Allowing Children to Play With Language Through Hybrid Language Practices to Foster Their Language Development

• In Event: Poster Session 6
  In Poster Session: Social Justice and Multiculturalism in Teacher Education

Abstract

The purpose of this ethnographic case study was to examine the language development of emergent bilingual children. Data were collected in a school-year period through field observation in a pre-k bilingual center and interview with teachers, families and administrators, and artifacts of children's work. The data was analyzed by examining shifts and patterns in the children's language practices and the ways in which the children negotiated languages. Interviews with teachers, families and administrators provided insight into the language ideologies of the classroom, school and community. Such language practices demonstrate the ways in which hybrid language practices, fostered by the teachers, created a classroom environment that allowed children to draw from their full linguistic repertoire to foster their language development.

Author

• Nan Li, Claflin University