (and oral language, also).  I would also recommend encouraging Juliet to use her English to support her Spanish writing, based on Rubin and Carlan’s advice: “Bilingual children should be encouraged to write in both languages to create a broader picture of their literacy development. Many children show far more development in one language than the other, which will not be revealed to the teacher unless he or she asks the child to write in both languages.” This, while encouraging writing to be based in meaning, talking about the tasks of writing, and looking for patterns within written text. Activities such as The Bridge and The Dictado will be appropriate for Juliet as she gets into older grade levels.

In language

I hope that the school environments in which Juliet acquires her academic Spanish can closely follow the Immersion Teaching Strategies Observation Checklist by Tara Fortune. I would like to see her in a classroom that integrates language, content and culture, that attends to language growth specifically, that makes language comprehensible in a language rich environment where talk is accountable and extended. These types of values should be easy to incorporate in the balanced literacy, multi-modal classroom I have imagined for Juliet in the above paragraphs.

Sample Literacy Block Schedule for Juliet:

Reading/oral language:

Time	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
10 min	Whole group mini-lesson—focused mini-lesson on strategy, related to the thematic unit or topic of the language block. Modeled, shared, interactive reading rotates through mini-lessons every week.
5 min	Phonetic, phonemic, comprehension, vocabulary, or word pattern study activity. Activities to rotate/ one per day.
30 min	Guided Reading—in a small group (1:3-1:5), Juliet will practice the integration of Meaning, Structure, and Visual activities while
10 min	Computer listening center	Center with partner speak (barrier game, for example)	Center with realia for oral language/ phonetic matching. (Felt board storytelling, for example)	Center with reading text in room. (Read around the room with a pointer and a partner)	Center with white boards/magnetic boards/ etc.—for writing words or objects seen around the room.
5 min	Word study—playing a daily game or activity that focuses on seeing words that are known (find sight words in text), decoding or encoding syllabically (see a word with an iconic description, cover it, try to write it, check it), etc.
15 min	Read aloud—some time outside of the reading block (at snack/etc.), 15 min/day of interactive read aloud with comprehension, oral language, or vocabulary focus.

Writing/ oral language:

Time	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
10 min	Whole group mini-lesson—focused mini-lesson on strategy, related to the thematic unit or topic of the language block. Modeled, shared, interactive writing rotates through mini-lessons every week.
5 min	Word study activity to practice the skills/parts of writing (letter: sound, syllabic segmentation, finger spacing, etc.) that is focus of the day.
20 min	Guided Writing—in a small group (1:3-1:5), Juliet will practice the integration of Meaning, Structure, and Visual activities while
15 min	Independent writing—in a notebook, occasionally with partner or volunteer support, writes stories and illustrates. Practices strategy of the day.
10 min	Share out—in whole group or in partners/small groups, students share what they have practiced and what they have learned in writer’s workshop for the day.

Resources

The resources I have already begun to share with instructors at my school site include the reading’s list from Ed 605. The books I am most frequently using include Struggling Learners & Language Immersion Education, by Tara Fortune and Mandy R. Menke, and Freeman & Freeman’s text, Dual Language Essentials for Teachers and Administrators.

I also found CARLA’s website to be invaluable, along with the Center for Applied Linguistics. Both of these sites can be found on our class resource list document.

Hopes for Juliet’s Literacy development

I see Juliet as a future biliterate, bilingual adult. I imagine that she will continue to code switch but will become increasingly aware of it and become more creative and playful with it. I look forward to knowing Juliet when she is a young adult who is capable of playing with her languages purposefully.