Elementary Teachers Using Inquiry-Oriented Practices in One-Way Language Immersion: Challenges and Opportunities in the Midwest

• In Event: Language Immersion Education: Comparing Multilingual Policies and Pedagogies in One-Way and Two-Way Programs

Abstract

The use of inquiry within a constructivist framework is one approach to engage students in meaningful learning. In LIS, teachers can facilitate inquiry and teach new content through the development and researching of students’ own questions in the immersion language (Fortune, 2000; Reyes & Crawford, 2011). However, this proves challenging for many: teachers sometimes “transmit” the language alone, and dismiss inquiry or content learning (Cummins, 1998; Mahe, 1986). In fact, while inquiry is often educators’ “method of choice” (Lawson, 2010), teachers from all levels “lack knowledge concerning how inquiry works, and particularly, how to implement inquiry-based teaching in their classrooms” (Howes, Lim, & Campos, 2009, p. 191). The purpose of this case study was to examine elementary teachers’ understanding and appropriation of inquiry at two, new OWI schools in the Midwest (Spanish and French).

A focus on the inquiry process in LIS requires attention to dialogic negotiation and language use (Lantolf & Thorne, 2008). Thus, framed by sociocultural and constructivist theories (Vygotsky, 1978), the main questions were: What are teachers’ perceptions of how to implement inquiry-based curricula in language immersion elementary classrooms? What is the evidence for inquiry teaching and learning within the schools’ curricula and K-3 classrooms?

This research used a mixed-method, case study design, collecting data from a new public charter school network that had OWI kindergarten to third-grade classrooms. As International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) candidate schools (www.ibo.org), the network was implementing a mandated inquiry-based curriculum. Both schools existed in a small city with only 5% foreign-born, but served a diverse population: 50% African-American, 30% White, 10% Hispanic, 10% multi-ethnic or other, and 55% low-income students. The participants included 23 K-3 teachers and three administrators. Seventy-four percent of the teachers had fewer than six years of public-school teaching experience; 52% had education-related degrees, and 41% in Spanish or French. About half had degrees from their home countries.

The study used the SAMPI Lesson Observation Instrument (2003) to evaluate inquiry teaching. Over seven months, two observations in each participating classroom (n=46 observations) were videotaped, translated, and scored, creating mean “inquiry scores” for each lesson. Field notes from 10 meetings, curricular documents, and 23 transcribed interviews with teachers and administrators were also collected. Data were analyzed using grounded theory methods; the mean inquiry scores were compared iteratively with results from qualitative coding of interviews, field notes, and curricula.

Results showed teachers worked continuously in a community of practice (Wenger, 1998) to design and implement inquiry, but they perceived multiple barriers and challenges in OWI classrooms. First, many felt that they had to introduce and teach the language first, before teaching content and encouraging students to develop questions. Second, teachers struggled with managing student behavior while trying to teach content material using the second language. Particularly difficult was promoting students’ cognitive abilities to understand and develop questions about abstract ideas in the immersion language. Discussion will consider implications for better preparing language immersion teachers—especially in isolated/mostly monolingual Midwestern areas—for inquiry and constructivist approaches.

Author

• Sarah A. Coppersmith, University of Missouri